Somewhere along the Coast, near the Northern Marshes.
1014.
The Fourteenth Year of the Golden Age.
Asura.
The sea wind tangled through Asura's white hair like an old friend, whispering secrets only the waves could understand. It whipped the long strands around her shoulders, loose despite the simple braid she'd tied near her temple that morning. Her hair was a mark of the north – pale as frost, a living testament to the cold rivers that had birthed her. Salt had replaced sweet water, but the ocean spoke to her just the same.
Asura guided her horse alongside Edmund's, their mounts picking a careful path across the narrow trail that twisted above the sea. Below, the water shimmered with a lazy kind of menace, the tide lapping hungrily against the rocks.
They had ridden all day with the wind at their backs and salt in their lungs, and the River Shribble could be seen ahead, winding its way through the thickening marshlands until it poured itself into the sea.
Beyond that, the ship.
But for that moment, the shadows grew long, and silence stretched between them like a thread. Asura broke it.
"There was another attack," she said, her voice low. "Shadow-wolves. We were escorting a merchant caravan through the Shuddering Wood."
Edmund's gaze snapped to her, and though his posture remained relaxed in the saddle, something behind his eyes sharpened. "Another?"
His dark eyes scanned the shoreline constantly, alert as ever. Asura had always admired that about him – how nothing ever seemed to catch him unaware.
"They came from the trees. No warning. No sound." Her jaw clenched as she looked toward the dying sun.
Edmund was silent for a beat too long. Then, quietly: "They're spreading."
"You said that before."
"It started in the south," his voice was colder.
"By Aslan," she breathed.
"I think someone is directing them," he said, dark eyes locked on the path ahead. "We haven't found tracks. No den. Nothing. They just appear. Too coordinated. Too deliberate."
Asura's hands tightened on the reins. "Magic?"
"Perhaps. Or something worse."
They rode on, the wind carrying seabirds' cries overhead and the faint, briny scent of the marshes growing stronger. The sun was beginning to fall lower, casting gold across the grasses. Somewhere in the stillness, frogs began to sing.
The sun was little more than a molten coin sinking behind the western sea by the time they reached the edge of the marshes.
The ground softened beneath their boots, the scent of brine giving way to damp earth and wild herbs. Tall grass and rushes swayed in the breeze, and the narrow track Edmund had chosen wound between pools of still water reflecting the gold of the dying sky. Crickets had begun their nighttime chorus, joined now and then by the distant, haunting call of a marsh-bird.
A small rise of firmer land awaited them – a hummock shaded by a twisted hawthorn, its roots laced with rock and dry enough for a fire. It wasn't much, but it would do.
Asura knelt near the water's edge, her hand brushing the surface. The cold seeped into her bones in a familiar way, and she murmured something low in the old river-speech, a gentle greeting. The marsh answered with a shiver, a ripple over the mirrored water. Old, sleepy water spirits stirred beneath the lilies but did not rise.
She smiled. They would be left in peace.
Edmund was already unpacking their gear, efficient as ever. His tent went up quickly, his sword within reach even as he worked. Peter had dismounted and was helping Arianna unhitch their supplies from the pack-horse. There was something natural about the way the High King moved among them – not commanding, not aloof.
Just present.
Like he belonged there, even in the mud and dimming light.
She moved quickly to gather dry firewood, her movements swift and purposeful. Edmund set up their camp with practiced hands, his sword always within reach, while Peter helped him unload supplies.
Asura noticed that his attention shifted often, but his eyes never lingered too long on her.
Asura's thoughts drifted to the map she'd studied – of the eastern sea, the Seven Isles, and that final mark far beneath the water where the Merking's court lay. The Coral Court. No one had ever charted it clearly.
No one from Narnia had ever ventured to its deepest halls.
She could swim it, in her water-form – her limbs fluid, her body one with the current. But Edmund and Peter? They would need breath beneath the waves.
They would need Arianna's magic.
And that unsettled her more than she would ever admit aloud.
She didn't trust her. No matter how easily the others did. No matter how gently Peter spoke her name, or how amused Edmund was by her barbs. She was power, sharp and cloaked in beauty, and people always forgot how sharp beauty could be until it cut them open.
Arianna could keep them breathing. Could keep them alive.
But what if she didn't?
Asura stared out at the water beyond the marshes, black as obsidian under the moonlight.
They would reach Brenn by midday the next night – the most populous of the Seven Isles, bustling and loud, a place of docks and trade and shifting loyalties. And from there, the deep.
She pulled her knees up to her chest, watching the fire flicker against the mist.
They were walking into a kingdom they did not know, to treat with people she had only seen in the oldest books. And in her blood, the old warning curled like smoke through the reeds.
Something was coming.
And the deeper they went, the more certain she became: that they would not all return.
Peter had already begun to set up his own tent, keeping his distance from the undercurrent between the women. He glanced up at Asura, meeting her eyes for the briefest of moments before turning his attention back to the fire.
It was a strange, uneasy truce.
Edmund stood from where he'd been crouched near a fallen log, his cloak catching the firelight in dark folds. He stepped close to her, his tone low and serious. "Have the guard build a fire. A strong one. We'll need it through the night."
Asura arched a brow. "You think we'll need the light?"
"I think whatever moves in the dark may not like it."
The shadow-wolves.
That was enough for her. She turned on her heel and strode into camp, her voice cutting cleanly through the growing murmur of soldiers unrolling bedrolls and tightening tent ropes. "I want a central fire built – tall and steady. It needs to last till dawn. Gather what dry wood you can. No one sleeps until it's burning high."
There was a soft clatter of armour as the guards snapped into motion, the kind of obedience that came not only from rank but from trust. She spotted Calim and Vorea near the packs – two younger fauns, clever and quick, though neither old enough to truly remember the White Witch's reign. Vorea had a natural steadiness about her, and Calim was fiercely protective of their small unit, despite being barely older than a child.
"You two," she called, jerking her chin toward them. "Last watch. I want you both rested. Go – get sleep now."
Vorea opened her mouth, likely to protest, but Asura silenced her with a look. "That's an order."
They nodded in tandem, their curved horns catching the firelight as they turned toward the tents.
The others continued their work in practiced formation – gathering branches, feeding the growing fire, setting up a perimeter with burning lanterns and sharpened stakes. She crossed her arms as she watched them, eyes flickering from face to face. Even in such a remote marsh, with the chill and the unease pressing close, her guard moved with discipline. She'd trained them well. Edmund's trust in her was not misplaced.
Still… she could feel it.
That ripple just beyond the edge of hearing. As if something moved within the reeds, watching with a thousand unseen eyes.
She glanced toward Edmund again. He stood just beyond the light of the fire, his dark armour melting into the shadows, speaking in low tones to Peter. Arianna sat a short distance away, cleaning her daggers with methodical care, her green eyes glinting like a cat's beneath her hood.
Asura's jaw tightened.
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. An apt name, she thought.
The fire crackled and hissed as the mist thickened, drawing closer to their camp. 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.
"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.
Peter caught her eye then – just for a second – and there was something in the way he looked at her that made her stomach twist in a way she did not want to acknowledge. He didn't smile. He simply watched her for a moment, as if weighing her, as if seeing her for the first time in a long time, too. And that was the problem, wasn't it?
They had both changed. In more ways than they cared to admit.
"Why the fire?" 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.
…
Somewhere along the Coast, near the Northern Marshes.
Peter.
The fire snapped and hissed before him, bright against the darkness of the marsh. The rest of the camp was still – only the occasional shift of armour or snort from one of the horses broke the silence. He'd always found it hard to sleep before a voyage, as if some deep part of him knew that once they set sail, something would change.
And it wasn't the sea that unsettled him – it was what waited beneath it.
His eyes drifted, almost against his will, to the tent at the edge of the camp.
Her tent.
He told himself he had only wanted to check on her. To make sure she was resting, recovering from the journey. It had been a long ride, and she'd taken charge without hesitation – as she always did. But truthfully, even as his hand had brushed aside the flap, he hadn't known what exactly he'd been seeking.
She had been asleep, curled on her side atop her bedroll, one arm draped beneath her head, the other bent loosely at her waist. Her hair was loose, for once – snow-white strands scattered across the pillow like winter silk. Her face was soft in sleep, free of the sharp focus it held during daylight hours.
It had stolen his breath.
So, now he sat by the fire, gaze flicking toward her tent in intervals, as if some part of him were still there with her.
Asura.
She was unlike any naiad he'd ever known.
The nature spirits of Narnia were usually fleeting, half-whispers in sunlight or ripples in a pond. They kept to the wild places, shy and ever-dancing, quick to flee from the weight of crowns and thrones.
But Asura – she was different – river-born warrior from the frozen north, where the frost held court and the sun was a stranger. And yet she burned. With something sharp and unrelenting. With duty. With defiance.
And fire like that, Peter thought, was rare in any form.
It had not escaped his notice how the other naiads had begun appearing since Arianna's arrival – gliding silently through the palace pools and bathing chambers, murmuring in tongues older than even the trees. But they had all looked to Edmund's wife with adoration in their eyes.
He sighed, running a hand through his hair as he leaned back on one arm, letting the fire's warmth soak into him. There were too many questions. Too many things left unsaid.
But that night she was sleeping.
And for that, he was glad.
Her face had always caught the eye.
It had certainly caught his when she'd stumbled from the Shuddering Wood all those years ago, in the harsh white heart of winter. Year One Thousand and Eight. He remembered the moment with crystalline clarity: the way she'd emerged from the trees, bleeding and half-frozen, then collapsed into the snow as though the forest itself had expelled her.
For a heartbeat, he'd thought her dead.
But even lying still in the snow, she'd looked otherworldly.
Her features had been too fine, too perfectly strange to belong to any of the races he'd known – small and heart-shaped, with elegant cheekbones and a straight nose tipped just slightly upward. Her skin had glowed faintly in the dim light, dusted with that glittering blue pigment around the eyes, ears, and fingertips. Bone-white hair had fanned out wildly around her, tangled and windblown.
She hadn't looked like she belonged to that world – or any world.
And yet she had burned. Even unconscious, even bleeding, there had been something alive about her. Something sharp and defiant. It pulsed in the set of her jaw, in the faint furrow of her brow.
But it had been her eyes that stayed with him.
Wide, slanted things rimmed with impossibly white lashes – lashes like frost feathers. And beneath them, the deepest blue he'd ever seen. Not just blue – fire blue, if such a thing existed. Like a flame had sunk into her soul and made a home there, illuminating the depths.
Oh, she's pretty, he remembered thinking. In that way older girls are.
Because she'd seemed older than him then. Twenty-six, maybe twenty-seven, though he would later learn her kind didn't age the way humans did. At the time, he'd been twenty-one, still learning what it meant to rule, still shaping himself into a king.
But the thought had come unbidden. And just as swiftly, he'd cast it away.
She had come seeking shelter. Seeking protection. A stranger at their gates, hunted and alone. And he had been her king.
It had been his duty to keep her safe. That had been all.
Hadn't it?
He shook his head, chasing away those thoughts.
They were not what was important.
And yet, they lingered.
Peter's gaze drifted back toward the tent, barely illuminated by the firelight. Its fabric rustled faintly in the breeze coming in from the sea – cool and damp and tasting faintly of salt. The air whispered of storms far offshore. The kind that never quite made landfall but still stirred something in your bones.
She had been excellent at her training. He'd seen it firsthand – her discipline, her sharp instincts, the way she moved like a blade drawn fresh from the forge. When Edmund had offered her a formal position within the Royal Guard, it had been no surprise to him. Her natural aptitude, her uncanny speed and focus, had seen her climb the ranks faster than any before her. She was not born to war, not shaped by a royal tutor or raised in a court of steel and blood – but she had made herself into something formidable.
A quiet, relentless storm.
And she had been a breath of fresh, crisp air in those early years for him. Peter had grown used to the careful, reverent ways others spoke to him – deferential, indirect. But not Asura. She had never cared much for ceremony. She'd bowed when protocol demanded it, but never when it didn't. She'd made her opinions known. And he had… valued that.
He still did.
When Edmund had stepped down as Captain after the Battle of the Western Mountains, Peter hadn't hesitated. Asura had filled the role without question – her leadership unwavering, her presence commanding. She had taken up Edmund's rigorous training regime and made it her own, harsher in some ways, more refined in others. The barracks thrived under her rule. The guard was stronger than it had been in years.
But it had changed things.
Her new rank – Captain – had put distance between them. Once, when she was a lieutenant, she'd ridden beside him near daily. They'd sparred together, strategized together, laughed over wine in quiet evenings after long councils. She'd thrown a snowball at his head once during a winter patrol and then pretended she hadn't. He could still hear her laugh echoing through the woods.
But that felt like another lifetime.
Her duties took her farther and farther away – out into the wilds, to the borderlands, the mountains, the marches. And when she returned, she brought her reports not to him, but to Edmund. It made sense, of course. Edmund oversaw matters of defence and diplomacy. But still.
In recent months – and perhaps longer than that, he admitted to himself – she had been pulling away from him.
He could not say when it started. He only knew that if someone were to ask him what they were now, he would not have an answer.
Not quite friends. Not just captain and king. Something more. Something less.
And all of it slipping through his fingers like water.
Peter exhaled, deeply.
The fire crackled, sending sparks into the dark.
The world was changing. The Merpeople summoned them now, for reasons no one yet understood. Shadows stirred in places they shouldn't. He could not afford distraction.
Certainly not one in the shape of a blue-eyed warrior who haunted his thoughts more often than he liked to admit.
He dragged his eyes from the tent, wrapped his cloak tighter around himself, and returned to watching the horizon.
Dawn would come soon. And with it, the sea.
…
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 until two days passed.
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 Narnian-crimson stood over her.
She sobbed.
It had been for naught.