Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Don't own it.

A/N: Thank you to NarniaGuardian for the reviews! And thank you to everyone else who has reviewed, followed, and faved this story. I'm so sorry it took me so long to update. I've been really sick, so I haven't been able to update until now.

"Edmund!" Peter shouted, and for the moment, the Witch, the stone statue, and the Narnians were forgotten as he rushed to his brother.

Peter squatted down beside him, roughly pushing Susan aside and feeling a sting of guilt. She was only trying to help. But he had no time for that now. He would apologize to her later. He pressed a hand against Edmund's skin, feeling his forehead and finding it terribly hot. He ran a hand through Edmund's hair and called for Lucy, who quickly came over to put her cordial to good use. Peter tipped Edmund's head up as Lucy poured a drop down Edmund's parched throat. There was silence as the Throne Room seemed to hold its breath.

Then Edmund let out a small gasp and opened his eyes. The cheers of the creatures in the room were lost on Peter. The green had disappeared from Edmund's face, and he was no longer clutching his stomach in pain, but the fever had not left his eyes and his neck was still hot to Peter's touch. Peter didn't understand. What had been wrong with his brother?

Worried, Peter helped his brother to stand up, keeping a gentle hand at his back to steady him. Susan took Edmund's arm and helped him, as well.

"Are you all right?" Peter demanded. He brushed the hair out of Edmund's eyes and the boy grimaced, pulling away a little.

"Yes. I-I think so," Edmund answered. "I don't know what-," his legs collapsed under him and his two older siblings were the only things holding him up now. He stared at his brother in alarm.

"Perhaps you ought to go to your room, Ed." He debated whether or not he should go with his little brother, but knew that the people would want an explanation and it was his duty to find one. And if this really was the White Witch, they needed to find out because she would undoubtedly come after Edmund for revenge. "Lucy, why don't you take him up there?"

"I'm fine, Peter," Edmund insisted, but it took all of Lucy's strength to half-lead, half-carry him out of the room. Peter motioned for a cougar to follow them just in case and turned back to the problem at hand-the stone statue. Aslan, the boy looked like Edmund.

An image of Edmund falling to the White Witch's sword during the Battle of Beruna filled his mind and he cringed. All too much like Edmund.

ǁ

"How is this possible?" Peter demanded, pacing back in forth in front of his advisers: Tumnus, Mr. Beaver, the Fox, two centaurs, and a few others. Oreius was usually here, but he was gone with the minotaur still.

There was a healer looking after Edmund. Lucy was with him as well, interested in the healing arts and wanting to learn all she could, and also staying by her brother's side. She'd wanted to come to the meeting, but Peter insisted she stay with her brother. He would not feel comfortable leaving his brother without at least one of them by his side and the White Witch impossibly on the prowl.

Susan would not be so easily put off. "I want to know how this happened as much as you do, Peter," she'd told him, and, after that, there would be no arguing with her. She was sitting on her throne, the only one occupied, as Peter had refused to sit down since he'd seen the statue. The Narnians who had been occupying the room only an hour before had been removed.

The stone statue of the Calormen boy sat in front of the throne, and Peter found himself glaring at it, but it wasn't the statue he was seeing. It was Edmund, charging forward, sword raised as he ran toward the White Witch. Edmund, as the wand of the White Witch was broken by his sword. Edmund, as she turned the wand around and instead used it to run him through. None of this made sense. Even if the White Witch was somehow returned, the wand had been broken, rendered useless. She shouldn't have been able to turn anyone else into stone.

"Your Majesty?"

Peter blinked, glancing up. "Sorry?" Before the centaur could repeat whatever it was he had said, Susan spoke up.

"Could someone please remove that...thing?" she asked. Her eyes studied Peter's face, and she followed his gaze to the statue. A shudder ran through her. She very much wanted to be with Edmund right now, to make sure he was all right. She almost didn't want to know how the statue had come about.

Two hound dogs came forward and pushed the stone statue out of the room. It protested loudly as it slid across the marble floor. Of course, the person who had been turned to stone would never be protesting again. Peter watched it go in silence, until it finally disappeared down a side door.

Mr. Tumnus shakily suggested, "It doesn't mean the White Witch is back, you know." They all turned to look at him with flabbergasted expressions.

"We already covered this, Mr. Tumnus," the fox said in annoyance. "There weren't supposed to be anymore statues in Narnia after Aslan left, and he wouldn't have lied to us."

"Of course he wouldn't have," Susan interrupted, casting the fox a glare for treating Tumnus so unkindly. If Lucy were here she would have given the fox a piece of her mind."What are you thinking, Mr. Tumnus?"

Mr. Tumnus, in his nervous way, clasped his hands together and then unclasped them, but continued to stare at them. "It wasn't the White Witch who possessed the power to turn creatures into stone," he said finally. "It was her wand."

Peter didn't understand where the faun was going with this. "Yes?"

"Yes, her wand," Mr. Beaver said, suddenly catching on. "It don't mean she's still alive, just that somebody else done found it."

"Impossible," the fox waved this away. "Yes, the power to turn to stone is in the wand, but only someone with great magic can actually use it. So even if it wasn't the White Witch returned, someone equally as dangerous has it. And besides, King Edmund the Just broke the wand during the Battle of Beruna, so even if someone has it, it can't do anything."

They fell silent after that, trying to absorb the thought of someone as bad as the White Witch loose in Narnia.

"What became of the White Witch's wand?" one of the centaurs asked.

Peter flushed a little. "We don't really know. She had it with her during the Great Battle, and then Aslan defeated her. No one reported having found it, and it just disappeared. I guess we all just assumed it was destroyed with her. No one thought it was a threat anymore, anyways. It would have just been like any other weapon on the battle field." He would never assume again, he told himself.

He shivered suddenly as a gust of cold air seemed to enter the throne room, then blinked at that. It was the middle of the hottest season of the year; how was he this cold? He glanced at Susan and saw her shivering, and then they locked eyes and he saw the fear in hers, imagining that it mirrored his own.

"What are we going to do?" the Fox asked, all of his breath seeming to leave him in that sentence. His breath clouded in the air in front of him, and he stared at it in shock. It couldn't be so cold in the middle of summer that he could see his breath. Narnians were reporting drought to the South because it was so hot this year.

At the same time, Susan whispered, "Edmund," she stood stock still, frozen, and for a horrifying moment, Peter watched her, as though afraid the White Witch had turned her to stone already.

He turned towards the door, needing to go and check on his little brother, but a centaur came forward and put a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged him off and turned around, a rather annoyed expression on his face, but then he saw what the centaur was pointing at. The council and the two oldest Narnian monarchs followed his gaze.

Oreius had returned. Four of the eight wolves that had gone with him were following behind, their tails drooping, panting heavily. The minotaur was not with them. He had been replaced by a hag, and the very sight of her made Peter stiffen. The hags were supposed to have gone into the North, banished from Narnia because they did not repent of their evil acts, nor of their loyalty to the White Witch. He hadn't seen one in five years, and the very sight of the disgusting, greasy creature in front of him dredged up memories he did not want to relive.

The hag's hands were tied in front of her, and Oreius pushed her off his back. She fell to the ground in front of the council, eying them with fury in her eyes. Oreius took his place against the wall with the other centaurs, most of whom were his sons."You will rue the day you touched me, fools," she snapped, her voice having a strangely deep, cracking quality to it.

One of the centaurs stepped forward threateningly, but Peter held up a hand and he took his place against the wall once more.

"How came you to be here?" he asked the hag, stepping forward until he could smell her rancid breath.

The hag laughed and did not answer him. Irritated, he turned to Oreius for information.

"We followed the minotaur, as you ordered, my liege. He led us to the place where the stone statue was put and the wolves tracked the smell of hag from the area. We followed until we came upon this foul creature. She killed four of our wolves before we could capture her. The minotaur fled into the night and we did not see where he went. He has betrayed us, and was likely paid to bring the statue here. She will say nothing."

"She will," the Fox snapped, glowering at her.

The hag ignored them all as they talked, turned eyes on the wolves who had tracked her. "Traitors! Do you forget so easily your vow to Her Majesty?"

The wolves growled at her, aware of their fallen comrades at her hands.

"The minotaur fled?" Peter questioned. "But why-?" he turned to the hag once more. "Tell us what you know."

The hag stared up at him, and then held up her bound hands with an impish grin. Sighing, Peter pulled out a knife and knelt in front of her. His council seemed to step forward as one, and he could hear the collective intake of breath.

"Peter," Susan said in warning.

Peter cut loose the hag's hands and she rubbed her wrists. He stood, knife still in his hands, waiting.

Finally, she spoke. "I know only this. That Jadis, the White Queen, has returned, and that you would be wise to watch your brother's back, for she would have his blood. I know only that she will not fail, and that my lady will win back Narnia and overturn it in fire and water. I know only that not even Aslan can defeat her power, and she is come to take back what is hers." The hag's mouth clamped shut.

Peter found himself touching Wolf's Bane, causing Oreius' wolves to cringe and whimper. He quickly removed his hand. "And how do you know these things?"

The hag grinned. "I brought the stone statue to you for fair warning. Isn't that enough?"

"Where is she?" Oreius demanded of the hag. "Where is the Witch hiding?" The hag only grinned at him.

"Did you actually see the White Witch?" Susan demanded, though her voice was soft and quiet, putting emphasis on the word see.

The hag turned dark eyes on her. "With my own eyes."

Peter eyed the hag, assessing her. He tried not to let the fear seep into his voice when he spoke. "Put this hag in the prison, wolves. Oreius, send out messengers to the people that they should be on the lookout for hags, a minotaur, and the wand. And I want a guard on each of my siblings at all times. The Witch has somehow returned, and she will be out to get them."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Cliffie! Sort of...Anyways, please R+R!