I don't own Narnia or the Pevensies. Just so's you know, I leave tomorrow morning and won't be back until late Friday PST. So no updates until then at least.
"King Peter," Valin said, his voice quiet and threatening, watching the High King's face carefully. "I will ask you once more. Swear the oath."
Peter's hand trembled on his sword as he was forced to hold it to his brother's chest, the point resting just over his heart. If Valin forced his hand…he opened his mouth to speak, but he was cut off before he could begin.
"My lord," Edmund said very deliberately, his eyes boring into Peter's. "Your duty is to Narnia. Swear nothing. I will gladly die for my country and my king."
"Oh, but it's not that simple," Valin reminded him, pressing harder on Peter's elbow; Rhindon's sharp tip cut through the thin fabric of Edmund's tunic and met his skin instead. "I have a room of witnesses. If they can truthfully say they saw his hand drive the blade, then such a testimony will bear under a Truth Potion. Would your country take a murderer as its king?"
"Narnia trusts its High King more than any magic," replied Edmund, still communicating something silently to Peter. "My king is not a murderer if he does not have free will."
"King Valin," Susan's voice cut across the room, dangerous, but with an undertone of intense concern. "You have seen Narnia's defenses. You have spied on her armies. You know you cannot win a war against them, whether or not we are there to lead them. And if you harm her king in any way…you will get a war, make no mistake."
Valin cursed irritably, obviously embarrassed that this was not going as he planned. The wedding guests were shifting in their seats, apparently growing bored with the scene, while the guards stood very still.
"Swear the oath!" he repeated again, bellowing in Peter's face. "Or your sister's life is forfeit too!"
Peter finally turned his eyes away from Edmund's to look right at the dictator.
"I swear…" he began in a soft voice, and Edmund opened his mouth furiously to object but never got the chance, because Peter had already finished the oath: "I swear that if you bring harm to my family…I will not let my sword rest until one of us is dead."
Valin looked intimidated for a split second, but quickly composed himself, cursing and reaching back down to his belt to pull the flask of Promise Potion back up.
"You've wasted an oath, boy," he snarled, uncorking it.
Lucy, at this point, was as close to the dais as she could get without leaving the table and thus her disguise. Danya had not been able to complete the charge from this point to the dais, but Lucy was smaller, and she wouldn't be carrying a heavy sword, and her goal was not Valin but the horn on his belt, because this hour seemed as dark as it was going to get, and they could not do this alone. She waited for a better moment – one where everyone was distracted, so that she might get closer before they noticed her…
"My Lord!" a voice cried out into the hall, startling everyone. In the back doorway, just behind Susan, stood a panting page boy who'd clearly just run in. Valin looked up and released Peter's head, leaving him to choke and swallow down the rest of the potion he'd been forcing him to drink. "My Lord, the Wren is docking. Your guests should be here in minutes."
"Good," said Valin, slipping the flask back into his belt pouch and replacing his hand on Peter's arm as the young king recovered, still coughing. "Whether or not I have your oath, King Peter, my wedding will begin when they arrive. But whether or not I become a widower on my wedding day…that is up to you."
"I have given you all the oaths I will ever swear to you," Peter said, though Lucy caught a final, bitter defiance in his voice. This was his ultimate nightmare – forced to sacrifice his siblings' lives, not his own, for Narnia's sake…
Valin cursed yet again and pulled his arm back, taking Peter's with it.
"Then I have none to wait for," he hissed.
Lucy realized at the last second that he was done bargaining, forgot everything, and began her charge. No one in the room noticed, frozen stock still as Valin's arm forced Peter's forward, the blade rushing down, plunging towards Edmund's unprotected chest…
"No!"
The cry ripped itself from her throat as she drew her dagger, her feet pounding across the stone, and at the same instant, she heard Peter let out a roar of some unnamable pathos. No one breathed; no one blinked; Lucy flew past the benches and up towards the dais as the world suspended itself on the tip of one sword.
And then, at the very last second, Peter's arm rippled and jerked.
The blade twisted up, and in the space of a split second, sank deep into Edmund's right shoulder. The younger king screamed and gasped and turned his eyes up to his brother as his body sagged against the sword where it ran right through him, but he was not dying, not dead, as he would have been if Valin's blow had landed true.
Around the front, towards the stairs; still Lucy ran, eyes on the white horn on Valin's belt as he stepped back, leaving Peter's hand alone on Rhindon's hilt. The guards on the wall seemed to have noticed her, and two of them broke off from the ranks to chase after her, but she had a head start. Just as she bounded up the first stair, Lucy saw her brother's back twitch, rather like the unfortunate soldier's had done when the Promise Potion had taken its effect, and next she saw Valin freeze uncertainly and cast a glance to the Head Sorcerer. But before either of them had a chance to react, Peter pulled his sword out of his brother's body and swung around it with terrifying strength and speed, his eyes flashing with something Lucy could not identify. Valin shouted in fear and jumped backwards, narrowly avoiding decapitation, and immediately drew his own sword as several guards rushed forward to stop him.
Even as Peter smashed them aside one by one with a near-inhuman strength, Lucy shot up the last few stairs, knowing that no matter what magic held him, her brother would not hurt her, and that no matter how brave and strong he was, they needed more help than his sudden freedom. She needed to reach that horn!
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Susan abruptly pick up her skirts and walk confidently towards the table of gifts. The guards trotted after her obediently, mistaking conviction for right. More soldiers rushed away from the walls and up towards where Peter was already fighting with their comrades and their king, where Lucy was standing, waiting for the right moment.
"Stay your blade!" Valin bellowed at Peter in confusion and fear, ducking back behind a few guards who'd rushed up from other places on the dais, including the two who'd previously been restraining Edmund. The young king lay face-down on the stone, his shoulder bleeding profusely; he seemed to have fallen unconscious, but Lucy knew that his only hope was the cordial, which she did not have. She could not help him, not now…
"Have you forgotten already?" Peter shouted back at Valin, deftly side-stepping a guard's thrust and tripping him with his own sword. "I don't see either one of us dead yet!"
"I've done nothing to harm your sister!" Valin protested, forced now to throw up his blade to block a swing of Peter's as the High King smashed past the guards, who were shoving past one another in their hurry to come to their king's defense and actually making Peter's job easier. Lucy went nearly unnoticed among them with this new threat, ducking under their arms, trying to get to the king.
"My oath did not hinge on my sister's well-being but on my family's," Peter reminded him, eyes alight. And Lucy abruptly realized that indeed, with the Promise Potion in effect, Peter would not, could not stop his charge, now…but there were so many guards; he could only last so much longer. Already he had received several slight injuries, cuts and knocks and near-misses. His oath would be his own death knoll if she did not act quickly.
Drawing her dagger, she plunged forward into the melee, side-stepping the flying blades and stumbling guards, mostly unnoticed for her stature and for Peter's more conspicuous presence. She didn't have to use her weapon until she was but a few feet away from Valin, when a guard finally made an attempt to stop her, and was surprised to find out that the little girl actually did know how to use that weapon after all. He sank to the floor, gurgling, as she jumped over him and reached out a trembling hand for the horn. If Valin would only move a smidgeon closer…
Peter's sword sang through the air. Valin dodged. Lucy surged forward, stretching her arm as far as she possibly could, and caught hold of the horn, tumbling over herself and slipping to the floor but holding on tight in triumph. Without a second thought, she lifted her head up, pulled it to her lips, and blew.