Serena shifts her arm, repositioning her head as she tries to keep the rest of her body still. The thin bedroll underneath her softens a lot more of the uneven ground than she'd expected, but it's not the discomfort of sleeping on the ground that keeps her awake. The cold, too, is uncomfortable, but even that is manageable. She stifles a yawn in the crook of her arm, so exhausted, so bone-deep weary from a day more demanding than any other in her life, wishing sleep would drag her away from her aching body.
But no, the persistent heat of someone else's body pressed against her back is too much of a distraction. She turns her face further into her arm as Edmund shifts onto his back, his upper arm now resting along her spine. She shifts the cloak and blanket over her ear, though the pitch black night already hides her burning cheeks and neck.
"Which of you is older," he asks suddenly, and Serena actually flinches though he's barely spoken above a whisper. It takes another moment for her to even comprehend the words, and even then she whispers back a 'what' before rolling onto her back as well. Edmund shifts— and he must be fully off of the bedroll now, she realizes— but there's only so much room between the trunk scraping against her right side and the snow-covered branches of their shelter's boundary. She considers turning onto her left side, but something about that just seems too… intimate. So their shoulders remain pressed together, instead.
"Mael, right?" he says, "You're twins?"
"Oh," she breathes. She and Mael are called 'the twins' so often in Corsecant that she's never had to answer this question. She's silent for a moment, trying to figure out why he would ask, but then realizes the silence has stretched longer than it should. "He was born first."
"So he'll inherit the throne." He says it conclusively, not like a question— as if she's settled a matter he'd been contemplating for some time. Serena stretches her neck backward, staring up toward the branches above her head. She slips a hand out of Edmund's glove and reaches up to slide her finger along the thin needles she can't see.
If the mess about her brother is true— and she has no reason to believe her old nurse would lie— Serena isn't sure any more that her father can name Mael as heir. Serena picks needles off the branch, the thought that she could be the one chosen still sitting as sourly in her stomach now as it did the first time. She swallows hard, and then feels the tickle of breath in her hair when Edmund turns his head to face her.
"I don't know," she whispers. She lowers her arm and tucks it back under the blanket, searching blindly for the glove she'd removed.
"You don't know?" She can still feel his breath ghosting through the loose hairs by her face when she finally locates the glove and takes longer than necessary pulling it back on. How much should she tell him? Serena regrets every lesson on politics and negotiation that she'd failed to give her full attention to. She can still picture Mael's unimpressed glare every time she was caught daydreaming while their tutor tried to explain different alliances and trade agreements. Had he known? She twists her fingers together, not sure she wants to know the answer to that.
"How does it work in Narnia?" she asks, glad now for the cover of darkness. It feels easier to ask questions she should already know the answer to without his piercing gaze on her— and easier to avoid the questions she doesn't want to answer. Serena can tell when Edmund turns his head in a different direction when his breath shifts away, and then she can feel him shrug.
"Hereditary, I suppose." She hadn't expected him to sound hesitant about it, and now she turns her head toward him. She's almost sure she can see the profile of his face. With the layers of icy snow falling outside, though, slowly burying them under the branches, it's probably just her imagination. "Or Aslan chooses," Edmund continues in a more contemplative tone. The name means no more to Serena than any of the others he's mentioned throughout the day, but she doesn't want to reveal any further ignorance by asking about it.
"It is hereditary in Corsecant," she divulges instead, "but a successor can't be named before their twentieth birthday." It's more of a formality than actual procedure, Serena knows, but she suspects it's the reason her father has never clarified the matter. As far as she knows, even Mael has never been told one way or the other. Maybe that's why he's always pushed so hard, always tried to be the best at every lesson, always fought the hardest.
"When is that?" Edmund asks then.
"Next year, the summer solstice." At least, that's when their birth has always been celebrated.
"So on the solstice Mael turns twenty and your father names him heir?" Serena bites the inside of her lip and folds her hands against her stomach, clenching them tightly. Edmund sits up abruptly, knocking some snow onto them before he remembers to stay low. She hears him take a breath as he turns to face her.
"A council of nobles will have to confirm it," Serena says quietly, trying to skirt around the real question. He exhales slowly, apparently thrown off of whatever it was he'd been intending to say next.
"Why?"
"Just procedure," she says, and Edmund makes an 'ah' noise of understanding.
"So there's no chance it would be you?" Edmund asks. His knee bumps against her shin as he shifts, and Serena holds herself rigidly still. Maybe he's just asking, clarifying the whole thing.
"Mael is the logical choice," she whispers, and she knows the truth of it deep in her heart. Mael has always been so driven to succeed, and he has. It's not that Serena wasn't equally driven, but she'd always succeeded in different areas— in pursuits that made sense for a woman of noble birth.
Edmund shifts onto his back again, apparently accepting her answer. She can still feel him fidgeting, though, each anxious movement shifting the blanket and cloak that are once again covering both of them.