Underland. The Dark City.
2352.
49th Year of the Reign of King Caspian X.
Eirwyn.
Eirwyn sat in the dimly lit dining hall of the Dark Castle, her fingers idly tracing the rim of the goblet before her. The scent of roasted meat and spiced wine filled the air, but the frost fae ate little. Her glacial gaze moved across the chamber, taking in the gathered figures with a quiet, detached interest.
The Knight Commander had returned, though she had departed just as swiftly. Yet something about her presence lingered, a disturbance in the air. Eirwyn had not missed the change in her demeanour – nor had she missed the way the dark knight had looked at her.
Not with devotion, nor with the mindless obedience expected of a servant bound by enchantment.
He was lucid.
And his loyalties were not to Emerylda.
A slow, knowing smile touched Eirwyn's lips. No, his allegiances lay elsewhere. With the Sapphire Knight. The pieces of the game shifted before her, subtle yet undeniable. It was a quiet betrayal, one that Emerylda had either not seen or had chosen to ignore.
Eirwyn leaned back, swirling the wine in her goblet.
Interesting.
"You are silent tonight," he murmured.
"I have little to say," she replied coolly, keenly aware of the Emerald Witch's attention on them. "Your lands are strange to me. Your politics even more so. I prefer to observe."
He tilted his head slightly, as if weighing her words. "Tell me, then—your homeland. The Everwinter, you called it? What is it like?"
Eirwyn hesitated. She had spoken of her home only rarely. But something in his tone, the quiet longing beneath his words, made her answer. "It is an endless expanse of ice and snow, stretching further than the eye can see. The castles there are built from frozen spires, carved by the wind and time. The air is sharp, the cold unrelenting. But there is beauty in its stillness."
Rilian listened intently, his expression distant. "One day," he murmured, "I would like to travel the length and breadth of Narnia."
She watched him, noting the wistfulness in his voice. He spoke not as one who had roamed far and wished to roam again, but as one who had never been free to roam at all.
"You put me in mind of a star I once met," she said after a moment. "One who had watched the world from above, longing to tread upon the lands she could only see from afar."
Liliandil.
Rilian gave a small, hollow laugh. "And yet my longing is not the same. I am no star. I was not bound to the heavens, but to this place beneath the earth. And I would give anything to walk beneath the open sky once more."
Eirwyn did not reply, but for the first time, she understood something of the man's plight.
It wasn't just a longing for freedom; it was a yearning for agency. To be a man, not a weapon. To choose his own path.
As she listened to the soft murmur of their very one-sided conversation, a thought struck her with sharp clarity: Emerylda did not know.
She had no inkling that he had slipped away beyond the reach of her will, that he had wandered in the world above, untethered and unseen. He had returned, yes – but on whose whim? Not hers.
She did not know that he had been taken.
She did not know that he had been returned.
She did not know that the dryads had been freed.
A slow, glacial smile curled at the edges of Eirwyn's lips, though she hid it behind the rim of her goblet. How deliciously ironic. The witch who thought herself the master of all things, blind to the shifting of her own pieces on the board.
The frost fae leaned back in her chair, her fingers tracing absent patterns in the chilled condensation of her glass. Her gaze flicked – briefly, sharply – to the Dark Knight at Emerylda's side. He sat still, composed, the perfect vision of a loyal servant. But Eirwyn saw him for what he was.
A fracture.
A quiet betrayal waiting to be spoken aloud.
A piece in the game, though his purpose was yet unclear.
But Eirwyn was patient.
She had all the time in the world.
…
Somewhere near the Owlwood.
2352.
49th Year of the Reign of King Caspian X.
Sapphyre.
Sapphyre crouched down, the cold ground beneath her fingers sharp and unforgiving.
Under the vast, aching expanse of Narnia's sky, where the wind howled and the snow began to fall, soft and silent, she laid the squire to rest.
Her hands moved methodically, stacking stones on the freshly dug dirt. Each stone was a small tribute, each one placed with care and reverence, though the heartache gnawed at her with every motion. The snow dusted her shoulders, soft and unrelenting, as if the world itself was trying to erase the sorrow.
She had done it before, yes. Laid others to rest, given them their final dignity, even in places far darker than the small patch of dirt near the hidden entrance to Underland.
But it felt different in that moment.
Ashtan hadn't deserved it.
His life had been cut short, stolen by those who trafficked in cruelty. And her eyes, as sharp as ever, refused to blink away the memory of the blood splattered over his body, his last breath mingling with the dirt.
She had failed him.
The cairn was small, but it would stand.
It would hold something.
She would make sure of that.
She placed the final stone and stood slowly, dusting her hands off as the first flakes of snow began to collect on her skin. A faint breeze swept through the clearing, carrying with it the weight of the silence between her and the lost soul beneath her.
Sapphyre took one last lingering look at the cairn, her thoughts heavy as the snow fell softly around it. The wind whispered through the trees, the world feeling eerily quiet for a moment, almost like it was holding its breath.
Then, with a sharp exhale, she straightened and turned away, pushing the sorrow aside. There was more to be done.
She couldn't afford to linger in grief. She needed answers. She needed to understand why they had been so close to the entrance of Underland, so far from any settlements or safe places. Bandits rarely ventured this deep into the wilderness unless there was something they sought.
The snow crunched beneath her boots as she moved with purpose, her eyes scanning the ground for any signs, any clues the bandits might have left behind. There had to be something. She wasn't about to let his death go unanswered, and certainly not the oddity of their presence near Underland's borders.
The area was still quiet, save for the occasional gust of wind that sent a shiver down her spine. The snow had started to accumulate on the trees, clinging to their branches like ghosts in the moonlight. It was beautiful in an unsettling way, the land blanketed in a pale quiet.
Sapphyre's boots slid against the ice as she scrambled up onto a nearby rock, her fingers grasping at the cold surface for purchase. She pulled herself up, the movement swift and practiced, her sharp eyes already scanning the landscape as she crested the rock's peak.
"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 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 and warmth shall we share a fire this night?"
She could not say no, not really, and she had no wish to fight that eve. 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. He went by the name Rilian."
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 bushes 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 cowardly 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.
Her hands trembled at her side, her fingers still tingling from the touch of the magic. She could have erased his memories, taken away the pain, the weight of the past. It would have been easier for both of them. She knew it.
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."