The Heartland. Atlantis.
2790.
214th Year of the Reign of Emperor Beryl and Empress Opallyne.
Sapphyre.
"For Shield and Stone. For Shield and Stone." The chant echoed through the amphitheatre, the words on the lips of thousands upon thousands. Tankards would not be empty that night, nor would any bed be cold, and celebrations would last long after the two moons went to sleep, and the sun showed its merry face once more.
And Sapphyre smiled as she raised her shield, exuberance bubbling through her very heart.
The last six years of her life had led her to this moment. To the moment where her Path would truly start.
She turned to those who welcomed her.
Standing proud in their Atlantis-blue cloaks, silver-gold armour polished to a shine.
Their gazes were clear, their smiles echoing her own. They were the standard of chivalry, the ones who rode to battle when the bravery of others was a whisper of the past. They stood for what was right, for what was good. They defended the weak and looked past no wrongs. They were the ones who tool the tongues of tyranny and rammed them back down their throats.
The Knights of the Heart.
Now her comrades in arms.
She'd worked tirelessly towards that moment.
The shield was heavy – but so was the role she embraced.
"For Shield and Stone."
Sapphyre smiled.
"Sapph, you did it," and then Emerylda was hugging her, her smile matching Sapphyre's own.
"We're proud of you, Sapph," and then her brother was ruffling her hair, his own smile more reserved, but it was there nonetheless.
Her brother was proud of her.
Diamande.
In that moment, Sapphyre did not think life could be any sweeter.
…
Somewhere in the Western Wilds.
2352.
49th Year of the Reign of King Caspian X.
Sapphyre.
She left Ardisia at the edge of the marshes, so the witch could continue her journey over the Western Mountains to answer the mysterious call. She contemplated joining her, but she knew that whatever, or whoever, had called the witches to the West would not be happy with her intrusion. A witch of great power, she was sure, perhaps one to rival even Emerylda.
For the closer she got she could feel the magics brewing, she felt it tugging at something deep, deep within her.
Her sister would wish to know about it before they made any further plans and so she'd turned away and drifted with the wind. Leaving the mountains at her back and many questions unanswered in her mind.
Perhaps instead she should journey to the East, to the Nation of the Merpeople. They were notoriously difficult to deal with, bloodthirsty and ruthless, but she had learnt long ago how to deal with such people. For difficult did not mean bad.
But that was a decision for another day.
That was a decision for Emerylda.
Sapphyre basked in the afternoon sunlight, her cloak spread upon the rock, enjoying the last of the days' warm rays. The last sunfall she would see for a while once she returned to Underland. And it was growing harder, with each passing day, to ignore the tugging, sinking feeling inside of her. The one that told her to return, to speak with Emerylda, to spar with Rilian, to laugh with him.
Warmth flushed through her, quick and startling, that had nothing to do with the sun as an image of his indigo eyes flashed through her mind. She sat up, pressing a hand to her brow, the other to her fast-beating heart.
She had done so well at keeping her mind occupied, from keeping the fruitless thoughts of him from intruding. And it was as if floodgates had opened – image after image flowed through her. His laughter, his smile, his grin when he thought he was to best her.
Rilian. Rilian. Rilian.
She groaned, pressed her head to her hands.
She shouldn't have paused in her journey.
Selfish.
Foolish.
He was beyond her reach.
He was to be Emerylda's.
She should not think of him as she did.
She knew that.
And yet…
"Ho!"
Her head shot up, eyes focusing on the mounted figure that paused not ten feet from the rock she sat upon. A knight? She'd been lulled into a false sense of security, so lost in her thoughts and the rays of the sun that she'd not even noticed that he'd been approaching.
"Ho, fellow traveller," in a swarthy face, his teeth flashed white as he grinned at her. "I did not notice you here until you had sat up."
Inwardly she cursed herself. She should have covered herself with her cloak. She should have stayed in her bird form. She should have been more careful. Foolish. "Nor did I notice you, sir," she gave him a smile in return. But she did not slide down from the rock, did not give up her height advantage.
No merchant was he; his leathers were of fine make, his boots perfectly tailored. His skin was not weathered, it did not bear the lines of one used to harsh conditions.
A knight?
A lord?
What was he doing there?
"Would you care to join me? I am on my way to Harfang, for a venture with the giants." To Harfang? Not likely. Not a human unaccompanied by a witch. Her gaze narrowed. Perhaps he was not alone. But a quick scan of the horizon showed her no other knights hiding behind rocks or bush. "I find that these roads are not what I am used to. Quite easy to get lost."
A test. "And from where do you hail, sir?" She fastened her cloak about her shoulders, eyeing from beneath lowered lashes.
He was not a warrior, or at least he was not anymore. He wore a single dagger at his waist, though perhaps there was a sword hung upon his saddlebags. "Cair Paravel, my lady. Trade has gone quiet of late, so I thought I'd try my hand further north."
Too much information, offered too freely to a stranger. Any doubt she'd had of his lie was gone in that moment. She would find out who he was and what he wanted. "It is a dangerous land, sir, for one to be travelling alone. I was waylaid but a league west of here. I was merely resting for I've spent near a full day running. I lost everything save what was on my person."
Let him know that she too was willing to lie.
"The sun sinks low, for safety shall we share a fire this night?"
She could not say no, not really, and she had no wish to fight that eve. She truly was weary from travel. And so, she nodded, sliding down off that rock and watching him as he set up the fire. He made quick work of it, efficient, practised. At odds with the quality of his clothing and self-assured set of his shoulders.
Who was he?
"I'm not one prone to superstition, not since I left my sea-days behind me," he glanced at her sidelong as he struck the flint. "But there are many tales of witches traversing this land."
She almost smiled at that; "If we come across any, sir, I shall protect you."
He chuckled in response, a flash of too-white teeth. "You remind me of a woman I met many years ago."
"I would have to know this woman to see if you speak compliments or insults."
At that he laughed outright. "In face only, you look like her. The beauty of the dryads and the fae. But you've not her sly look. You look trustworthy."
"A strange thing, to judge one's character upon their face."
He looked at her then, truly looked, his dark eyes keen. And she wondered, really, what he saw in her. He did not speak, not for a long while. A silence that stretched on and on, as he simply gazed at her. "I did not tell you the full truth, my lady," he took a sip of his drink, offering her the other cup as his gaze slid from hers. "I am searching for a friend. He went missing some years ago." A pause. A sigh. "The son of my dearest friend, such a bright, promising young man."
Rilian.
He was searching for Rilian. Of course he was. Her heart sunk as she eyed her bow, her fingers twitching; it would be far quicker to reach for his dagger, to slice it across his neck. To leave his body in the marshes as she'd done with countless others. And yet…
He was smiling at her, with those dark, kind eyes.
She could not do it.
He cared for Rilian, as she did, he was not a faceless knight sent by the King to return his heir; he was a friend.
She found that her hands had stilled of their own accord. She did not reach for her bow, nor his dagger which was closer. Instead, she reached for her magic, where she'd pushed it deep within her. It was an enchantment she wove, soft and beguiling, like she'd seen Emerylda do countless times before. She whispered soft, gentle words as the sapphire mist of her magic wrapped around him, fogging his mind. She did not have the skill with magic as her sister did – but she had seen her sister do it more than she could ever hope to count.
She did not have the skill that Emerylda did – but she had the power.
Her magic was a wild thing, deep and untapped. And it poured out of her, as if it were a sentient being, glad to be free, seeking purchase on the not-merchants mind.
"You must leave this place," she whispered, and the sapphire mist of her magic encased him. And then she was in his mind as if it were her own. She saw him, as he was, laid bare for her perusing. She saw his tough, cynical nature, his practicality. She saw him sailing on an extravagant ship. A dragon. A beautiful woman with violet eyes and hair like starlight. Islands. Cair Paravel. A brief lover, with eyes darker than the night. Rilian, as a young boy, those memories steeped in love, in affection. Rilian, older now, laughing and jesting with his fellow nights. Caspian, the great king, crying. She pulled her magic back, reigning it in before it touched the memories: before it wiped his mind of Rilian, as Emerylda would have. And perhaps that would have been safer.
But she could not.
She could not.
"The prince is not to the north, the prince is not to the west," it was the same whisper-command she'd heard Emerylda wield countless times. "The prince is not in these lands.'
His eyes turned blue for a moment, empty, gaze-less as her command controlled his mind. And then he blinked, shaking his head and his dark eyes flickered to hers. Confused. "I will journey to the River Shribble. The prince is not in these lands."
...
Upon the Shores of the Sunless Sea.
Eirwyn.
She felt the change. She could feel it in the wind and in the air. She could feel it in the water that carved a path below the rivers frozen surface. A shift in the magic, in the very foundations of the land.
Something had changed.
Narnia was stirring once more.
Eirwyn paused, her wings slowing as she turned, drawn by the softest of sounds, different from the soft lapping of the almost-waves against the shore. The fog rolled out before her, clinging to everything it touched. The trees beyond the shore were veiled in the same mist, their trunks sombre brown with sable cracks in that gnarled bark. Near life-less, a parody of the world above.
Her gaze travelled the shoreline, searching the silhouettes, searching for the thing that had made the sound.
And then she saw the two eyes, staring at her from within the fog, from within the water. Too far away to be standing upon the pebbly shore.
As she moved closer the shadow became a face: pale, sullen skin, almost grey. Dark strands of blue-black hair covered her bare body, limbs a little too thin and a little too long to be called beautiful; her hair trailed into the water, so long that Eirwyn could not see where it ended. But it was those eyes, surrounded by a dusting of blue sparkling pigment, that unnerved her – a deep, dark cerulean, the same colour as the depths she stood upon the shores of. Dark and haunting, like staring into a well that had no bottom; a sky that held no stars.
A salt-water naiad.
An ancient one.
"We are at a precipice," the voice was gravelly, but soft. Nearly a whisper that Eirwyn had to strain to hear. But she had no desire to move closer, for the long-fingered limbs that hung at the naiad's sides were ended with nails long enough to be called talons. "One sister will bring the ruination of a world. One sister, its salvation. The prince must choose."
Eirwyn started but was careful not to let her surprise show upon her face.
"Dreams tells us of what is, what has been, and what could be."
Eirwyn drew in a startled breath; when she'd thought herself beyond surprise.
A dream-seer.
It was an old magic, one that blossomed forth in chosen naiads in times when Narnia was in peril. An ability to see both past, present, and future in the world of dreams. And the naiad had chosen to warn her: in the way of the ancients, in the words of riddle, in the multilayered way of the storyteller.
"I thank you naiad, for your words," Eirwyn began, as the naiad of the Sunless Sea began to disappear once more into the mists, as if she had never been there.
Eirwyn turned to look towards the Dark City, with the not-sun shining bright above it.
It was not her first time hearing a prophecy.
She knew they were not so straight forward, that more often than not the words did not mean as they seemed.
And this one she would ponder upon.
For even as Narnia changed, she would be there still.