Disclaimer: I don't own Narnia or any characters you may recognize from the books or the movies, I wish I did but I don't... I also don't own the Narnian Calendar. It belongs to Elecktrum who was kind enough to let me borrow it for my story. Her own stories are awesome and you should go read them too.

Summary: 21 Yule 1006 will see the first lunar eclipse to occur on the Winter Solstice in four hundred years. Enemies of Narnia rejoice! For the time of the Golden Age will come to an end with the spilling of royal blood and Jadis will be revived!

A/N: If you have not read the first three stories in the A Light in the Darkness main story arc (Awakening, Shadowed, and Revealed), I highly recommend you do so. However, if you want to give this one a whirl on its own, you can.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Time...

21 Yule 1006

Oreius finally allowed a stop, but only for fifteen minutes. Enough time for the soldiers to eat and make sure the cold hadn't frozen any weapons in their sheaths, which would be a fatal occurrence in case of an ambush. He watched the colts checking their weapons, approving of the way they tended to their weapons and horses before digging into their traveling rations as though they hadn't eaten in at least a fortnight. It had taken him six months to drill into them that they needed to tend to both their weapons and their mounts before eating, even though they had immediately taken to tending to their mounts before themselves (Philip had aided immensely in ensuring that lesson remained ingrained for both colts). He frowned as he noticed the wind was picking up and its bite was even colder than it had been but an hour earlier. It was roughly noontime, so it should have been marginally warmer or at least holding steady...

"General?" He looked down as Ptah joined him. The Leopard squinted against the wind, "There's a storm coming. I can smell it. It will chase us down the mountain."

"We will outrun it."

Ptah looked up at him, the end of his tail twitching slightly before he turned and made his way back to the other Talking Beasts. Oreius looked back up at the top of the mountain then shouted the order for their party to resume its trek. Another hour passed before King Edmund rode up next to him, "Why haven't we sent anyone ahead to try and find Kat's trail?"

"Too much time would be lost. If we are correct about what kind of ceremony the Fell will attempt, it will be best to head to the place they will perform the ceremony and stop them there."

The colt was silent for several moments before he quietly asked, "Where?"

Oreius pointed up, "The top."

"In less than eleven hours..."

Oreius nodded then called over his shoulder, "Double time!"

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The sensation of damp numbness and an uncomfortable hardness digging into her ribs and cheek edged into the realm of unconsciousness. Katerina grumbled under her breath and reached up with one hand to push down whatever was poking her cheek. Her fingers bumped into something damp, snow, first and then she felt a curved hardness. Tracing it, she registered the curve was elongated and it culminated in whatever was poking her, pointy but blunted, like a...tooth. Katerina's eyes flew open as she jerked upright. She scrambled backwards, scrubbing her cheek with back of her hand and gagging as she realized she was in a room where the floor was littered with jumbled bones. And, she had been lying on top of the skull of a Satyr and what she suspected was the jawbone of a Faun. She coughed and gagged some more as she staggered to her feet, trying and failing to stop the dry heaves.

Katerina shuddered as her dry heaves finally ceased, although the thought that it probably wasn't snow, or at least not just snow, causing the dampness on her clothes nearly set off a fresh round of dry heaves. She took a gasping breath, "I am sorry we did not know this was happening to you until now. But, it will happen to no others, Aslan willing...Aslan grant it." There were no ghosts here, all these poor souls were secure in Aslan's country, but she felt better when she spoke some acknowledgment of the lives lost and it helped her to clear her head outside of battle. And, she needed to be as clearheaded as possible if she wanted even a chance of getting out of here alive.

Taking another gasping breath, Katerina turned, ignoring the crunch of bone beneath her boots, until she faced the only patch of a corner without bones. What was it Charlie had always told her? She needed to focus on something...or maybe someone... She closed her eyes and remembered the gist of Charlie's instructions... If being overwhelmed hurt her focus in any situation, then she needed to focus on someone she trusted. She murmured, "Kentauri, I doubt you are pleased with me right now..." And, he was most likely scouring the mountains for her, but as much as she needed his backup, she wouldn't say no to the chance of not only staying alive but figuring out a plan to at least half-rescue herself. That way she had a modicum of justification for when she argued with Oreius about whether she actually had a plan or not (since she couldn't quite argue that she had everything under control). Yes, that was what she would do. There was no way to tell the time but she suspected she had somewhere between just enough and more than enough time to plan...barring any surprises.

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A/N: Please Read and Review! Ceremony will be featured in the next (longer) chapter. Leave a review and let me know what y'all thought about this one.