A/N: Greetings, all. As always, I wish I was faster with updates, but the last several months have been a little tricky. I had a very tumultuous pregnancy (like lots of going to the hospital and losing a lot of weight and generally feeling horrible kind of pregnancy) that left me with very little time and energy to write. On the bright side, I gave birth to a healthy baby boy a few weeks ago and am already starting to feel like my old self again.
Enjoy!
Chapter 8
Something was pulling me out of sleep. It wasn't the sudden jerk to wakefulness that I usually felt, but the sense of something dragging me up through layers of drowsiness. My first clear feeling was irritation. I was far too warm and comfortable for anything to disturb me, but a sound persisted at the edge of my consciousness. Sleep clung to my brain as I struggled to understand what I was hearing.
Knocking. Someone was rapping on my door.
"Emma? Emma, are you in there?"
Caspian. I blinked my eyes open to light streaming in through the gauzy curtains of the magician's house.
"Come in," I mumbled.
Something tightened around me. There was a whispered curse in my ear.
Lander.
Lander in my bed.
Lander in my bed with Caspian at the door.
I gasped the same curse he had as I shot upright.
The doorknob jangled.
"Locked," Caspian called.
Lander jumped up, grabbing his boots, belt, and shirt that were scattered on the floor.
"Coming!" I called.
I tripped over a half-burned blanket on the floor and hit the ground with a loud thud.
"Emma? You okay?" Caspian asked.
"Yes!" I said, trying to untangle myself. "Just a moment!"
I grabbed my pants and yanked them on.
"Hide!" I hissed through my teeth to Lander.
He threw his arms out and gestured at the room in panic. The question was clear—hide where? There was no closet, no wardrobe, only a full chest at the foot of the bed—a bed that was too low to the ground for him to squeeze under and covered in scorch marks from the night before. I pointed behind the door and pulled my shirt over my head.
He ran over and pressed himself into the wall, and I took a deep breath before turning the lock and opening the door into the room.
"Good morning," I said, a bit too loud.
I stood in the opening, careful not to seem as though I was inviting him in.
"Drinian says we're to sail at nine," Caspian said.
I nodded.
"Surprised to see you awake already," I said.
Caspian chuckled.
"That magician knows how to make his wine, and lucky for some of us, makes a tonic for the morning after as well," he said.
I added a laugh a second too late for it to sound natural. Caspian wrinkled his brow.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"It was a long night," I said. "A long night that ended with me dragging your drunken ass all the way from the beach, need I remind you."
Caspian grimaced at what I guessed would be a foggy memory.
"Yeah, I—"
He stopped and looked down at my shirt. His face shifted from embarrassment to confusion. I followed his gaze and realized why he was looking.
It wasn't my shirt. In the chaos, I had put on Lander's. The sleeves went almost down to my fingernails and the laces at the collar went almost down to my belly button instead of stopping at my chest like mine did. I could feel my pulse in my cheeks. Caspian looked past me at the singed and mussed bed and then back at me. His mouth widened into a surprised grin.
"Do you have company?" he whispered, clearly amused though his shock.
I rubbed my neck.
"I…"
"I thought there was something going on, but I must say I'm impressed," Caspian laughed.
I blinked.
"I thought you didn't…" I wrinkled my brow and stared at Caspian. "I thought you didn't like him."
"Like him?" Caspian asked. "Of course, I like him!"
"Really?" I asked in confusion.
"Please, you know you don't need to be embarrassed with me, Emma."
He knocked on the door I was still holding.
"Neither do you, Lord Restimar," he called into the room.
I was so stunned that I let go of the doorknob and fell back a step. I opened my mouth, but had no actual words ready, so a confused and strangled sound came out. Unfortunately, Caspian took my movement as an invitation into the room and stepped in just as Lander moved to dodge the door now swinging into him. The boots, belt, and shirt he was holding all fell to the ground.
He was only wearing his pants and started to cross his arms to cover his naked torso before hesitating then deciding to clasp his hands in front of his waist, holding eye contact with Caspian the whole time.
"Your Majesty," Lander greeted him, inclining his head.
When he raised his head again, I could see the grin that was playing on his lips.
"You," Caspian breathed.
His voice was soft, but there was rage simmering in his eyes. Lander held his gaze, his face neutral until his left eyebrow slowly rose up.
"Well," Lander said. "I should join the rest of the crew."
He scooped up everything he had dropped and made his way to the door, stopping to give me a slight bow.
"Your Highness," he said before walking out.
Caspian turned to me.
"What—" he began.
"I need to dress," I cut him off.
I pushed him through the door and closed it behind him before he could argue.
Only when I pulled Lander's shirt off did I realize that he had taken mine with him.
OoOoO
I thought I was safe when I managed to get in and out of the dining hall after eating breakfast without seeing Caspian, but I ran straight into him as I came back through the doors.
"Ah, Your Majesty!" I said.
"Oh, don't 'Your Majesty' me," he hissed.
I leaned toward him.
"Really?" I asked, irritated and surprised. "You're judging me for this? You? As though I didn't see the Duchess of Northbern leaving your room last y—"
"That's not—" Caspian began, then looked around and lowered his voice.
He looked down the hall at the sailors carrying supplies from the kitchen. He huffed and jerked his head toward the stairs, gesturing for me to follow.
We went all the way to the third floor, which was so quiet, I wondered if there was a spell in place. As soon as I stepped off the stairs, the noises from below disappeared. The carpet was a deep red and so thick I felt as though I were sinking through the floor as I walked. It was a long, bare hall with nothing hanging on the mahogany walls. The only door was at the very end and trimmed with gold filigree. Caspian swung it open and marched in.
At first, I thought it was another library, and then I saw the gold pedestal in the middle of the room with an ancient looking book laying open on top. I realized it was the room where Lucy had broken the spell on the island.
"Should we be in here?" I asked.
But Caspian did not seem concerned in the slightest as he closed the door.
"I don't care that someone was in your room last night," he said as though there had been no pause in the conversation. "Obviously."
"You certainly seem like you do!" I snapped. "And you thought it was Restimar? Restimar?! He's old enough to be my—"
"Honestly, Emma, he's only thirty-three," Caspian rolled his eyes.
"Technically, he should be at least fifty," I corrected.
"Right, and you should be around fifteen hundred?" Caspian shot back.
"I—"
"I had noticed the two of you dancing and talking," Caspian kept going as though I had not tried to cut in. "And he asked me about you, so I thought…"
His voice trailed off, and he shook his head.
"You can take whoever you want to bed," he said, more calmly. "But surely. Surely, you must know that you can't trust this man. You can't…you can't let him get to you."
I expected to see anger in his eyes, or at least irritation or concern. But what I saw was fear.
"What's going on?" I asked.
He walked over to the magic book and started rifling through the pages.
"There's a spell in here that will help us, help you to see," he said.
"See what?" I demanded.
"We'll see what he is and then we'll know!" Caspian said. "We'll know, and everyone will be safer."
"Know what?" I snapped.
He kept searching the book in silence. I laid my hand on it to stop him from turning a page.
"When did we start keeping secrets from each other?" I asked softly.
He paused.
"I don't want to keep secrets from you," Caspian sighed, then looked at me. "I didn't know how to tell you…or even if there was anything to tell."
I sat back in the red armchair behind me and crossed my legs.
"Judging by the look on your face, I'm betting there is absolutely something to tell," I said.
"Just before we landed at Burnt Island, Aslan spoke to me in a dream," he began.
The name made my legs feel weak, and I was glad to already be sitting down.
"He told me…warned me, rather, that I needed to be careful who I trusted," Caspian said. "That just because someone had once been loyal to the crown did not mean they still were."
Caspian gave me a desperate look.
"And then we found out who Lander is, what he used to be. Why would I trust someone who was sworn to serve Narnia and broken that oath?" he asked. "Aslan warned me."
He was turning pages again, looking for something.
I gripped the arms of the chair, surprised at the anger that flashed through me.
"Aslan couldn't have been more specific, could he?" I said sharply. "More riddles. More questions. He didn't warn you of anything. That tells us nothing."
Caspian looked back up.
"But Lander—"
"It could be anyone on the ship, Caspian," I snapped. "Any one of the crew, Drinian, even the Pevensies. Even me."
We were both silent, staring at each other for several heartbeats until Caspian turned his attention back to the book.
"You ever notice how Aslan never gives us the full picture?" I asked. "How he shows up, drops a few hints, then disappears again? Imagine how simple things could be if he just told us what we needed to know."
Finally, Caspian seemed to find what he was looking for.
"Here," he said, tapping the page.
I stood and joined him behind the pedestal. The open page had two illustrations around the writing in the middle. These were magical drawings, shifting as I blinked. The first was of a couple standing before a marriage altar, the woman turning away and then turning back as I stared. The second showed a man holding his hand out to someone, but when I turned my head, a knife appeared behind his back, then disappeared again. The words were in the shape of a mask. Everything was handwritten, but the letters were so beautiful that I stared at them for several seconds before I actually read the heading.
"A Spell to Reveal Loyalty and Character," I read aloud.
I looked up to Caspian.
"Do we really need to bring magic into this?" I asked.
Caspian swallowed.
"Aslan warned me that they would go after you first," he said. "That you were the way to get to me."
There it was. The real reason he had not told me about any of this before. I wanted to tell him that he shouldn't worry, that I could look after myself. I could shout at him for not telling me sooner. But I couldn't do either of those things. Because I knew good and well that I would've done the same as he. We both knew it.
I let out a long breath.
"We just read it out loud?" I asked, looking at the page again.
We read the spell together, back forth on each line, putting Lander's name in where we needed to. It was simple, straightforward, and did not even rhyme. There was utter silence following the incantation. I scanned the room, unsure of what I should even be looking for.
"Did it w—" I began.
Then wind blasted through the room and erased the magician's house entirely. Everything went black. I realized that Caspian had grabbed my hand, and I was grateful for it. I would've thought myself alone, otherwise. Then the scene before us filled in, starting with a bright, yellow light to the left and growing until I could tell it was the swaying lantern in the galley of a ship. Everything else came into focus.
We were standing against the far wall behind a series of tables, all full of sailors eating and drinking. Their intoxicated laughter turned my stomach. A cool sweat broke out on my browas I recognized a few faces. My body recognized where I was before my mind did.
Pug's ship.
In front of us, in the middle of a table, sat Lander. He leaned against the wall and rested his arm on his knee. He laughed at the two men in front of him arm wrestling. But his laugh was strange. His smile did not reach his eyes. Though his positioning looked relaxed, something about it seemed off.
Then the galley broke out in cheers aimed at the open doors. There, I saw Pug walking by, one hand raised in a cheer with his crew while the other dragged a girl behind him. She wore a loose white shirt tucked into black breeches. Her long, blonde hair had once been braided, though half of it was now falling out. She looked pale and like she might faint at any moment, but she did not make a sound.
Strange to see myself from the outside like this.
Lander shot to his feet and strode to the door where another sailor was walking in. I recognized him as the other man who had entered our cell.
"What is he doing?" Lander asked, his voice low. "He said he wouldn't do this anymore."
"And why do you care what the captain does?" the other man laughed. "A bleeding heart?"
Lander scoffed.
"I care about how much money we make on each sale," Lander said. "The girls he takes never sell as well."
The other man took a long swig from the cup he grabbed off the table. Lander stared at him, his face shifting back to neutral after a glimmer of rage came across it.
"He hasn't done this in months," Lander said. "Why now?"
The man shrugged.
"Guess he was in a mood," he said. "I wouldn't be too worried about it. This one volunteered."
The thud of a closing door echoed from somewhere else. Lander's head shot up. He walked out of the galley but stopped in the hall. He rubbed his neck, breathing hard. He stared up at the closed door at the far end of the corridor.
Then a terrified voice shot out of the closed room.
"Get off me!" I heard myself scream.
Lander cursed with every step as he rushed toward the door.
Caspian's breathing quickened and his grip on my hand got tighter as another wordless scream came from Pug's room. Lander reached the door, his hand on the doorknob before he hesitated, desperation clear on his face. He swallowed and slowly turned the knob and pushed the door so that it made no noise as it opened. Through the opening, I could see Pug's unconscious form lying limply on top of me. Lander put a foot into the room then stopped as I rolled Pug off me. I saw myself rolling away from the man then stopping, crouched on one knee, my pants gone, my torn shirt hanging limply down to my bare thighs. Pug didn't move—the drugged dart clearly visible in his neck.
There was sudden laughter from down the hall, and Lander pulled the door shut again. I could hear the rustling in the room that I knew was my heaving Pug onto his bed and putting my breeches back on. Lander took what looked to be a steadying breath then crossed his arms and leaned against the door.
Another man soon came down the hall.
"Waiting for your turn already, Lander?" he drawled.
Lander shook his head, looking irritated.
"Pug says he's keeping this one all to himself for the night," Lander said. "Told me to stay here and make sure they weren't disturbed."
The man groaned in annoyance.
"Selfish bastard," he said. "I don't even think this one would mind. She volunteered for it."
I gritted my teeth so hard that my jaw hurt.
Lander shrugged, the picture of indifference.
"If you want to argue with him, be my guest," Lander said.
And so it went until nearly a dozen men had come by the room and been turned away by Lander. He stood guard all night, all while I sat on the other side of the door, staring at Pug and hoping he would not wake.
There was another, powerful gust of wind, sweeping the scene away. Only a breath or two passed before, once more, light began to take shape.
This time, the lanterns were against a stone wall instead of the wood inside a ship. We stood in a great corridor of a castle with a wall and series of doors to our left and only a railing separating us from the open night air to the right. One look at Caspian, and I knew we had both recognized where we were—the Telmarine castle. I glanced up as I heard the soft, metallic rustle of chainmail coming past us. A soldier in full armor was patrolling the hall. The light caught off the hilt of his sword, one I recognized instantly from the bronze hilt. The soldier turned and just enough light shone through his helmet that I saw Lander's face.
Then another soldier appeared, running down the corridor toward us. Lander's hand was on his sword as he turned, but he let go when he saw who was approaching. He was taller than Lander and, though I could not make out much through his helmet, I could see that he was around the same age but with a thick beard and a thinner frame.
"Kiernan, what—" Lander began.
"The queen," Kiernan said breathlessly. "It's a son. She's had a son. King Miraz, the general—"
"They're going after the prince," Lander finished.
Kiernan nodded.
"We don't have much time," Kiernan said.
Kiernan took off back down the hall, and Lander followed him. They ran at full speed until they turned the corner and saw seven fully armed Telmarines go down the corridor ahead of them. Kiernan grabbed Lander's arm to stop him.
"I can slow them down," Kiernan whispered. "Get to the professor—he knows the passageways. He can get the prince out faster than we can."
"You can't beat seven of them," Lander hissed back.
"No, I can't," Kiernan agreed.
He drew his sword slowly and looked at Lander.
"Get the prince and leave this place," Kiernan said softly. "Get out of Narnia."
"Kiernan—"
"Run," Kiernan breathed. "Don't look back."
"You can't—"
But Kiernan turned and ran down the hall at top speed. He swiped his sword and felled one of the soldiers just as the others turned around. Lander stumbled back a step, his breath coming in quick gasps, before he turned and ran the other way. He made it almost all the way down the hall before his steps faltered for a second when a horrible scream echoed off the stone. But he did not look back.
He went up two flights of stairs before I could hear someone coming after him. Lander seemed to hear it, too, as he somehow moved even faster. Finally, he found the door he was looking for and slammed himself against it. He beat on the door with frantic knocks, breathing hard.
When it opened, he half-fell into the room before shutting and barring the door behind him.
"What is the meaning of this?" asked a voice I recognized.
Lander pulled his helmet off and faced the short, old man with a long white beard.
"Dr. Cornelius," Lander said. "Prince Caspian is in grave danger. The queen regent—"
"She's had a son, hasn't she?" the professor asked.
Lander nodded. Dr. Cornelius was already pulling on his cloak.
"We have to get him out, now," Lander said. "King Miraz—"
Then something hit the door so hard that it shook.
"Open the door in the name of the king!" someone shouted on the other side.
Dr. Cornelius struggled as he tried to move his wardrobe. It started to budge down the wall, revealing a secret opening behind it. Lander dropped his helmet and helped the professor shove the wardrobe out of the way. Lander looked from the passage to the shaking door that was weakening by the moment.
"Go!" Lander hissed.
As soon as Dr. Cornelius was in the passage, Lander dragged the wardrobe back into place. And not a moment too soon as the door to the bedchamber split in two. Three soldiers rushed into the room, all with swords drawn.
Lander drew his, a cheeky grin on his face.
"Well, Dezdin, if you wanted to get me into the bedroom, all you had to do was ask," Lander said.
The center soldier growled in irritation.
"Drop your sword, Aidric," he said. "Drop it, or I will finally have an excuse to carve that smart tongue out of your head."
"Try, darling," Lander quipped.
"You would betray your oath?" Dezdin shouted. "You would betray your king?"
Lander's face was deadly serious, no glimmer of the humor before.
"Never," Lander said.
Lander hurled a dagger I had not seen him draw at the soldier to the far left, then charged at the man in the middle before the other had even fallen. Dezdin was caught off guard but managed to block Lander's first strike. He spun Lander's sword away and tried to hit from above. Lander turned to block the strike and kicked the other, advancing soldier in the chest. Dezdin went on offense, using Lander's distraction to drive him back. Lander smacked into the other soldier, who had dropped his sword when Lander kicked him but had drawn a thin dagger. He put his arm around Lander's neck as Dezdin pushed him back further.
Lander slammed his head back into the soldier's face just as he began to drag the blade across the Lander's throat. He fell. Dezdin looked over at the other, and Lander used the opening to strike at his undefended stomach. Dezdin tried to turn away, but he was far too late. Lander's sword made solid contact with Dezdin's midsection. As Dezdin fell to his knees, Lander gave a final, deadly blow. He turned to the other soldier who was still dazed and trying to stand. Lander slammed the hilt of his sword into his forehead. I was not sure whether he would wake again. Lander pressed his hand into the wound on his throat, deep and bleeding.
Then Lander was running again, down stairs and across halls, dodging groups of soldiers. Bells began to ring out in the castle, not in alarm but in celebration. Lander made it to the courtyard just as a dark figure rode out of the gates on a black horse.
"Long live the king," Lander whispered, relief flashing on his face.
He jumped as fireworks went off behind the castle. He quickly untied a horse from outside the stable and galloped over the drawbridge, then waited, watching the castle. Just as the first search party, a group of about seven soldiers, rode out, Lander took off in the opposite direction of where Caspian had gone. They followed him.
He didn't look back.
Wind whipped everything away once more, and we stumbled back onto the floor as the magician's room appeared before us once more. The only sound in the quiet room was our heavy breathing.
The whole way back to the ship, a single question clouded my mind. The look on Caspian's face told me he was wondering the same thing. Even when we joined the others and our silence was finally broken, it still clanged through me. What would we say to Lander now?
But we needn't have bothered.
The current had turned against us, and the winds had nearly abandoned us as we pressed further East. This meant that most the of the crew spent the day rowing, and I did not see Lander at all.
Nor did I see him the next day.
The third morning back at sea, I walked out on the top deck and felt strong wind on my face. We were once again making fast progress to the East for better or worse.
Edmund waved me over to where he stood at the helm with Caspian and Drinian.
"We've sighted land," Edmund said as soon as I reached them.
He pointed out into the sea, right where the ship was headed.
"Land?" I asked when I saw it.
"Exactly," Drinian said pensively.
The dark mass ahead of us was somehow more solid than fog but not solid enough to be land. It looked like a heavy, black shadow on the water, but there was nothing to cast it.
"I assume we won't be landing there," I said, wondering if it was even possible to land there at all.
"No," Caspian said. "We're adventurers, not fools."
I had known the answer, yet I was glad to hear it out loud. Everything about the strange place set my instincts on edge. There could be nothing good lurking there.
"We'll give it wide berth," Drinian said.
He shouted a command to several sailors.
That was when I spotted Lander. He was pulling on a large rope to release another sail. His shirt was rolled up to his elbows, showing the straining muscles in his forearms. Finally, the sail came free, and he tied off the rope on a hook on the mast. His tanned hands worked quickly, knotting the rope securely in seconds. The wind had freed several dark strands of his hair from the leather strip he had bound it back with, leaving them to brush against his forehead, his neck, even his mouth.
Then he looked up at me. His brown eyes looked even warmer in the sun. They seemed to dance as the right side of his mouth raised into a small, involuntary smile. He pressed his lips together as though struggling against a broader grin and looked away. Only then did I realize that Edmund was speaking.
"—that be natural?" he asked, clearly still talking about the mysterious island. "Where would it come from?"
I wondered how much of the conversation I had missed.
"Seems like dark magic to me," Drinian said. "I've never heard of anything like it."
We kept clear of the island until we fully passed around it. But just as we did, I heard the sailors gasping and murmuring. I followed their gazes to see that the island had moved. It was once again in our path. Drinian adjust course again…and again…and again. Each time, the island, without seeming to move at all, appeared ahead of us once more.
"Forward, then," Caspian said to Drinian after a long moment. "It seems we shall sail through it whether we want to or not."
"Light the lanterns!" Drinian commanded the crew. "And let each of you be silent and wait for orders."
He turned to me, and to Rhea who had come up behind me as he was speaking.
"I need one of you at the bow and one at the stern," Drinian said to us. "Help us see as much as you can."
I looked at Rhea and nodded toward the stern. By the time I made it to the stern, the island loomed before us. It looked like the thickest smoke I had ever seen. I could see now that it moved in the wind, but instead of blowing away, it regained its shape.
"Hold course southeast!" Drinian called. "We sail straight through!"
I stretched my arms out on each side and tilted my hands up, causing the lanterns on the front half of the ship to burn twice as bright. Dread gathered in my gut as we edged closer to the shadow island. I spared one more look back at Caspian at the helm as the darkness rolled over us.
I half-expected the smell of smoke to greet us, but there was nothing. That was somehow worse. Everyone on the ship stood so silently, I knew I could not be the only who had to remind myself to take each breath. Even the waves seemed muffled, the only real sounds the soft lapping of water against the ship and the occasional wooden creak. It was so dark, so nothing, that fit felt like we might not be moving at all. But the wind against my cheeks, though much weaker than before, told me we were. I looked back to see how far the light now was, only to be met with more black. The lantern dangling from the prow flared in time with my startled breath. A quick glance both ways confirmed what I already feared—the sun was gone.
Drinian's face showed no trace of alarm, only focus.
We continued on for several minutes, or perhaps it was an hour or two. Perhaps more. The only way I knew that time itself was not standing still was Drinian's occasional order to one sailor or another—and the increasing tension in my shoulders. Had we found the edge of the world? What if this was it—nothing, only dark and water forever.
Then a feral cry tore out from the black.
Everyone looked a different way for the source of the sound. Not only did the sound echo, but my sense of direction was too confused to even try to identify where it had come from.
"Who calls?" Caspian shouted. "If you are a friend, have no fear of us."
"Mercy!" cried the voice. "Mercy! Even if you are only a dream, have mercy. Take me on board. Take me, even if you mean to strike me dead."
It was human, I decided. At least, it had once been. But I had never heard such a hollow, hysterical sound from a man before.
"Mercy!" it shouted again. "In the name of all mercies, do not fade away and leave me in this horrible land!"
"Where are you?" Caspian shouted. "Come aboard!"
Drinian called out to a few sailors to starboard—yes, starboard, that was where the noise was coming from. Someone was swimming toward us, and when the men heaved him up, a wild, white face appeared over the rail.
It was impossible to tell the man's age. He could have been seventy or forty with a face of a still-young man, but the long, stark-white hair and beard of someone's great-grandfather. Scraps of clothing hung off his frail body, barely enough for modesty. He held his thin hands out in front of him as though trying to decide if he could touch us or not. Then I saw his eyes. They were frozen in wide-open terror. I stayed at the prow and came no closer to him for fear of scaring him right off the ship's edge again.
As soon as he steadied himself on the deck, he began screaming again.
"Fly! Fly for your lives from this cursed place!" he screamed. "Turn and row, row, row back whence you came!"
"Sir, sir," Caspian said at the man's side, his voice calm and firm. "What is the danger here?"
"We are not used to flying, sir," said a cocky sailor the left.
"Nonetheless, you will fly from this place!" said the man. "This, this is the island where dreams come true."
A sound of delight came from most of the crew.
"Been looking for this place all my life, then," Rynelf chuckled.
"Fools!" the man shouted, covering his face. "Fools, all of you! I thought the same when I heard of it! Thought the same of my own damned dreams coming true. Listen to what I say!"
He turned and grabbed Caspian by the shoulders.
"This is the place where dreams, dreams, come true. Not daydreams. Not fantasies," he said, then his voice lowered to a hoarse whisper as though his ears could not take hearing what he was saying. "Nightmares."
There was a horrible beat of silence before everyone began running back to their posts.
"Row!" Caspian shouted.
"To the oars, men!" Drinian shouted. "Due east!"
Gone was the silence of before. Now, the air was full of commands, of running about, of oars slapping the water. I waved my hand again, the lanterns flaring even brighter, but there was still no sign of a way out. Time seemed to be racing past us, leaving us frozen behind it.
"We've been rowing out longer than we were rowing in," I heard a sailor say shakily somewhere to my left. "Twice as long if not more."
There was a horrible, frayed stream of laughter from the man we had rescued.
"Of course!" he squealed. "Of course, we shall never get out! No, no we shall never get out!"
"Oh, gods, there it is!" someone shouted from the crow's nest.
I frantically looked around, but there was still nothing but darkness off the edge of the ship. Then a growl rumbled along the water.
"Stay at your posts!" Drinian shouted. "Keep your heads, men!"
He kept trying to bring order, but no one was listening. I wasn't even listening.
"Traitor!" someone near me shouted.
The growl was closer now, running up my spine and filling my ears until the chaos around me was muffled.
I vaguely heard a shriek of pain, then something slammed into me from behind, sending me to my hands and knees. I shook my head to try to clear it before I looked and realized I had landed in a small pool of blood. It was seeping into my right pant leg. I scrambled to my feet and whirled around as a too-warm breeze blew over me.
The ship was empty.
There was no blood. There was nothing at all, not even the crew. Sound was no longer muffled but gone altogether. The world was silent. The same darkness still hung around the now-abandoned ship.
I opened my mouth to call out to someone, to anyone, but dread tightened my throat until no sound could come out. More than not seeing anyone, I couldn't feel them. Where I could always sense Caspian and Rhea, there was nothing but a cold shadow.
I ran to the helm up on the stern deck. Empty.
But then it wasn't. Then I could feel the presence behind me, the one that haunted my nightmares for months now.
"It's not real."
I tried to say it firmly, but it barely squeaked out.
"It's a dream. It's just a dream."
My breaths were coming in strangled gasps as I turned slowly toward the snarling beast behind me.
The deserted deck was now crowded, the bodies of the entire crew, including now the strange man we had pulled from the water, were scattered about. And there was Lucy, her knife still in its sheath, not even drawn in her small and bloodied hand. Fallen without having landed a blow. Eustace was beside her, a bit of brown fur just barely visible through all the blood by his arm. Reepicheep. Edmund was further down the deck, his blank eyes seeming to still be wide with shock even as he lay with half his face in a pool of his own blood. Rhea was lying across his legs, deep claw marks obscuring her features and trailing down to her unmoving chest.
None of them had even drawn their weapons.
Bile was rising in my throat as my chest tightened. I could hear the low growling getting louder again, but I could not face what I knew awaited me at the bow.
"Emma."
His voice was so quiet that I felt his call more than I heard it. Without permission, my head snapped up. And there was Caspian splayed out on the deck, struggling to rise to his knees.
"Emma," Caspian gasped my name out again.
He was clutching his stomach with blood seeping through his fingers. His wide eyes met mine, begging for help even as he knew it was too late. I was anchored in place, incapable of coming any closer.
A shadow came over Caspian, cast by the monster who had massacred the whole ship.
"No, no, no," I shook my head and tried to raise my voice above the shaky whisper that it was. "No, please."
I fell to my knees as the tears blurring my vision finally started falling.
"Don't do this," I pled. "Leave him, I beg you."
But the monster stepped closer to Caspian, his eyes black.
"I'll do anything!" I cried.
The monster moved into the lamplight where I could see him fully. I finally had to face the one I had known was the death of us all.
It was a great lion. The Great Lion.
"Aslan," I implored. "Please, if you ever loved us…please, don't—"
Caspian had just raised his head again when Aslan snapped his jaws down on the king's neck. My scream did not drown out the sickening crack of Caspian's bones or the thud of his body as he landed on the deck once more, his eyes fading but still staring back at me. Aslan raised his head from where Caspian's throat had been.
Caspian's blood dripped from Aslan's mouth. The sight tore away the last of my reason. I screamed again, stripped bare until I had was terror and pain. They were all gone.
I crawled to Lucy's body, the closest one to me, and cradled her head in my trembling hands. I hugged her against myself as though the pounding of my own heart could convince hers to beat again. I rocked back and forth and pressed my forehead into her hair, my sobs now an unending wail.
I only looked up when Aslan growled again. He was moving toward me, now. He stepped over a body I had not seen before. I could not see the fallen man's face, but I saw the bronze hilt of his sword, the sword I knew all too well. He was the only one who had drawn a weapon. Not that it had saved him. Not that anything could have. Not when I had led them here.
Aslan stopped and just watched me.
"Just kill me," I said between sobs.
He did not move.
"Do it!" I screamed.
Every breath I dragged in was too much. Everything was gone, and I had led them right over the edge of the world.
Aslan was coming nearer again, lantern light reflecting off his teeth. I looked up at the sky, unable to stomach the sight of the lion anymore.
That's when I saw something in the midst of the darkness for the first time. A star. It was so clear and so bright that I knew what it was even as my tears made the light streak and blur and even without any of the neighboring constellations.
The Queen's Eye.
The light seemed to grow, and for a moment, the darkness wavered. I stared at the star and fought to slow my breathing, to pull myself back into my body and off the edge of hysteria. There was something at the back of my mind, something the star made me remember.
The island. The Dark Island. This place where nightmares came true. Nightmares. Aslan hovered above me, but as I blinked, he became less solid. I could almost see through him. I wasn't holding Lucy anymore, her body now shimmering on the deck like a mirage.
"It's not real," I whispered.
My ears popped as though pressure was equalizing in them, and suddenly new sounds came in. On my left, I heard nothing but the snarl of a hungry lion. On my right, I could hear the entire crew shouting, including voices I recognized as though they were my own.
Aslan snapped down at me, but I scrambled back. I could move freely once again. The carnage on deck shifted in and out of focus as more solid people ran among them.
"It's not real," I said again, this time as a fact and not a hopeful prayer.
Aslan disappeared in the middle of a mighty roar. I slowly got to my feet, though my legs still trembled.
There was a horrible, familiar scream to my right. Edmund was huddled against the starboard rail, hands over his ears as he shook his head violently.
"Get out of my head!" he was screaming.
"Edmund," I said, grabbing his shoulders. "Ed, can you hear me?"
He pressed his hands harder over his ears and screamed again. I let go of him, afraid I was making it worse.
"Cold, cold, cold," he muttered.
He had felt warm, but his arms had been shaking.
"I'm going to get us out of here, Ed," I said with a certainty I felt but had not earned.
I pushed my way through panicking sailors to the helm, stopping to pull a sailor who thought the ship was on fire off the rail. I could not see where Drinian was. I caught the spinning helm of the ship and jerked it to a stop. My knuckles went white as I fought to change our course. I had nothing but the star to follow.
"I hope you're real," I muttered to the light in the sky.
But I knew it was. It was more real than anything else right now.
The helm wrenched out of my grip, veering the ship hard to port. I caught it again and focused all my strength on pointing us toward the star.
Somewhere behind me, I heard Rhea's scream. I couldn't let go of the helm. I couldn't even see her in the dark. I let out a scream of my own in my effort to keep the helm steady and keep from running to the stern. Then a strange, screeching noise turned my attention to the main mast.
I looked up, expecting to see that another nightmare, perhaps one I had forgotten, was coming for me, but then I saw that it was a bird. An albatross, in fact. It circled the mast and then flew off in the direction of the star.
The helm shook violently in my hands, trying desperately to drag us in any direction but the one the bird was going in.
"Come on, come on," I muttered as though I could will the ship to go faster.
Another soft, stale wind brushed across my face. My eyes began to blur once more. I blinked hard and shook my head.
"No, no, no," I hissed, trying to keep my vision clear. "Come on!"
I lifted my eyes back to the star, and my mind cleared once more.
But Rhea's scream shattered my concentration. My head snapped behind me toward the sound. For a heartbeat, wind roared in my eyes are my vision streaked. Shadows swirled around me until they began to knit themselves into a solid form. I jerked my head back around, trying to find the star in the black sky again. But it was too late. I could feel him behind me.
My hands ached as I somehow drew my grip on the helm even tighter than before. I kept us locked on the course we had been on even though I could no longer see the star or the bird.
His breath came first—hot, smelling of sour wine, and brushing against my neck. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to slow my thundering heart.
"It's not real," I whispered.
Pug gave a low chuckle, the only warning before he took my hips in his iron grip and dragged me back against him.
I kept my eyes closed, terrified of where I might find myself if I opened them. I could still feel the helm in my hands, but it was faint. Much stronger was the feeling of Pug's hands on me and the icy terror coating my veins once more. I started screaming when I felt his teeth on my neck, but I could barely hear myself over his never-ending laugh. I felt the neckline of my tunic tearing, but I couldn't move. I couldn't fight. I could scarcely draw in enough breath to keep screaming.
Then the air around me grew warmer. Pug faltered behind me, but he was grabbing my hands, trying to drag me away.
"Get off me!" I screamed.
"Your Highness," Pug said, though his voice sounded strange.
"Let me go!" I shouted.
I tried to throw my shoulder back against him, but he was not behind me anymore. I could only feel his hand over mine.
"Your Highness, open your eyes," the same voice said again.
That certainly wasn't Pug. I stilled and slowly opened my eyes. I squinted and blinked at the bright light. There was no sign of the star or the bird, but the sun beamed down on us, bigger and brighter than I had ever seen it.
"It's over," said the voice. "We made it out."
It was Drinian who stood beside me, his eyes soft despite the traces of tears still on his cheeks. I stared up at him, wide-eyed and breathing hard, unable to say anything. His left hand was already on the helm, but he gingerly placed his right hand on my shoulder.
"You can let go, Your Majesty," Drinian said gently. "I'll take it from here."
I stood frozen for a moment before I realized I was still holding onto the helm. I had to focus to unclench my fists, and when I did, I saw that I had left scorch marks behind on the wood.
I muttered a breathless apology and moved back so that Drinian could take his place. I pressed my back against the rail, letting the pressure ground me back in reality.
My tunic was intact, and my hands were clean of the blood that I had thought coated them. All that remained was the large blood stain on my pant leg. It was still wet to the touch, turning my fingers crimson as I inspected it.
Shouts broke out once more on deck. The crew was circling near the mast, but standing back enough that I had little trouble making my way to the center of the crowd. Lucy, her back to me, was on her knees and leaning over a crumpled figure. Caspian stood over her, looking pale and distant.
"He's gone," Lucy said, her shoulders falling forward in defeat.
My stomach tightened. Who? My eyes darted around, trying to take a quick inventory of who I could see. Caspian. Eustace. Reepicheep. Edmund. I could feel Rhea coming our way.
Lucy put her cordial back in her belt and leaned back, and I could see him. My breath steadied in relief. I knew that made me horrible, and I didn't care.
It was the mad man we had rescued from the dark island.
Or…tried to rescue.
"What happened?" Caspian asked.
He was still a bit white, and his eyes were tinged in red, but his voice sounded steady.
"Caspian," Lucy said.
She was holding the man's hand and turned it toward Caspian. A signet ring glinted in the sun.
"Lord Rhoop," Caspian said, his expression darkening.
"Rhoop?" someone echoed.
I had not noticed Lord Restimar to my left. He moved through the few people separating him from the body and stared down at the fallen lord. His back was to me, but I could hear the sorrow in his voice.
"I didn't even recognize him," Restimar said quietly.
Another of our lords, this one fallen just as he was reunited with his king.
"Did anyone see what happened here?" Caspian said, his tone even more solid.
No one answered. How could anyone have seen anything in the chaos?
God, there was so much blood. The pool had spread out over the deck several feet away from the body, only interrupted where Lucy was kneeling. And toward the man's feet, the blood had been disturbed. It was smeared as though someone had—
My eyes dropped to the stain on my leg.
As though someone had fallen into it.
"Caspian," I said before I even knew what I would tell him. "Caspian, I…"
He was looking at me expectantly, concern growing in his eyes as I stammered. But what was I trying to say? That I saw something? I hadn't. Maybe there had not been anything to really see. What could I tell them that would change anything? I had fallen in the blood. Someone had bumped into me. Was that it? Surely, there was something else. Something else that had made its way through the fear and the nightmares and the panic.
"I think—" I began, but stopped when I saw movement at the edge of the crowd.
Something tight in my gut loosened when I saw him, but only for a heartbeat. Lander was staggering through the crowd, shaking his head and blinking fast. His brow was furrowed in pain or perhaps in confusion. My heart began to pound again as I saw the crimson stain on his right sleeve.
And the bloody sword in his hand.
