Somewhere along the Coast, near the Northern Marshes.
1014.
The Fourteenth Year of the Golden Age.
Asura.
The sun crept slowly over the marshlands, its pale fingers of light casting a cold, golden glow over the macabre blood-splattered ground. The mists still lingered, swirling around the bases of the distant trees, as if the land itself had not yet fully woken from the night's horrors.
The ground was painted red, dark splotches where the attackers had fallen – some with their bodies left twisted in unnatural angles, others almost torn apart by the wolves.
Of those who had attacked them, three survived the night.
They were knelt on the blood-soaked ground, their hands bound behind their backs with thick ropes, their heads hanging low. Two men, one woman.
The bodies of their companions, the ones who had been so eager to make them a spectacle of suffering, lay scattered across the marsh, some half-hidden in the undergrowth, others plainly visible where they had fallen. But the survivors, the ones who had cowered before the wolves and now knelt in the dirt – they were the ones who would face judgment.
Asura stood still, arms crossed over her chest, her sharp eyes scanning the captives. Her face was unreadable, the mask of the Royal Guard firmly in place. Yet beneath it, a storm brewed, questions and concerns swirling in her mind.
The survivors were still shaking, their eyes darting nervously toward the trees, as if expecting the shadow-wolves to emerge from the shadows at any moment. The light, piercing through the dense mist that clung to the trees, illuminated the details of their appearance, making the horrific events of the night seem even more vivid.
The man who had directly attacked Arianna was the most striking of the three. His face was a horror – an open gash that sliced across his brow, down to his jawline, likely blinding one eye. The wound had been hastily tended to with rags and strips of cloth, but the blood still seeped through, staining his skin a deep crimson.
As the sunlight caught his skin, Asura could see the faint shimmer of pearlescent scales beneath the dirt and blood. They were subtle, but unmistakable, like the sheen of fish scales, covering his neck and down to his chest, almost imperceptible unless one looked closely.
His body was a canvas of swirling, intricate tattoos, thick black lines that twisted and spiralled over his arms, disappearing beneath torn sleeves and ragged armour.
The woman beside him – her skin as pale as moonlight – had her hair matted with blood, her face streaked with grime and the remnants of a night's terror. Her body was hunched, trembling, as if the weight of what had happened was too much to bear. The light revealed more of her skin, showing the same pearlescent scales that caught the early sunlight, shimmering faintly as if they were trying to resist the light's touch.
The last of them was a young man, no older than two-score, his wide eyes filled with fear and confusion. His body was no less marked than the others, his skin dotted with faint scales that seemed to shift and shimmer as if they weren't entirely part of him. His tattoos were less elaborate, though no less ominous – a simple series of black streaks and symbols that wound around his arms. The young man's wound, however, was the most severe.
His blood pooled beneath him, staining the ground a deep red. He was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling in quick, shallow gasps, and his eyes flickered from the blood on the ground to the people surrounding him.
They were all in the same state – broken, wounded. Their movements were slow, sluggish, and they seemed to shrink away from the growing daylight, as if afraid of what it might reveal.
Asura's eyes narrowed as she observed them, noting every detail, every slight shift in their posture.
The air hung heavy with tension, thick with the metallic smell of blood. Asura could feel the weight of it, pressing down on her chest as she stood in silence. She could smell the faint, almost sickly-sweet scent of death, the residue of the attack, the fear of the living.
There was no immediate danger, not from the prisoners.
Still, the woman among them, the one with the bloodied face and the haunted expression, shifted slightly. Her eyes flicked to Asura again, with something in them that Asura couldn't quite read.
Arianna stood nearby, her stance relaxed, but her eyes never left the three captives. The sound of her daggers twirling in her hands was rhythmic, almost hypnotic as the blades sliced the air. The faint glint of metal reflected in the morning light, and though she had taken a blow to the shoulder during the chaos of the night, there was no sign of injury.
Arianna had clearly healed herself during an early morning foray into the river that wound through their camp. The cool waters of the river had mended her wounds, leaving her as poised and dangerous as ever.
The survivors, the three who had dared to attack them, shifted uneasily under Arianna's intense scrutiny.
The Narnians had suffered no casualties, only minor injuries and weariness.
But the bodies, and body parts, of their foes littered the clearing and the forest beyond.
"What do we do with them?" Asura directed her question to no one in general, her sword in the direction of the three dazed bandits. She knew they had to move on – they had a ship to board.
"Let them rot," Calim growled, the faun's usually merry demeanour darkened.
It was then that Arianna moved, her daggers catching the first rays of the rising sun, reflecting a cold, lethal glint in the half-light. The captives, already trembling in the aftermath of their terror, quailed even further, their faces drained of the remaining blood and bravado.
Asura's eyes narrowed, and she instinctively reached for her own sword, but it was the soft rasp of Arianna's voice that froze her. "Edmund."
Arianna's posture was rigid, controlled, but Asura could feel the underlying tension, the silent decision hanging in the air. And in the same moment, Edmund was there – suddenly behind his wife, his tall form casting a long shadow across the captives as he loomed over them. His face was grim, his eyes sharp and focused, his posture that of a man prepared for whatever decision was about to unfold.
Asura stood in silence, watching the unspoken exchange between the two monarchs. There was no need for words; they were in sync, their bond deep enough that even in that moment of danger, their communication needed no elaboration.
In the space of those few seconds, she could tell that a decision had been made. Whatever Arianna had in mind, whatever Edmund's thoughts were, they had reached an understanding.
"They were following us," Edmund added, his tone low, unreadable. "From Cair Paravel. That wasn't a coincidence."
The Just King stepped forward, silent as a shadow. His face was unreadable, carved from stone and shadow in the growing light. His eyes – dark and fathomless – lingered on the three figures slumped against the tree line, bound and broken. He did not need to speak. Arianna had called him not for permission, but for judgment.
And together, they passed it without words.
Asura's fingers tightened around her sword hilt. The air was tense, brittle, as if one wrong move might shatter the moment. Calim shifted beside her, his hooves crunching in the dried leaves, his eyes never leaving the captives.
Where was Peter?
The three didn't beg. Perhaps they no longer had the strength, or perhaps the wolves had stripped them of it. The blind man was barely upright, his head bowed, lips cracked and pale. The woman, younger than she'd first appeared, shook violently – whether from cold, fear, or blood loss, Asura couldn't tell. And the last, the one with the shoulder torn apart by shadow-wolf fangs, was already fading.
His breaths came in short, sharp gasps, like he was drowning in open air.
Then Arianna turned to face them fully. "We do not have the luxury of dragging enemies across kingdoms," she said, her voice clear and sharp as her daggers. "And we cannot risk them alerting whoever sent them."
Edmund's hand came to rest on the hilt of his sword, though he did not draw it. "We are not executioners."
Arianna did not look at him. "No," she agreed, "but we are kings and queens. And we protect our kingdom."
The silence that followed was almost reverent, the kind that belonged more to shrines than battlegrounds.
Asura's heart pounded. She'd seen justice before – swift, ruthless, and necessary. But that moment felt like something else. The weight of it pressed into her ribs.
The blind man lifted his head slightly, and a broken grin curled the edge of his blood-smeared lips. "You think killing us will change anything?" he rasped. "You think it'll stop what's coming for you?"
Arianna's eyes, green as glass and twice as sharp, met his. "No," she said. "But it will slow it down."
The air grew thick with tension as the sharp ring of metal split the silence – Asura turned sharply at the sound, just in time to see Arianna unsheathing her longest dagger. The blade shimmered in the morning light, unnaturally bright, the faintest hum resonating from it like a whisper of wind across glass.
The magic of another world.
"Arianna, don't." Peter's voice, low and gravel-edged, cut through the stillness like a blade of its own. He didn't shout, but there was iron in the words, a king's command wrapped in concern.
But the queen did not waver.
Her expression remained carved from stone, unreadable, as she stepped forward. The captive man barely had time to flinch before the blade pressed to his throat, nestling against the fluttering beat of his pulse – too fast, too shallow. Blood still dripped from the gaping wound on his shoulder, soaking into the moss below.
"You followed us. You attacked us," Arianna murmured, her voice as cool as the edge of her weapon. "You dragged my people from their tents like cattle."
The man met her eyes, sweat mixing with the grime and blood that painted his face. His lips remained pressed in a flat line, jaw tight.
And still, she didn't press the blade in further. She simply held it there, letting him feel the weight of it, the threat that hung like lightning in the sky just before it strikes.
The silence was a second heartbeat.
No answer. No sound but the slow drip of blood and the whispering wind.
Arianna's next words were so quiet Asura barely heard them. "Then you'll leave this world with your silence."
"Please, your Majesty, please," the man was openly sobbing, the crystalline tears falling from his eyes like petals from a dying rose. His body shook like a leaf, trembling limbs almost vibrating. "Please."
The pleas fell on deaf ears and Arianna's dagger moved like lightning, slicing through his jugular.
The woman screamed, terrified.
"Peter," Asura said softly, looking into the woman's terrified eyes and to the man who could no longer see. Peter would do the right thing. They could spare them; they could learn from their mistakes. "Show them mercy."
"Arianna, stop." High King Peter. His tone brooked no argument and Arianna's blade stilled.
"We cannot let them return to their people," the green-eyed queen met the High King's gaze unflinchingly without sparing a glance for Asura.
But it was at Asura that Peter looked. Show them mercy.
"Sometimes the righteous thing is not the right thing," Arianna pressed.
The woman was terrified, and the remaining man blinded. What more of a threat could they pose? "Not all of us share your thirst for blood," Asura murmured.
Peter didn't respond immediately.
His jaw clenched, eyes locked with Arianna's. The two sovereigns stood opposite one another, swords and silence between them, the weight of crown and command heavy on both their shoulders.
Arianna's blade dripped crimson; its tip just shy of the mossy ground. The man she'd slain slumped sideways, blood pooling in thick rivulets that stained the ground. The remaining two captives were frozen in place – bloodied statues of fear and disbelief. The woman sobbed soundlessly, her shoulders trembling.
The blinded man said nothing, but his fists were white-knuckled.
Asura couldn't breathe. Her hands tightened around the hilt of her sword, but her voice was gentle. "We have a ship to catch. The sun is rising. We do not need more blood on the ground."
Peter turned to her then, his blue eyes shadowed but soft. Listening.
"We are not them," she whispered.
Arianna made a noise in her throat, soft and scornful. "You mistake mercy for righteousness."
"No," Peter said, quietly, finally. "But sometimes, mercy is a burden only the strong can carry."
The words settled over the clearing like snowfall – gentle, cold, final.
He stepped forward, placing a hand over Arianna's still-raised wrist. Slowly, deliberately, he lowered the blade. Her jaw tightened, but she didn't fight him.
"They live," he said simply.
"As you will it," Arianna said, her voice flat, emotionless. But Asura saw the tightness in her eyes, the slow unclenching of her fist.
The two prisoners flinched as their bindings fell loose, rope slithering to the ground like dead serpents. The woman didn't move – didn't even rub at her raw wrists. The blinded man lifted his head slightly, nostrils flaring like a beast scenting danger, but he, too, stayed still.
"Remember my name, High King Peter," he said again, quieter this time, as if binding the moment in something heavier than threat. "Remember that it is upon my mercy that you live."
Asura felt the air shift. Not just with the weight of the decision – but with something unseen, as if the trees themselves were listening.
And then Arianna was walking away, her boots silent against the blood-slicked moss, her shoulders taut with leashed fury. She did not look back. Edmund watched her go; his expression unreadable. But after a heartbeat, he turned and followed her.
No words passed between them.
The wolves were long gone, shadows with teeth and bone-crushing silence, but the memory of them lingered like a ghost at Asura's back. She caught Lia's eye – saw the fear still trembling behind her steady posture – and gave a slight nod. The dryad nodded back, sword still in hand, face pale but resolved.
Calim was already gathering the remaining supplies, his motions stiff and tight. "We need to move," he said without looking up. "We won't be safe until we reach the coast."
Asura turned away before she could see the tears welling in the girl's ocean-bright eyes.
They left them there in the waking light, amid the blood and ruin, the shadow of wolves, and the choices that would follow them all.
None spoke as they moved through the trees, heading eastward toward the promise of a ship.
But the weight of that mercy walked with them.
…
Cair Paravel. The Lower Dungeons.
Susan.
The night had swallowed the sea in shadow, leaving only the foam-tipped waves gleaming silver beneath a low, storm-heavy moon.
Deep within Cair Paravel, far beneath its marble halls and sunlit courtyards, the castle bore a different face – one carved from older stone and older silence.
Susan moved without a sound, fingers trailing along the cold stone as she slipped into the narrow seam between two tapestries. The secret passage was little more than a crawlspace, its ceiling low, the air damp and heavy with the scent of brine and ancient dust. Here, even the torches dared not burn. Only her small lantern lit the way, casting long, flickering shadows that seemed to breathe around her.
She emerged into the lower dungeons – a place even the mice shunned. Thus far down, the stone changed. It was darker, veined with salt, and slick with the weeping of the cliff itself. The sea was close– so close that it could be heard roaring through hidden cracks, howling like a creature denied its prey.
Folia stood waiting in the torchlight at the base of the stairs, spear in hand, though she barely looked up. The dryad's skin shimmered with damp and sparkling pigment, and her hair hung in dark jade braids, dripping seawater.
"You should not come here alone, Your Majesty," Folia said without reproach, only weariness. Her voice was soft, like wind through reeds, but it carried in the narrow space. Folia's gaze flicked toward the shadowed corridor that led to the lower cells. "No change."
"She will talk." Susan's voice was calm, but beneath it was a steely edge. "They always do."
Folia looked at her then – really looked – did she see the steel in Susan's gaze? In the strength of her straight spine? "And if she doesn't?"
"Then we wait," Susan said, her face unreadable in the lantern's glow. "Even stone breaks, given enough sea."
The dryad turned and led the way down the tunnel, their footsteps swallowed by the wet silence. Behind them, the sea screamed through the rock, and the walls of the old castle wept on.
Folia's steps were sure on the slick stone, but Susan's pace was slower, measured. She hated that place – the way the sea shrieked through the walls like it was mourning, the way every drip from the ceiling echoed like a clock counting down something terrible. She had always preferred the open sky, the scent of lilac gardens and parchment.
But that was not what was needed in that moment.
They had captured two.
The third – the one who hadn't made it – had been found only by the shredded remnants of their cloak and a half-gnawed boot. The rest had vanished into the dark, or what was left had been devoured.
They used the sewers below the city to attempt to gain access to the Cair.
"We've had nothing from either of them," Folia said, as they passed under an arch marked with carvings so eroded they looked more like claw-marks than runes.
Susan nodded. She already knew. Peter would have spoken to them by now, or Edmund – who had a gift for peeling secrets from shadows without ever raising his voice. Even Asura with her naiad-blue eyes and unnerving calm.
Lately, it had often been Arianna –sharp as winter and twice as unforgiving.
But not Susan. Not the gentle queen. She had always stood in sunlight, had always kept the balance, the grace, the diplomacy.
But that night, diplomacy had no teeth.
"I will speak to them," she said, quieter than before. She could feel the stone pressing in around her, as though the very castle disapproved.
They passed cell after cell, the inhabitants cloaked in shadow and mystery, their eyes gleaming in the half-light. Small faces smudged with dirt, hands that so desperately wished to clutch weapons, skin as white as the northmen. But there was no foul smell, nothing but the palatable scent of hatred.
Folia stopped at an iron-bound door. "Are you certain?"
"Yes," Susan said.
The dryad gave a slight nod and stepped aside, her spear still in hand. The key turned with a groan that seemed to come from the rock itself. The cell door opened.
Susan didn't speak for a moment.
The woman – or creature – before her sat as still as death, but everything about her was poised for violence. Her violet curls clung to her cheeks in damp ringlets, the sharp curve of her jaw set tight. Even slumped against the stone, there was something regal about her. Or perhaps feral.
Susan's gaze flicked to the marks half-buried beneath grime. The torchlight caught them – faint, curling tattoos along the throat and collarbone, like strands of kelp or wave-runes.
Iridescent.
Scaled.
Merpeople.
Not the graceful ocean-dwellers from the children's tales. Not the harp-singers who had once danced beyond Cair Paravel's shores in celebration. She was omething else. Wilder. Harder. And angry.
"What are they doing on land?" Susan asked, voice low, almost to herself.
Folia's answer was grim. "We don't know. But they were armed. Knives carved from bone."
The prisoner let out a quiet, humourless breath – something close to a laugh.
Susan turned to her sharply. "What is it you find amusing?"
"You think you're safe," the woman rasped. Her accent was strange—sea-roughened, but elegant somehow. Old. "You think you've won. But the sea remembers, Queen. The Deep does not forget."
Susan stepped forward, kneeling now, her eyes level with the prisoner's. "Who sent you?"
The woman didn't flinch. "We come when the tide calls us."
Susan stared at her, searching those sea-blue eyes for something – truth, madness, anything. But what she found chilled her more than certainty.
Conviction.
"What do you mean?"
"You'll see," the prisoner whispered. "You'll see when the blood washes down from the cliffs and the moon turns to pearl. The sea is coming. And it's hungry."
The silence that followed was loud with meaning.
Susan stood, her cloak suddenly far too thin, the cold biting through it like teeth.
"Folia," she said, turning toward the dryad. "Send word to my siblings, let them know what has happened. Pull our scouts from the tide caves."
Folia's brow furrowed, but she obeyed. She could hear it in Susan's tone – the command of a Queen not often used, but no less iron-bound for its rarity.
"And the prisoner?" Folia asked.
Susan looked back once more. The girl still watched her, unwavering. There was no hatred in her now. Only grief. Like something inevitable had already begun, and she was merely the herald.
"Keep her alive," Susan said. "And guarded. Heavily."
Then she turned and strode from the dungeon, her heart pounding in her chest, echoing louder than the sea.
Because her siblings were walking into a trap.