Oreius and the Queens, as well as the Narnian commanders, though with a bit more subtlety, watched the high king, face pinching with worry.
Oreius did not think he had ever seen the High King this scared, or perhaps a better word might have been distraught, not even when they faced the giants of the Noth for the first time.
Perhaps during his very first battle, when he fought the Witch alone, but even then, even when they thought Aslan was dead, he had not looked so...defeated, as he rushed out to face her. Angry, yes, but this was something else entirely. There was a grim determination in every word, every movement, but there was pain there too, and Oreius worried that his High King would not be able to fight the rest of the battle because of his worry for his brother.
They stood in the very same tent where King Edmund had been taken, a badger quietly healing Queen Susan's forehead, the wound she had received when the Witch attacked her, while Susan sat in the hammock Ed had been lying in, biting back tears.
Lucy stood beside her brother, shoulders tense as she plotted alongside him, perhaps not quite so wrecked as her elder siblings due to her unshakable faith in Aslan. He would come for them. He would fix this, just as he did every time. She knew it, though it scared her that her siblings did not. That Peter seemed to have lost faith in Aslan a long time ago.
Still, she was the most composed of her siblings.
"Archers, on the Western Edge with Queen Susan." He glanced at his sister, evaluating the damage to her head, before amending, "Watch out for her. Oreius, I want you wih the cavalry. We may have won last night, but the Witch is still out there, and she still has...Ed." Peter's voice broke on his brother's name, and his hand clenched around his sword. "Lucy, do you still have your cordial?"
Lucy nodded, patting the little bottle where it lay against her side, and then, because she felt that something else should be said into the sickening silence, "We'll find him, Pete, before she can do anything."
Peter gave her a curt nod. "You're with me. We ride for the Stone Table before Jadis can..."
Lucy nodded, knowing better than to question those orders, though Susan looked as though she were about to before thinking better of it and reaching for her bow, which still lay abandoned on the ground of the tent.
"I'm going with you," she said then, resolutely pushing aside the badger's assistance.
"Su..." Peter began, turning and eying her tiredly.
"No," Susan argued. "You aren't going to be able to keep my away this time, Peter. Edmund's my brother, too, and...even if..." she bit her lip, lifting her chin in a way that had scared many foreign diplomats and loyal Narnians alike for several years now. "I want to be there, with you."
And Peter nodded, not meeting his sister's eyes and running a tired hand through filthy blond hair. "Very well. General Kodnack," he turned to the little Archer, "You will lead the Archers on the Western Edge."
The little creature nodded, turning on his heel and marching away with bow and arrows already slung over his shoulders.
"And if we encounter the Witch?" Oreius asked calmly, with a bit more trepidation than Lucy was used to from him.
Peter hesitated only a moment. "Kill her, if you can." And then he strode from the tent, Lucy and Susan hurrying to follow, though Susan, it must be admitted, with some more dignity than her younger sister.
Peter helped Lucy onto his horse, and then climbed up behind her, wrapping one arm around her waist while the other ripped his sword from his sheath. And then they rode, faster than Lucy had ever ridden before, the break-neck pace taxing her limbs as she leaned back into her brother.
"To the Stone Table, Philip," he told the trusty horse, whom Lucy had fed the cordial to only an hour before, and the horse grunted before hurrying to follow the order, body pinched with as much worry for the Just King as his own siblings were.
Lucy was aware of others behind them, aware of Susan's shout to the archers as she left the tent and climbed atop her own steed, of the sounds of battle beginning once again without prompting, of it raging around them as they rode silently through it, though with a much smaller intensity than the day previous, and the early morning dew falling on the ground. Lucy stopped at that, turning and looking at the ground beneath the horse's hooves once more in surprise.
Dew. On fresh grass.
She was just about to point this out to Peter, to tell him that this was surely a sign that Aslan was helping them, that he was finally coming, when her words were halted by the appearance of King Lune, riding up with just the same speed. Peter pulled up, though he looked rather irritated to be doing so, but Susan did not, riding around them silently, and gesturing for the soldiers following to do the same.
"High King Peter," King Lune greeted calmly, not his usual joyous self in the field of battle, but did not wait for Peter to acknowledge him before saying, "we've managed to beat back the Witch's forces as far as the Great River, but the Witch herself and the forces that departed with her are still nowhere to be found."
Behind Lucy, Peter gritted his teeth, knowing exactly where the Witch and his brother had gone. "She is at the Stone Table. We must hurry and meet her there, before she harms my brother. Are you with me?"
King Lune paused for only a moment, meeting Lucy's eyes. Whatever he found there seemed to convince him, for he nodded and gestured to the dozen men behind him to turn their course.
And then they were riding again, so fast that Lucy feared several times that she would fall, as they struggled to catch up to Susan, who had set the pace even faster, and Peter's strong yet shaking hand on her hips was the only thing holding her down. Philip strained underneath their weight and the pace that Susan had set, body sweating despite the cool climate surrounding them, but did not ask Peter to slow down.
Indeed, some part of Lucy knew that he would rather die than ask such a thing. Especially when Edmund's life was on the line.
She clutched desperately at her cordial while they rode, for, though she remained firm in her belief that Aslan would save them, that he would keep Edmund safe in his paws until they arrived, still she feared what had already happened to him at the Witch's hands.
When they finally found him, would he be turned to Stone by the White Witch? Would she have hurt him horribly, as she had in the dungeons?
Peter, as if sensing her troubled thoughts, tightened his grip around her, and this time it was he reassuring her. "We'll find them, Lucy."
She nodded against his chest. "I know," she whispered hoarsely. "I just worry how he'll be when we do."
Peter shook his head, chin against her forehead. "He'll be fine. I know it."
Only one of them sounded convinced of their words.
"Where is it you are taking me, Wolf?" the bounty hunter demanded, stopping in his tracks and letting the body of the dead boy fall to the ground with a soft thud. He did not trust this wolf, did not trust that it would not lead him into danger, far away from any of the Men back at the battle.
At least they were Men, and, though not entirely civilized, not talking beasts.
The wolf let out an exasperated sound, not turning around. "We have a little way to go now," he informed the bounty hunter as he pranced across the forest floor, weaving in between these damnable trees effortlessly.
The Man was a hunter in another life, before the mines; he knew well tracking, and yet he feared that he would not even be able to find his way out of this twisting forest without the beast's help.
Perhaps this was all a ruse, and the animal sought to murder him on that Stone Table, rather than help him.
He didn't know why in Tash's name he had followed the wolf this far, other than the vague worry that the possibly rabid creature may very well attack him if he did not continue to do so.
As if sensing his thoughts, and the bounty hunter was suddenly struck with the horrible thought that perhaps the foul creature could sense his thoughts, the wolf turned around and growled lowly at him.
"It is not so far now."
The bounty hunter rolled his eyes, moving faster. "I was not worried on that front."
The wolf let out a snort and kept moving, tail swishing along behind him. The bounty hunter kept his hand on the hilt of his sword, just in case. The woods they travelled through, woods that the wolf claimed led straight to this vaunted Stone Table, were dark, murderous. He had heard legends, as a child, of the trees in these forests of Narnia that had risen up and strangled Calormene invaders, long ago.
The bounty hunter shivered, tossing the dead body of the boy over his shoulder rather than continue to drag it along the forest floor. He thought he heard an approving sound from the wolf at this action, or perhaps it was from the very trees themselves.
And this table of stone that the wolf spoke of was heard of in Calormene, whispered to be the source of the Narnian's magic.
It was said that the Demon Lion had died on this Table, and come back even more powerful than before. Powerful enough to kill the Witch.
The one time Calormene and the demon Lion seemed to be on the same side of a matter.
And if this boy really was there, well...The wolf's words had left him uncertain. He did not know if the boy the wolf claimed lay dying on the stone table was the one he sought, or another, who could help him find what he sought.
Frankly, this dark magic was beyond him.
But if there was even a chance, a hope, that this was the boy that he was looking for, wasn't he honor-bound to try? And even if it was not, and the boy lived through the grace of his demon lion, there was still a chance for the bastard to be returned to him. The wolf had told him so.
The bounty hunter snorted at his own stupidity, and the beast sent him a worried glance, but did not halt.
And in that sorry state of mind the bounty hunter found himself standing at the edge of a clearing, the Stone Table looming before him. The wolf stopped abruptly, and he nearly slammed into the damn creature, before pulling to a halt as well as his eyes caught sight of that Table.
He had not known what to expect, after hearing the wolf's tale, but he was reasonably sure that the wolf had not thought the boy they had come to find would already be dead.
The bounty hunter, cursing the demon lion and the demon witch of Narnia under his breath, rushed forward, dropping his load into the snow next to the immobile wolf. His feet moved sluggishly, for, after coming this far, he was not tired, only riddled with disbelief, as he ascended the steps up to the broken table.
The body upon the Stone Table was cold to the touch, devoid of clothes and lying in a pool of its own blood. A wound the size of the bounty hunter's fist graced the boy's stomach, his blood running down in lines over thin ribs.
But even with the paleness of death upon the dead boy, the bounty hunter knew that he was indeed too pale to be the bastard of the Tarkaan who had sent him. And though the bounty hunter had not entirely been expecting to find that boy, the realization that this one was already dead and therefore useless to him made him stagger, clutching the broken table until his knuckles turned white with anger.
The wolf, as if in a trance, finally blinked up at the Human. "He's dead," he breathed softly.
"Yes," the bounty hunter said stiffly. "He's dead, and therefore useless to me." He turned back to the wolf, now ignoring both dead boys. "How do we invoke the power of that demon lion, to bring back the slave boy I was sent here to find?"
The wolf swallowed hard. "We were too late," he said, even softer than before, and the bounty hunter resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Yes, we were. Now, the boy I came for?"
The wolf raised glassy eyes to meet the bounty hunter, and, in that moment, he knew he was doomed. Either the wolf had lied to him, or what he had promised could not be done without this boy having lived.
He was useless as well, it seemed.
He turned back to the dead boy lying on the Stone Table, and swore loudly. The wolf flinched as the Man reached for his sword, hackles raising in fear.
It had not been as difficult to find the Witch as Peter had assumed it would be, nor taken quite as long, for, quite horribly, she had come to them before they could come to the Stone Table. Strange, for, from what he understood of the situation, the White Witch had run off with Edmund, abandoning the rest of her soldiers. He would have thought that she was still at the Stone Table, reveling in her victory over his brother, rather than having returned to keep fighting.
And yet, here she was, just beyond the battlefield, climbing down a cliff, with three dozen Fell Creatures surrounding her, a sickening smile on her face as she met Peter's gaze and ordered her troops forward to protect her. The White Witch had stopped, despite the men flowing around her, one hand gripping tightly to her wand, which cast eerie blue shadows upon the snow.
Edmund was not with her. In fact, he was nowhere to be seen.
Susan was the first to see her, pulling up her horse and firing two arrows from her bow in rapid succession before Peter had even noticed Jadis. "What have you done with our brother, Witch?" she demanded heatedly, and the Witch laughed in response.
"Kill them all, this time," the Witch shouted to her Fell. "Nothing can stop us."
Before him, Lucy leaned forward, breaking Peter's hold on her waist and sliding down from Philip. "I'll find Ed," she hissed up at him, before disappearing into the melee, and Peter found it very difficult not to curse as she vanished before his eyes.
King Lune shouted to his men, words that were merely roaring in Peter's ears as he patted Philip's side. "Are you ready?" he asked softly.
Philip snorted in response, and did not wait for a command before cantering forward, butting into whoever dared cross their path. It reminded Peter, briefly, of the last time he had fought the Witch.
She had not possessed so much of her power, back then. The grass had completely covered their battlefield, rather than remaining frozen as it was today. And Aslan had been there to save them, when Peter had barely been able to keep her at bay.
No, Aslan was not coming to save them this time, after truly defeating the Witch. No, instead it had been Edmund whom the Witch had dragged away, and done Aslan knew what to him, considering that he was not here, now, for her to use as leverage against the clearly larger Narnian and Archenlander forces...
Peter felt a cold chill up his spine, his stomach tying in knots as Philip rode on.
Behind him, he could hear Susan shouting at the Witch as she continued to volley arrow after arrow toward her, ignoring the Fell Creatures coming toward her as the rest of the Narnians quickly dispatched of them.
Two of these struck the Witch, and bounced aside with a flash of white light that sent crippling fear into Peter's very core, even as he neared her, raising Rhindon defensively.
This was his fight, and the Witch seemed to know it, for still she stood in the midst of the battlefield, grinning up at him maniacally. Lucy and Susan might have argued differently, that they all should have the chance to destroy the Witch who had been responsible for so much of their suffering, so much of their pain in the last few weeks, but he knew.
Fate, or Aslan, had given him another chance to fight the White Witch, and this time, beat her.
He had stood by since her return and watched as she destroyed Narnia, dragging it into another icy winter and taking his brother from him as Peter could do nothing but watch in horror. The Witch had taken back her stronghold, had tortured Ed, had taken Lucy captive and hurt Susan...
And Peter had stood by and done nothing. Had simply let it happen because he knew that, with Aslan abandoning them, there was truly nothing he could do. He had barely been able to fend her off, during their last duel. How he had been forced, in the end, to defend himself with naught but his own shield until Aslan arrived to save him.
He had learned since then, and he wanted this, more than he had ever wanted anything. Because no one touched his siblings, not the Witch, not the Telmarines, no one.
And as much as he wished Ed were here to witness this, as much as it pained him to imagine where Ed could be, he knew he couldn't think about that now. He could only act, while he still could.
He jumped down from Philip before reaching her, sword clashing with her wand before he had even touched the ground, and the Witch let out another sound of laughter before spinning and throwing him off balance.
He cried out, steadying himself on the cold, hard ground, and barely brought Rhindon up in time before she would have turned him to stone.
Tortured thoughts of whether of not she had already done this to Edmund wafted through his mind, but he forced them aside. He could think of nothing but the battle, until it was won.
It was the way Edmund would have fought, with his brain rather than his anger, and Peter knew that it was the only way he would defeat the Witch.
Jadis looked startled by the determination she saw in his eyes, and, in that moment, he was able to beat her back a few steps, though she quickly managed to regain herself. She attacked him again, bringing her wand about to strike his sword before letting loose another blast of pure, blue light, forcing Peter to fly backwards to avoid it.
Behind him, he could hear Susan and King Lune shouting out more orders, Lucy screaming his name, and then the Witch had advanced on him again, their weapons clashing louder than those voices, and Peter forced himself to drown out the distractions of the battle around them.
"You know, he was amusing, to the last," she taunted then, and, try as he might, Peter was not able to keep his emotionless mask at those words. He growled, throwing himself heatedly into the battle once again, and Jadis laughed. "Delirious though, I think."
"You'll never touch him, or anyone else again," Peter hissed angrily, surprised to find that his anger was beating her back, that she seemed surprised by this sudden burst of energy from him, and gave into his anger over what this creature had done to his family since they had entered Narnia completely.
He got angry during battle, especially when his siblings were involved. Edmund called it his greatest fault, always chastised him for it, even after a battle was won.
Edmund was not here.
The Witch's eyes widened as she found herself suddenly backed against a boulder, her Fell Creatures quickly dying around them due to Peter's superior force. Her wand now her only defense against Peter, and she raised it toward him, muttering an enchantment under her breath that turned Peter's skin cold.
He let out an inhuman snarl, beating her wand aside with a strength he didn't know he possessed, and it fell to the ground between their tangled feet. Rhindon pressed against the Witch's heaving breasts as she realized she had been disarmed, and her eyes lifted to meet her opponent's angrily.
The world stopped around them. Peter thought he could hear Susan shouting for him to stop, and in the next moment convinced himself that this was his own mind, or perhaps the Witch's, playing tricks on him, for Susan would never tell him such a thing.
And then, with an anger ten times the amount that he had faced in Cair's dungeons, facing that vile hag, Peter drove Rhindon into her stomach, thinking of what Lucy had told him that horrible day, when Aslan had died on the Stone Table with her knife through his ribs. Rhindon cut through her tough gown and equally tough skin with difficulty, and Peter winced as he shoved it deeper, deeper, until he could feel it slam against the boulder behind her and watched as blood began to gurgle from her lips.
The Witch let out a horrible scream that stilled even those furthest away, still locked in battle, and the light snow in the air froze in place. "NO!"
Her blood flew through the air, splattering against Peter's chainmail and sword, as well as her own battle gown. Peter ripped the sword from her belly and she hissed in a deep breath of pain, falling, defeated, to her knees. Silently, he wiped it on his own chainmail, watching her thick blood drip heavily onto his clothes.
"You'll never hurt him again," Peter repeated then, his voice soft, though the brittle fury on it was enough to be recognized by everyone watching.
He moved away, somewhat disgusted by the anger that had killed her, the very same anger that had killed that hag, for, although he had wanted her death, he had not wished for it to be like this. He'd wanted it because it was the right thing to do, not this.
And he was afraid, in that moment, of what else he would do to her, if he did not stop now.
He kept walking, backwards, for he did not dare turn his back on her while she still breathed.
No one moved, all standing in still shock as they watched the Witch's demise. Lucy's shock perhaps the greatest of all, for she had remained convinced until this moment that Aslan would return again and kill Jadis. The fact that he had not, that it had been Peter to deliver the soon-to-be-killing blow, rocked her.
The Witch just kept heaving in air, falling forward on her hands and knees in the quickly warming grass and letting her head fall between her shoulder blades as her blood continued to soak the ground beneath her.
"Aren't you going...to finish the job?" she hissed through clenched teeth after Peter, and he froze, staring down at her. A bit of that familiar rage washed through him, but he forced it back down. If he gave into it, he knew it would make him no better than she. "I at least gave that courtesy to your brother."
Peter swallowed hard. It was not within him to leave any creature suffering when he could alleviate that, not even an enemy, though he thought that, this time, he could gladly find exception. But he didn't know what to say in response, didn't know what to do.
His anger still boiled through him, keeping him warm despite the still cool temperature around them, and he wanted nothing more than to do just that, to take off her head with Rhindon while she still breathed to mock his brother's fate.
"Am I supposed to believe that the death you gave him was merciful?" he asked finally, anger tinting his words, try as he might to keep it down. The words sounded wooden on his tongue, but, by the look of shock on the Witch's face as she brought her eyes to meet his, they were worth the stinging guilt in his heart.
For he very much doubted that the death she had given Edmund was as painless as her own.
And then the guilt was too much, and he stumbled forward, raising Rhindon to end her suffering, for, though he had no doubt she deserved it, he would not stoop to what she had become.
Two things happened at once, things he would never forget for the rest of his life in Narnia, however short that may be.
"Peter!" Lucy and Susan screamed at the same time, and then the Witch was scooping up her wand from where it lay beside her, using the last vestiges of her strength to throw it at him, fully intending to bury it in the heart of the boy who had so stubbornly stood against her, as his little brother had once attempted to do.
And, this time, it had been an emotion that killed this little king. Pity.
Didn't these Sons of Adam ever learn?
Peter only knew in that moment to duck before he suffered the same fate as she, and so he did, slamming into the ground beside her and not bothering to watch as the wand speared into someone behind him, praying desperately that it was none but another Fell Creature.
He could not remember, however, the last time he had prayed to Aslan, and it was that thought that kept him down in the snow, though he was uninjured.
As Peter slammed against the snow, his chainmail rattling with the impact, his own blood splashing, red against white, it was as if a heavy burden flew off him. As he went down, he bit hard on his lower lip, and blood began to flow from it, gushing down his chin.
Thus far, he had been fighting with his anger, as he always did during battle, despite Edmund's warnings that it would one day be the death of him. Now, it washed out of him, flooding from his body at the sight of her blood, leaving him only exhausted and blinking back tears at the thought that even this had not saved Edmund. His anger would not save Edmund, would not satiate him, no matter what he did to the Witch to avenge his brother, to avenge Narnia.
He had fought in anger against the White Witch once before, after seeing her kill so many during the Battle of Beruna. Anger over what she had done to Edmund, over seeing her so easily turn his Narnian troops into stone, and he had lashed out accordingly.
She had nearly killed him then, because of it, because Peter, by himself, with only his anger to help him, had not been enough to kill her. Peter, High King of Narnia, had not destroyed the Witch, just as he had not done so now, clearly, as she had still managed to nearly kill him in turn.
It was Aslan who had beaten her in the end the first time, not Peter.
Aslan.
Aslan, who hadn't appeared since the beginning of this whole debacle. He was strangely silent, no matter that he had never abandoned them in times of need before. No matter that Lucy still believed he wouldn't, this time, either.
Even if Peter had given up on him the moment his brother had been taken from him by the Witch once again.
But that didn't mean He wasn't there.
Peter remembered then, something Lucy had told him, the first time Aslan had left the Pevensies to rule Narnia by themselves. She had been so wise, even then, too wise for her young years. So much wiser than he, and he could remember thinking that he should always heed her word, after that.
He didn't know when he had forgotten that thought.
"How could he just abandon us like that?" Peter had asked, angrily swiping at a vase. "We don't know the first thing about running a country. We don't know the first thing about..."
"He didn't abandon us," Lucy pointed out, as if it were the most logical assumption in the world. "He's always here, with us. Obviously, I mean, otherwise he would not have been able to return from the Stone Table, would not have known of the stone creatures at Jadis' castle, would not have been able to..."
There had been more, so much proof it made Peter's ears turn pink with shame for ever doubting the great lion, but he couldn't remember the words now. That didn't matter.
Aslan did not abandon them.
He was always there, even if it wasn't in the flesh.
Peter had just been too foolish to recognize that until now, lying a pace away from the White Witch, who was still, somehow, horribly alive, crawling forward on her hands and knees.
Aslan was here. Aslan was always with them, when they needed him, in their hearts.
And Aslan had been in the heart of Narnia long before the Witch had overtaken it.
"Aslan," he whispered hoarsely, and the Witch's eyes widened.
"Don't speak that name!" she cried out, sounding more in pain than she had been when Peter stabbed her.
Peter pushed himself up, half-turning to face the Witch, and she stopped in her movement. There was a determination in his eyes then that scared her, a determination that boded ill for her own unlikely survival, and she looked like a frightened animal.
She was defenseless now, having foolishly tossed her wand at him, thinking to kill him as he had done her.
"You don't have power here anymore, Jadis," Peter shouted, climbing painfully to his feet. He knew that she heard it, above the whipping wind and the snow still cascading...
The snow had stopped.
Peter smiled, sending a silent prayer of thanks to Aslan for bearing with him this long before jumping to his feet and reaching for the Witch's own wand, still lying on the ground beside him.
It hurt to the touch, even as his hand closed around it, and a horrible feeling of wrongness settled over him. He almost dropped it back to the ground in that moment.
"Narnia doesn't belong to you," Peter went on. "It never did. And neither did my brother."
The Witch's eyes widened, and she released a curse that had not been heard since the dawn of Narnia with what sounded like the last of her breath, a curse that chilled Peter to the bone. The wand in his hands began to grow hot to the touch, so hot that it scalded his hand in seconds, and he threw it away in horror. The winds around the pair of them twirled tighter, nearly suffocating him, and the sky darkened.
He dropped the wand, watching it fall into the grass as if from a great distance, heard someone scream again, realized it was himself.
The Witch smirked at this, a string of curses erupting from her mouth that made Peter flinch, that caused blood to begin dripping from his nostrils, and it was all he could do to lift his palms to his ears in a half-hearted attempt to block out the noise. How was it that, even dying, she still possessed such power when he could not remember her having it the first time around...?
The Witch continued, undeterred, even when Susan appeared, out of nowhere, beside Peter, and shot one of her legendary arrows towards the Once-Queen, it burying into her back and tossing her hard into the dirt once more.
"Susan!" Peter shouted, though he wasn't certain what the point of doing so was. Wasn't certain what was even going on.
But the Witch, impossibly, did not die, and the spell continued, wrapping them both up in its spell until Peter was certain they would die here.
Then, almost as foreign as the spells the Witch uttered, a sound came from Peter's lips, a word that he hadn't spoken in faith in some time, and, indeed, he was rather unsure why, exactly, he said it now. He knew that his faith had returned, but the reason behind his uttering that word was lost on him. He said it more like a desperate prayer than the powerful spell it seemed to be in that moment.
A word that caused the White Witch to scream in agony, curling tightly into a ball and glaring up at Peter with bloodshot eyes. Her curse stopped, and he could suddenly breathe freely again. Blood flowed from the Witch, and the air around Peter stilled.
A word that caused Lucy, just moving up beside him, to pause and flash her older siblings a brilliant smile. She reached out, taking Peter's bloodied hand in her own, and repeated it.
A word that caused Susan to glance at her brother in surprise, wondering when this change had come about. She certainly hadn't regained her faith in Aslan from this little episode; if anything, she had only agreed with Peter more over what he had been saying, in the past weeks, that the owner of that name had truly abandoned them.
"Aslan."
"Don't say that name!" the Witch screeched again at him.
"You've lost, Your Majesty," Peter whispered over her, and, in that moment, he couldn't feel the victory. Couldn't feel satisfaction at her death. He only saw the Witch, lying in the snow as she clutched to her breast, her icy white frame covered in her blood and Peter's.
And Jadis looked up at him, eyes wide and full of fear, but there was no defeat in her eyes. Not like there had been when Aslan destroyed her the first time. Only hatred.
"It doesn't matter," she hissed, and her words sounded so bitter, so angry, that he almost pitied her, in that moment.
Almost.
"I got what I came for. Your precious traitor-brother is dead." And she laughed, a sickening, wild sound that reverberated off the canyon walls, a sound that Peter couldn't stomach. Behind them, Susan let out a sudden cry, and then she was moving, faster than Peter could stop her.
He vaguely heard himself calling out to her, calling her name, but it was too late.
There were times when Susan the Gentle was not gentle. He had seen it happen, though not often, and only when her siblings, or her country, were in danger, and Susan would suddenly become a force to be reckoned with, the Queen to fear.
A second arrow sprang from Susan's bow, embedding itself in the Witch's chest even as she glared up at them, and Jadis sagged, falling back against the snow. Her wide, grey eyes blinked sightlessly up at the sky for a moment, before they slid closed.
And then. The Witch Fell, and the wand beside her, too far away to reach but too close for anyone's comfort, exploded.
Well, shattered, sparks of bright light exploding throughout the canyon. Peter turned away, unable to look at the sheer brightness of it. The world screeched to a blinding halt, and, for a moment, he was sure that this would be different from when Aslan had killed the White Witch. That something had irrevocably changed, and they would all pay a terrible price for it.
But, in a moment, that feeling was over, for the White Witch was well and truly dead.
When Peter looked again, the wand had turned to dust. A pile of dust, lying in the grass beside its dead mistress.
And though nothing was all right, for her final words had boasted of Edmund's death, Peter felt some peace at that sight.
"You tricked me into this," the bounty hunter spat accusingly at the wolf. "Brought me here to kill me?"
The wolf scampered back, raising its head and letting out a pleading howl, perhaps calling for its brothers, and the bounty hunter snarled in disgust, moving forward and taking a swing at the creature that would never find its mark.
A bright light cracked through the twilight; a flash of lightning, and then the world toppled, and the bounty hunter found himself on his knees, clutching to the stone steps before the table in terror as the world shook violently. The wolf yelped, moving back into the protection of the trees, where the world didn't seem quite as shaky, and the bounty hunter found himself wishing to curse the foul creature once again.
The shaking of the earth did not stop, and the bounty hunter wondered if Tash had been awakened by his own desire to dabble into dark magic and was punishing him, or if the world was ending. He supposed one was as likely as the other.
The wolf jerked its head towards the Stone Table, and the bounty hunter lifted his head as well, slowly following the beast's gaze with a hammering heart.
And as the Bounty Hunter watched in shocked silence, the dead boy on the broken table lifted one bloodied hand, took a deep, gasping breath, and fainted.
Unconscious, but very much alive.
"Impossible," the Bounty Hunter breathed, echoing the wolf's unspoken sentiments.