Rilian stayed away from Ileana for the next two days. He did it partly to prove he could, at least to himself. But he checked with the guards and found that Peri had been with her. They'd spent the first day investigating the wardrobes of Cair Paravel and the shoe closet that most men avoided like extra watch duty, and then Ileana had apparently accompanied Peri through what it would be like to be a maid. They had not asked for him that day.

The next day, though, went quite differently. Rilian did not find that out till the end of the evening, when he walked into his favourite study and found Drinian sitting in a chair. The old sailor put his finger to his lips and nodded at the couch where Rilian had often crashed, when he was young enough to think staying up all night was the best way to get work done.

Rilian looked over and could not help smiling. Peri lay half-sideways, her upper body slumped over one arm, snoring. Ileana curled in a ball on the other end, her knees up to her chest, her head resting on the arm and her hair falling over it nearly to the floor, her eyes closed. Rilian could hear her heavy breathing. He picked up one of the wooden chairs, careful to keep it from touching the floor and making any noise till he could set it down silently by Drinian.

"What are they doing here?"

"Looking for you."

"Why would they be doing that?" Rilian glanced back at them. "Why here?" he asked, keeping his voice low.

Drinian stared hard, and Rilian felt like squirming. He told himself he was too old to feel that now, and waited for Drinian to explain. "Has Your Majesty not heard how they spent their day?" Rilian shook his head, hair falling in front of his face. He impatiently brushed it back again, motioning for his advisor to continue. "Ileana asked for you this morning when she woke up. I didn't like hearing that either," Drinian added, "but wait a bit, will you? Peri said you had breakfast with the Dwarves again, so they headed that way, only to hear from the Dwarves that you'd headed to the armoury. They went there, and it took Peri a bit of doing to get permission even to stick her head inside, and by then you'd gone. A Robin said you'd been heading to the North Tower, and they climbed it."

"Which one?"

"The Northwest one."

"They climbed all of it?"

"That they did. They went up every one of those stairs, just to look for you. And then Ileana stayed and looked at the sea—not that I blame her, it was my favourite lookout, when I had enough strength for those stairs. And then they came down again, and thought perhaps the Robin meant the other north tower. They may have paused for a bit, Peri explaining what north was (apparently directions under the sea are based on land and currents, and wouldn't I love that!) and explaining why two towers are called North Tower. I laughed to hear Peri answer that no, the second one didn't have as many stairs. By then it was lunchtime. So Peri went to the kitchen to find out where you had your lunch, only to find you'd had it and were off again. She made Ileana eat and rest, saying she looked out of breath." Drinian shrugged. "Then they spent the rest of the afternoon looking for you—the stable, the shore, the ship-building yard, pretty much everywhere. By the time they found me…well, she looked a bit like a fish left out of water. I told them you'd probably come here, and to wait for you."

"You did?" Rilian asked, tone a little sharp. Drinian nodded. "I did not think you would tell her that."

Drinian let out a breath. "Maybe I'm an old fool for doing it, Your Majesty. I admit, when the first friend she made was the King of Narnia, I had my doubts. But the second friend she made is a servant. And not even one that could give her information about Cair, either, 'cause I thought of that, and Peri's too new, and too young. She took Ileana all over the Cair without using one of the shortcuts the old folks know." Rilian looked back at the mermaid, at the golden hair falling like its own waterfall, the strong white fingers, and the way she curled up. Drinian caught his hesitation. "By your own tale, she was friends with you before she knew who you were."

"So she said."

"So she said." Drinain agreed calmly. "I'll still keep my eyes open, far as they can see, but Your Majesty, have you ever thought about why the two of us are wary of her?"

"Because we know nothing about her." Even as Rilian said it, a part of him denied the truth of it. It felt like he'd always known her, ever since they had spoken about the grip of the dark.

But he didn't know her. He'd never even met one of her people who had known her, no one who confirmed her story.

The serpent had been alone too.

"That's a part of it, I can't argue. But don't you think she'd be easier to trust if she wasn't so pretty?"*

Rilian twisted around to look at his old friend, nearly forgetting to keep his voice quiet. "What? What do you mean?"

"It seems a part of my wariness, at least, is that she looks as pretty as the sea at sunset. And if that's the case, Your Majesty, shame on me. That's not something she can help, nor does it say anything about her character."

Rilian pondered that. Drinian often gave good advice—but not always.

Drinian saw him thinking and put it a different way. "Ask yourself this. Would you trust her more if she was ugly?"

Rilian laughed, though he muffled it behind one hand. "I don't think she could be." He thought of her bright curiosity, the way she eagerly sought the world she'd known nothing about, and the kindness and fearlessness she showed, particularly around him. It was almost as though she'd stopped fearing the dark, after meeting him, and that—that was beautiful.

"Try to think about it anyway," Drinain said dryly.

And Rilian tried—tried to picture the hair dull and scrubby, the face less like a pearl and more like a rough rock, and admitted to himself that it might have been easier to trust her. To believe she couldn't enchant him, anyway.

Even if he couldn't change her sky-blue eyes.

"Well, that explains your change of heart, my old friend." He quietly clapped Drinian on the shoulder.

"Not just that. But I'll keep my eyes open nonetheless. I failed you once, and I don't mean to do it again."

Rilian's attention had been caught by the first sentence. "What else changed your heart?"

Drinian frowned. "When I came across her, she was…bent, would be the word, on looking for you. And that should have raised all my alarms; it did, there for a moment. But she looked so tired, out of breath, like—well, like a beached fish, half in the water and half out."

Rilian looked quickly at the couch, but Ileana seemed peaceful, her shoulders rising and falling easily as she breathed. He looked back at Drinian, who was looking at him with a sober expression.

"Your Majesty, there's not an enchantress alive who would let herself be weak like that. It took Peri and I both to convince her to wait here for you, and even then, her breathing…" The Captain shook his head. "I would have ordered a sailor below in a heartbeat. I stayed here to watch her, but her breathing seems to have evened out in the last half hour or so. Mostly."

"Mostly?"

Drinian nodded at the couch, and Rilian got up. He crouched in front of his…friend, his guest, he wasn't sure which word to use, and held his hand below her nose.

It was only then that he noticed the hitch in her breathing, the way she stopped breathing for just a second too long, before her body demanded its next breath..

He took his hand away and knelt in front of her, not too close, and gently shook her awake.

Her sky-blue eyes opened almost at once. "King?" she asked, sitting up, and Rilian sat back on his heels.

"Are you well?"

She smiled, as large and joyous as the first time she'd boarded the ship. "I am well, now that I've seen you."

"You were having trouble breathing, lady." Her smile faded and she looked away; Rilian touched her hand, trying to get her attention back, to find out what caused her illness. "What is wrong?"

"Nothing," she responded after a moment, but her voice held the flatness of a sea when there is no wind at all, when all ships are becalmed and the air is hot and still.

She will not tell him, and Rilian does not know why. Is it another thing of her people she is not allowed to reveal, something she can only show, but not explain? Or is her silence for a darker reason?

Drinian's There's not an enchantress alive who would let herself be weak like that runs through his head, and he hopes, tries to believe, that she's not hiding something he should know.

Surely, surely she trusts him.

"Nothing?" he asks, to give her one more chance.

Ileana looks back at him, eyes troubled. "Nothing I can tell you."

Rilian has learned, over these ten years, that there are times to act and times to wait. But he hates waiting, his nature has never been patient, and at this moment he hates it more than ever.

But he knows it will do no good to push, so he gets to his feet and gently wakes Peri. "'Tis time you were both in bed," is all he says as she apologises, and stands back to allow them out of the room.

Ileana's eyes watch his face till the door closes. It's a different kind of longing.


The King decides not to go from place to place the next day. If Ileana will only stay thirty days more—and that can be the test, to see if she keeps her word—then he has twenty-five left.

He doesn't want to miss any of them; but he almost wishes they were over, that he knew if this strange creature will stay true to what she said. So he goes and knocks at her door, waiting till she opens it and inviting her to breakfast. She tells him Peri had baby Hedgehogs to watch that morning, and couldn't come. They eat and then Rilian goes to court, first stopping to let Ileana play with the Hedgehogs as well, watching her for one long moment before leaving her there. After court is finished he goes and knocks at her chamber again. When Ileana opens her door, Rilian notices the window is always open. It's hard not to notice when he watches every detail about her and tries not to think of Drinian's would you trust her more if she was ugly.

And tries not to notice how much people love her. At Cair Paravel, at the shipyard, Hedgehogs and Peri and the Squirrels Rilian raced with; they all flock to the Mermaid. For she sees the Squirrels bounding through the trees and speaks of swimming through the seaweed; she sees the birds fly and asks them how high the sky extends, if it goes as high as the sea is low, and if the winds are like currents lifting the body up by a strength not their own. The Cats adored her; the Wolves taught her how to run, barking as they circled her.

Rilian watched them love her, and tried not to feel uneasy.

Surely it was only good people who could win that much love? The serpent had not gained the earthmen's love, only their obedience. Only Rilian had truly fallen for her; only Rilian would have willingly died for her. Their obedience had been mindless.

But Rilian can feel himself falling for Ileana, too; and he knows she's hiding something. She runs with the Wolves but always comes back to him; she speaks to the Birds landing on the ship rafters but touches his hand as they disperse. She breathes easily—Rilian watches—but she does not want to leave his side. And every time he smiles at her, he sees her joy increase.

She knows, now, that he likes to be near her. And that troubles the King.

They go back to the Cair for supper, and she sits a table down from him, talking with Peri, telling her about the dead plants that float and are built into homes, while merfolk live in houses of living plants, and Rilian listens occasionally, smiling. And he knows he wants to teach her something new. It's summer, and sunset comes late, so after dinner he takes her to the stable. She stands very still when they entire a horse's stall, the horse facing away from them. Rilian can see her arms twitching at her sides, as if she longed to swim away.

"Are you afraid, lady of the sea?"

"My father says not to trust a creature when you cannot see where its mouth is. Why does it not greet you?"

And Rilian laughs, which makes the horse turn its head, and she gasps, partly in delight, partly in shock. "These are as your fish are; the ones we keep in here cannot think or speak as the Talking Beasts do."

"Then you give them a home, so they may not be harmed?" She reaches out one hand to pat it gingerly on its hindquarters. The horse flicked an ear and watched her placidly.

"We keep them to ride. Do you not ride creatures in the waters?"

"Ride?" She pulls her hand away and looks at Rilian again. "To go from one place to another; to ride as the landwalkers ride a ship?"

"Yes."

"You get on top of such a creature?" Ileana asks doubtfully. "But it already has a head; do you lose yours when you sit?"

Rilian, at a loss for a moment, realises she was thinking of the Centaurs, and laughs. She laughs with him—she always does, laughing to see him happy, and she does not mind her own mistakes. "These are horses," he explains. "You are thinking of Centaurs, which are different, We use these," and he lightly touches the reins, "to guide their heads, that they make take us where we wish to go. It is faster and easier than walking." He smiles again. "Even though your feet have begun to harden and you walk much more easily."

"It is much easier now," she agrees happily. "But—if we sit on these, what if we fall? There is no water to catch us."

"The ground must catch you," comes a dry Dwarf's voice from the stable door. "And that is why the Sons of Earth remain on the good solid dirt!"

Ileana looks hesitantly at the horse, then reaches one hand out, touching its neck gently. "But I wish to learn to do all the things the land dwellers do."

"Then take to a forge rather than a horse; you've the arms for it, lady though you are. Though your height might be a problem."

"Perhaps she should learn the easier things first, my good Dwarf," Rilian interjects. He holds a hand out. "I will walk beside you at first, lady of the sea. I will catch you if you fall."

She puts her hand in his at once and steps up on the mounting block Rilian had asked to be brought. The King could still not believe, sometimes, how easily she trusted him. But he shows her how to put her foot in the stirrup, to swing herself around so she sits in the saddle, and to gather the reins—not too tightly—in both hands. Then he clucks at her mount to move, and Clip—the oldest, slowest horse in the stable—begins ambling along. Rilian stays by her feet, watching as her hands clench the reins.

"This is so odd!" she exclaims after a moment. "It's like the rocking of waves when one floats, but…more side to side, somehow." She takes a breath in, giving a small smile. "I will learn to like it."

"The horse has many speeds. The next one rocks you harder, lady—though not as hard as riding an elephant. But the third speed is much smoother, and faster, and the wind blows through your hair. It's a wonderful feeling. We have names for the speeds—a walk, a trot, a canter. I do not think we will try the gallop, the fastest one, at least not yet."

"I have heard the guards using those words, when practising." Ileana twists to look towards that direction—and begins slipping.

Rilian catches her knees, pushing her back up, and calling "Whoa!" to Clip as he does. The old horse gladly stops, and Rilian breathes, not letting Ileana fall. He holds her while her legs flail, trying to get her balance, and he realises she is trying to use them as she would a tail. "Your stomach!" he calls out, trying not to drop her as she moves. "Use your stomach, and balance!"

She rights herself, breath coming in and out, and sits, very still. "I think it is far too easy to fall," she says after a moment, a little breathless, and Rilian lets her go.

"That you did, lady. I am sorry," he adds, wincing at the way her fingers tremble around the reins. "I am not doing much to lift your fear, am I?"

"I did not come so you could lift my fear; you gave me that gift the first day we met."

Rilian flinches. If she had not come for him to lift her fear, what had she come for?

Perhaps he could learn more from her answer, true or false.

So he looks up, into those blue eyes in the white face. "Why did you come?"

"To find you."

That moment stretched into forever—the earnest look on her face, simple truth in her tone, the complete attention she gives him. She had come for him, and Rilian does not know what to do with that knowledge. He looks away first.

"I do not know if I wanted that answer or feared it, lady of the sea."

"I do not understand."

Rilian laughs, but this time she does not laugh with him, for he had not laughed in joy. "I will find it easier to speak if we walk, for movement frees my tongue. Will it please you to stay astride? Astride the horse," he adds, when her forehead furrowed.

"It will do me good to practice."

Rilian clicks his tongue again, watching Clip's head bob slowly as he walks. "I was not alone in the dark, Ileana."

Clip stumbles, and Rilian places a hand on her knee, just in case. But he does not look at her. He can't.

"Would it not be better, if someone else was there to share the emptiness?"

"No." His own fierce tone surprises him, and he tries to moderate it. "No. The one whom I was with—she brought me there. She kept me there."

"She chained you in the dark?" Ileana whispers, horror in her tone, and Rilian sees the reins fall slack. "She locked you in a small room? Like the one I was in? For how long?"

He still can not look at her; he can't raise his eyes above the ground he once lived underneath. The darkness hovers around the edges of his heart. "Not a small room—a city under the ground, where there is no no sunlight. But it was—worse. She took who I was and she locked it away. She made me love her, serve her, stay with her, and she loved the dark—so I stayed in the dark." He shudders, remembering, and feels one of Ileana's hands cover his own. "Though I never loved the dark myself."

"How could anyone love the dark?"

"She loved it, Ileana. It hid all she did from those who might have stopped her. She was empty herself, and so it made her power stronger."

"It was a chain she could never break, then. What a horrid life."

"I would hardly call it a life at all." Rilian stops, and Clip stops with him. "It is not like Narnia," he says, telling it to his heart and his mind, even as he looks around to see the reality he stands in.

Ileana grabs his hand, and that gives him courage, that warm touch, enough that he can raise his eyes and look at her. She sits atop a horse she can barely ride, but her eyes are fixed on his face, not the ground, and the reins lay loose on Clip's neck. "Narnia still existed then," she tells him. "The stars and the sun—like your poem says, there were still there. The Lion was still here. Emptiness says it's all there is, but it's not. Light and warmth and everything still exists."

"We still exist," Rilian agrees, letting out his breath.

"We still exist," she echoes. "Right here, right now, both of us still exist."

Rilian smiles. "Thank you for that reminder," he says, quite sincerely. "I am glad to have you here right now." He turns to make Clip walk on again.

He does not see the pearl that dropped from her cheek, or hear the small click as it hits the ground.

Right now was twenty-five days long.


*Credit where credit is due! ScribeOfHeroes pointed out this prejudice to me, I didn't think of it on my own. Many thanks! It is an interesting theme to add, I'm very glad she did. Also, I forgot to put this at the beginning—I do not own, and beta'd by trustingHim17!