Anvard, Archenland.
Emerylda.
The journey had been long, unnecessarily so, she felt. For just to be safe as she travelled through Narnia, she'd avoided major villages and gathering places. It would not do well for her to reveal herself just yet.
The most arduous stretch had been journeying through the southern mountain range, with its barely-there roads and dangerous beasts. And the bandits who had tried to accost her had been no match for a serpent, their bodies would likely never be found, left to bleed dry upon the rocky outcrop they had chosen for their ambush. Since arriving in Archenland she'd encountered but a few travellers – merchants and the like. Most waved merrily to her, or at least gave her a welcome smile.
And everywhere she looked she could see that infernal Lion's touch.
But she would not give up yet.
Archenland was a hilly country of gorges and open fields. There were no great forests of evergreens, no broad rivers, and it was as if she had left the chill of winter behind when she'd crossed the mountains. No snow, no infernal storms that hindered her progress.
She could very easily understand why Archenland had never been successfully invaded, though it had not always been at peace with its neighbours. To the south lay the Southern March, a vast expanse of rolling hills and woodland that tapered into the Great Desert. To lead an army over its mountainous borders would be near-impossible.
It was to Anvard she travelled – the moat-less castle where the King resided. And after many days when she finally laid eyes upon it, she was far from impressed. It was perhaps the most ugly 'castle' she had ever seen, and in that she included the monstrosity that was Harfang with its dreary grey stones and house-like design.
There were far too many towers for what could possibly be called practical, as if they had simply thought to make it grand by having it reach towards the sky. Constructed with red-brown stones the colour of old blood, it sat upon a green lawn.
Perhaps they relied too heavily upon their natural defences, for the castle did not even have a moat. And those high walls would do little in the event of a siege.
Emerylda let out a sigh.
She should have sent Sapphyre, for even having to deal with Rilian would have been more pleasant that what she was getting herself into.
…
Ettinsmoor.
Sapphyre.
She calmed her breathing, her footsteps light, her mind awhirl. Her soft-soled boots made no sound on the bracken underfoot. For archery calmed her in a way that nothing else did. She had left Rilian with the armourers; they were custom-making him the armour of his dreams, in 'anything but black', and so she had taken the chance to slip out, telling him she would return in a few days.
That had been three days passed.
But she could not go back to Underland, where she questioned everything, even herself.
She did not yet wish to relinquish the feeling of the sun upon her face, or the wind upon her hair. Surely her sister would not begrudge her that.
And she did not want to go back to Eirwyn's probing gaze, and she needed a break from Rilian's too-kind one.
The forest was lush and dense, overflowing with life; the only place that was always green in the dreary north. The canopy – far above her head – completely blocked out the rays of the late afternoon, if any were to reach through the thunderclouds that had loomed overhead.
The hairs on the back of her neck prickled.
Was there something stalking her?
She tightened her grip on her dagger, holding it before her.
The forest opened up to the trickling stream, from which a lone deer drunk.
That lone deer that would not make it through the night, for the rest of the herd had surely moved to a warmer area; but it would feed a family in Underland easily. Rilian would be able to dry out the leftover meat and store it for true winter.
The back of her neck prickled still.
The forest was silent.
But she had to take the chance.
It could save a family.
She tightened her dagger and paused, mid-step and flattened herself against the tree. The deer was drinking still. She could hit it from that distance; and she did not have time to string her bow.
Her breath left her in a soft exhalation. One throw was all she had. She scanned the gnarled trees, tracing each twisted branch that reached out to her.
The deer's head shot up, ears flicked forward, water dripping from its open mouth.
With slow movements she edged around the damp tree trunk, the deer all but forgotten as her heart hammered.
Fuck.
Knuckles white on the dagger hilt, Sapphyre pivoted, preparing to run.
She'd not taken a step when a solid form crashed into her own, sending her sprawling across the forest floor.
A hiss escaped her as her knee collided with a branch and she twisted, moving in the way she had learnt as a knight, she shifted her weight, dropping so her attacker overbalanced. Then she pounced, blinded by the dirt, and leaves across her face, she moved on instinct. As she always practised. Her left fist connected with what felt like a back muscle and she struck, twisting their arm, her dagger at the neck where she could feel the pulse beating erratically beneath her knuckles.
No fur.
She used her arm to wipe her face, enough to clear her eyes.
She dug her knees into the waist and blinked. It was red blood that trickled from where her blade pressed.
"By Aslan's mane, Sapphyre, get off me!"
Sapphyre blinked.
What?
She snarled and yanked back the hood of the cloak to reveal a mop of silver-white locks, the colour of fallen snow. Trembling fingers gripped the smooth chin, and she twisted the face to see the frosty blue eyes that were dancing with laughter.
And punched her in jaw, her knuckles smarting from the blow.
One of the frost-fae.
Neve, who in the days before she'd left had taken to following her and Rilian around the City.
She snarled.
Which only served to make the fae laugh harder as she scrambled back, placing a foot on her chest so he couldn't move, pressing her back into the bracken as her snowflake-wings spread behind her. "Fuck me with a pole axe, Neve, I could have killed you." She cleared the last of the dirt from her eyes and groaned. "And the deer is gone."
Neve grinned, touching the thin trail of blood across the side of his neck. "And you cut me. I'd say we're pretty even."
Sapphyre glared at frost-fae, her lip curling back, more curses on her tongue as he pushed her foot off him.
"Sapphyre you wouldn't have killed me before really checking I was a threat, right?"
Sapphyre sheathed the offending dagger with a huff. She held her hand out to him, her eyes darting to the canopy. Even she would prefer not to be beneath the bowers of the forest when night fell, perhaps it was truly time to return to Underland. But before that… "I'll collect the flowers and head back."
In silence she led the frost-fae through the trees, following the soft gurgling of the river and then the sweet, almost sickly smell cut through the soft scent of the forest.
It had been a field of green but a week before, but the space between the trees had become a patchwork of colour. The colours that dreams were woven from, the small flowers as soft and colourful as Calormene silk, too blue to be called lavender and too purple to be called heather. Nightrose. It grew only in the soil to the north, with small flowers only as big as a thumbnail.
They had a small garden of them in the City that the dryads tended to. But the blossoms that grew wild in the forests were much more potent than any cultivated in the village. There was magic in the soil of Narnia, Emerylda had told her once, though the use of the tiny blossoms was somewhat ambiguous to her. That particular secret was well-guarded. Some sort of magic, she had always assumed, for what else would cause Emerylda to have an interest in them.
Perhaps they were to help with her enchantment of Rilian's mind. She snorted as she sliced through the tiny stems with her dagger, careful not to touch the velvety petals. Her gloves, she had tucked into her belt.
Neve leant against one of the trees as she knelt on the soft ground, unstringing her pouch from her belt. She could feel the frost-fae's eyes on her. "So, how has Rilian been doing?" And there it was. The frost-fae voice kept ever so casual, her eyes on the trees somewhere passed Sapphyre's left shoulder.
Sapphyre snorted. She was quickly learning that subtlety would never be the young fae's strong point.
"Perhaps you could simply ask him yourself, Neve. Though I fear he may think himself too advanced in age to return your affections." She slipped the flowers into her pouch; every so carefully. She had seen the gloves Emerylda used for harvesting nightrose, covered in a waxy coating so nothing stuck, so they could be cleaned. And she well understood why, for the first time she had stumbled upon them she had thought them lovely and had wanted to pick them for her sister as a present. But in the process, she had cut her finger, and the powdery coating of those petals entering her blood. The effect had been almost instantaneous; her heart had raced, like a horse galloping, and the world had shifted before her, colours swirling. It had been as if she had left her body lying there amongst the flowers and ferns. And coming-to she almost imagined it was what it was like for a naiad when they awoke from their intense true-dreams; her auburn locks had been stuck to her brow with sweat, her skin clammy and she had expelled the contents of her stomach. And she'd not made the mistake of touching those flowers directly since.
Unaware of the direction her thoughts had taken, a blushed flared across Neve's face. A frost-fae who looked her years, for Neve had seen but eight and ten years passed. "And what about you? Are you old enough for him?"
She rolled her eyes, the only acknowledgement she would ever give the fae's daft questions, though unbidden her hand brushed against the dagger at her waist. A gift from Rilian. Idiot.
"Do you have enough yet?" She had realised, maybe, that she was not going to get an answer out of Sapphyre.
The nightrose.
She patted her pouch. "It should be quite enough. The flowers will stop blooming again shortly."
"Let's head back before the sun falls."
She nodded, the back of her neck still prickling.
And she knew what she meant.
Let's head back before we do not make it back at all.
And then they made their way forth, the frost-fae incessantly chatting behind her. She only half listened as the young woman told her story after story of things that she and Rilian had done when Sapphyre had been training with the guard, or when she'd been pouring over maps in Emerylda's absence.
"Does Rilian like your wings? He told me that mine are pretty."
"Neve, I can tell you without a doubt that I have never asked him if he thinks my wings are pretty."
"But, do you know? How does he look at you? Do his eyes sparkle?"
His eyes always sparkle.
Sapphyre paused mid-step. Caught unawares by her own thought.
The thought drifted through her mind, unbidden. She was about to voice a question when a whizzing sound shot past her; an arrow imbedded in the tree near her.
And then she saw them.
Bandits, trying their luck in the north.
They were surrounding them.
She did not dare turn away from them, to look at Neve. But she could feel the frost-fae's fear; the girl was no warrior. She was one for stories and books, rather than blades.
Sapphyre's blood burned in her veins as she unsheathed her dagger. She did not have her sword and it would take far too long to string her bow. And time, she did not have.
She flicked her wrist, her knife slashing across the throat of the man who dared to get too close to her, his deep crimson blood splattering across the stone ground and her linen shirt.
The warm blood flickered across her face, hot.
She snarled. "Neve, fly!" she yelled as she moved forward.
And then she was on fire.
She felt every movement of the blade as the bandit's dagger sliced through her skin as if it were cloth.
She could imagine her own blood mixing with the red that was splattered across the bracken. A macabre artwork of pain.
Her next slash went across that attacker's face, slicing through the cartilage of his nose, blinding him with his own blood. Ignoring the pain that burned through her, her kick sent him stumbling back into a watery grave.
She straightened, eyes narrowing.
If she was going to fall, she would take them all with her.
Her rage made her blind to everything save for those twisted faces that dared to harm both her and the frost fae.
…
Neve.
Neve struggled, icy-blue eyes wide as Sapphyre was forced to her knees, her snow-flake wings held roughly by her captor. Neve could not move, even when a rough hand wound itself into Sapphyre's copper tresses, forcing her head back and exposing her neck.
Another hand held a silver blade; finely crafted and polished to a shine.
They were no ordinary brigands.
Neve could not stop the tears that rolled down her cheeks, nor could she stop the whimpers that left her lips. If only she hadn't distracted Sapphyre. Had the bandits followed her? Sapphyre was always so careful, there was no way they could have tracked the Sapphire Knight.
She'd led them to her.
Neve coughed as she was pushed forward, the hand grasping the back of her throat. Pushing her head. Forcing her to watch.
The silver-tipped blade was pressed to Sapphyre's throat, a trickle of red blood following it. And she watched as her idol's eyes widened with true fear.
Sapphire eyes met frosty blue, and in that moment, Neve wondered what the woman saw.
And then she cried out in pain as her neck dug into her neck, the sharp iron scent of fresh blood filling her senses.
…
Sapphyre.
They had drawn Neve's blood.
The frost-fae was trembling with fear, absolutely terrified.
They had drawn Neve's blood.
They had hurt her.
They had fucked up.
Whoever had paid them did not know that she was not defenceless without her weapons.
Weapon-less they had deemed her no threat.
She was the daughter of the King and Queen of Atlantis.
She was Blessed by the Heart.
Magic was in her veins.
She narrowed her eyes, lips drawing back.
She did not need to read any spell as some witches did, she needed no incantation or special herbs. She simply called on that magic deep within her, opening those gates she had locked closed so many years passed.
A single breath left her lips.
She turned her gaze to the bandit closest and she let it go; and her magic burnt through her.
A moment passed.
Then the screaming began.
…
The Ruins of the Witch City.
Rubi.
Her teeth ripped into her bottom lip as she stifled the cry that threatened to tear from her throat as the shock ran through her.White-knuckled hands gripped the table before her as she tried to stop herself from kneeling over.It was as if a flame had shuddered through her – a hot and burning magic that was far too familiar.
She turned to the witch at her side, a shy, slim girl who always wore silver bracelets and a smile. Ardisia was her name, a new addition to their ranks.
"Did you feel that?" Rubi gasped out, hands trembling and lip bleeding she knew she would look a sight.
The witch shook her head and Rubi, shaken to her core, dismissed her with a wave of her hand.
Ardisia hesitated, perhaps seeing the tremble, but nodded and left her in the tent.
And Rubi sunk to the floor, the strength gone from her body.
The rug was more than welcoming, but her mind was awhirl.
She looked down at her hand, at the ring she would never take off, despite the fact it no longer held any magic.
She drew in a shaky breath.
For it had felt as if she were bathing in the magic of the Heart of Atlantis.