***AUTHOR'S NOTE: This tale is set within the same timeline as my 'Daggers of Ice', four years after in fact. However, Edmund and Peter are not the same, so the story is not the same. Same lore, same history, same world-building (and in the later tales, perhaps even some over-arching plot***
1014.
The Fourteenth Year of the Golden Age.
Somewhere along the Coast, near the Northern Marshes.
Asura.
In groups of twos and threes the knights and soldiers sat huddled around small fires, their voices hushed, cloaks drawn about their bodies in an attempt to ward of the bone-chilling cold that had fallen upon them. The fire that blazed in an unbroken ring around the clearing did little to ward off the cold. The murmur of voices was like the hum of crickets on a summer evening as they traded tales – laughing and cajoling in the way that men at arms were wont to do.
With watchful river-blue eyes, Asura studied them silently. The air whispered to her, in the way that it did to all magical creatures of Narnia, feeding her information, the taste of magic was caught in the drafts as the wind danced through the clearing, feeding the fires.
The flames flickered.
Edmund had been teaching her to be more observant, to take note of the things that people did, rather than the words they said.
And unerringly, she found her gaze upon Arianna.
Her dark leather armour set her apart from the knights in shiny plate armour – but it wasn't just that she realized, almost belatedly. Unlike the knights who seemed to relax around the campfire, entrusting their lives to those on watch, she stayed aware of her surroundings. A reflexive vigilance that made her glance up every time someone entered the camp, and tense imperceptibly when one of them passed her.
And then Edmund placed a hand on her thigh.
Calming her?
She offered him a tiny smile, one that Asura saw rarely.
The Ice Queen, they had once called her.
The night had grown chilly, much to Asura's distaste, hinting at a cold winter ahead. She pulled her cloak tighter about her body. Though born of the north, she hated the cold. She hated the winter.
She shook her head, making note of the campsite once more.
They were travelling along the coast, moving towards the Northern Marshes from which they would take a boat to the Seven Isles. For the waters beyond the Cair were too dangerous, with beasts and swirling waters, if fishermen tales were to be believed. She and Edmund had decided upon their route, erring upon the side of caution.
For they were better equipped to handle any dangers of the land. Though the fastest course, the one they took was prone to bandit attacks, and worse. And it was the reason for their large entourage (most of whom would return to the Cair after seeing them off at the Marshes).
"Everything in order, captain?"
Asura started, near falling off the fallen log she sat upon.
So much for being more observant, she chided herself as Peter sat down. But she watched him sidelong as he ate the soup that the fauns had prepared. Not very king-like, but she supposed there was no grand way to eat soup.
And in the light of the fire, she took that moment to watch him, in a way she'd not been able to in many, many, many months.
The beard did make him look older, rather than a young man of two-score and seven – it made him look more rugged. More serious, even. That and the shiny new scar through his brow that he'd returned with from the Campaign in the North. But his dancing summer blue eyes were still the same eyes she'd known, though they seemed a little darker at times. He'd traded his traditional Narnian-red tunic for one of deep cerulean, one that did not justice to his broad shoulders nor his trim waist – for it was a looser fit, the cotton shirt beneath loose also.
His new appearance certainly made him more appealing to the women of the Court, not that they hadn't flocked to him in droves before.
But no matter what clothes he wore, he exuded that air of royalty.
High King Peter the Magnificent.
He wore the name well. Though she would never admit as such to him.
"Why so many torches?" It was one of the newer guards who asked the question, a young dryad with eyes of grey-green and ash leaves strewn through her hair. No, Asura amended, some of them were part of her hair. An ash-tree dryad?
"Creatures have begun to roam these lands and the woods," it was Edmund who answered, dark eyes on the fire. "Creatures made of shadow, touched by darkness and wrath. You must stay within the light of the fire once night has fallen full.
Another guard, a faun, snorted. "Such a thing sounds like a child's story. Surely you jest."
"Then by all means, step into the forest, step into the shadows," Arianna's voice was cold.
Asura could not blame the faun, for she had thought something similar when they'd received the first reports of creatures made of shadow attacking merchants as they travelling through the north. Wraith-like wolves who had no more body than the early morning mist that drifted through the forest at first light. The wolves attacked from the shadows, pulling their prey into darkness with them, where they would not be seen again.
And then as if on cue, a blood-chilling howl sounded through the twilight.
Even the shadows were dangerous.
Asura shuddered.
…
Peter.
The naiad was sound asleep, and for that he was glad. For in truth, he was not sure what had possessed him to enter her tent unbidden. But he took that moment to observe her.
She was unlike any of Narnia's nature sprites he'd seen, for naiads were notoriously elusive.
They were only more common in the Cair since Arianna's arrival, drawn to her as they were.
But Asura, she was different. Born of the far north, in the lands where the snow fell, and the rivers froze – she was full of fire.
Her face was one that caught the eye. That had caught his eye when she had stumbled out of the forests in the year One Thousand and eight, falling into the snow and laying as still as death in the snow. It gave host to features that were so infinitely not human: small and heart-shaped with high cheekbones and a straight nose with a slightly uptilted tip. A strange sparkling blue pigment that dusted around her eyes, her ears and the tips of her fingers. Bone-white hair that had been sticking up in every which direction. But her most beautiful feature was easily her eyes. Wide and slanted they were framed by thick white feathery lashes. They shone with a bright fire, so dark and deep and blue.
Oh, she's pretty, he distinctly remembered himself thinking, in that way that older girls were. For she's looked to be nearer to twenty-six or seven than to his own twenty-one. But then he'd reprimanded himself, for she was seeking shelter, seeking protection.
She'd excellent at her training when Edmund had offered her a position within the Guard, her natural aptitude saw her quickly rise through the ranks. And she had been a breath of fresh, crisp air for the high King – she did not stand upon ceremony like most did around him.
She had then served as the Captain of their Royal Guard since Edmund had stepped away from the role since the Battle of the Western Mountains. And it was a role she'd filled well, continuing his brother's strict training regime. But where her position as lieutenant had allowed her to be at his side, as captain her duties took her further and further away from him.
In recent months (and perhaps longer than that he admitted to himself), she had been going to Edmund rather than him. She had been pulling away from him, where once he would have said they were close friends. In that moment, he would not know what to call them if someone were to ask.
He shook his head, chasing away those thoughts.
They were not what was important.
He brushed a strand of that pretty white hair off her face, trying not to focus on the silky texture, nor the way his knuckles brushed against her face.
Collecting himself, he stood.
He had to focus on the task at hand.
He left the small tent and was in the process of securing the door toggles when he happened to look up into too-knowing green eyes.
She is more than that, High King Peter. You do not benefit from trying to fool yourself into believing otherwise, Arianna had told him once when he had thanked her for saving his captains life. And those worse, spoken near four years passed had stuck with him, nestled into some part of his brain and taken root there.
And it seemed his brother's wife would never let him forget those words, for he could see them echoed in her eyes as she raised a brow.
…
Cair Paravel.
Unknown.
They had crawled for what felt like hours, until her hands bled and blistered, beneath the walls of Cair Paravel, the tunnel suffocating with its deadly hot air. Her lungs felt like they were collapsing in on themselves, pitch back surrounding her. There was no speck of light that allowed her to see, in the darkness of the tunnel even the seafolk's vision was useless.
So, they continued crawling, with no clue as to how far they had to go, or how far the crashing waves were behind them. She could feel her companions' weariness as she could her own, their heavy laboured breathing echoing her own. But they could not pause, not in the tunnel that was barely wide enough to kneel.
And then came the rats.
She heard the soft scuttling of paws upon the filth-covered unmoveable marble floor, the sound chilling her to the bone. Then the first one crawled over her hand, a startled cry escaping her lips, swallowed by the emptiness of the tunnel. Save us, Inexorable Tash, she prayed. But her silent prayer went unheard.
Their teeth, vicious and needle-like pricked her skin. They had known the dangers; but feeling the thundering of thousands of rats shot terror through her frame. Waves and waves of them, all invisible, leaping and screeching, clawing and ripping. She could hear the two men behind her yelling – men she had not known til two days before. Terror suffocated her as their teeth tore through her soft flesh.
"Move!" which of them yelled, she could not have told. But she did, small bodies snapping under her hands, revulsion welling within her as the skeletons crunched. She could feel her blood flowing down the exposed bits of skin, the hard leather gauntlets protecting only what it covered.
And then she saw white. A barely perceptible pinprick of light.
She rolled out into the open, gasping and sobbing. Her once beautiful scaled skin, bleeding and shredded, her hands scraped beyond repair. With heavy gasps she breathed in the fresh air, her eyes blinded by the sudden brightness.
The grass was heavenly to touch, tears streaming down her face. She almost laughed when the man joined her; his hair that was more blue that violet sticking up in every which direction.
And no one else came.
A sick wash of horror flooded through her, and the man seemed to have realised the same thing, because he was already scrambling back to the pipe, calling and calling with only echoes as a reply. The handsome man from the Eastern Sea, who had flirted with her when they had met in that dark dark cave, their employer hidden by shadows and mystery.
We left him behind.
And then the armour-clad feet filled her vision, and she looked up as the figure clad in crimson stood over her.
She sobbed.
It had been for naught.