Atlantis. The Heartland.

2792.

End of the Reign of Emperor Beril and Empress Opallyne.

Sapphyre.

The clang of metal on metal, the screams of the dying – war had come to Atlantis.

Smoke curled through the air, thick with the acrid scent of burning wood and scorched flesh. The market district was in flames, its once-colourful stalls reduced to blackened ruin. In the streets below, commoners-turned-soldiers clashed with the trained men of the Lords, their battle cries raw, desperate.

From above, Sapphyre watched the carnage unfold, the wind whipping through her hair as she flew over the battlefield. The heat of the fires licked at her skin, the world below her a churning sea of blood and steel.

She shifted mid-flight, landing in a crouch beside Emerylda atop the crumbling stone wall. The force of her descent sent loose gravel skittering over the edge, lost to the chaos below.

Her cloak was heavy, stained with mud and blood, the weight of it pressing against her shoulders as though it carried the burden of all those who had fallen.

Smoke billowed from the Palace, dark plumes rising against the morning sky. They had breached the gates at dawn. Their forces surged forward like a tide, sweeping through the halls that had once been untouchable.

Emerylda stood still beside her, unshaken, eyes fixed on the burning city.

A bow was pressed into Sapphyre's hands. She gripped it tightly, her knuckles white beneath her gloves.

She had trained for it.

She had prepared for it.

And yet – never before had her cloak felt so heavy.

Cair Paravel.

2352.

49th Year of the Reign of King Caspian X.

Drinian.

Drinian sat in his chambers, rubbing the bridge of his nose, when the door creaked open without preamble.

His hand went to his sword immediately, where it rested by his desk.

"I'd have knocked," came a voice smooth as a blade's edge, "but I don't like to waste time on formalities."

Drinian exhaled sharply and lowered his hand. "Diamande."

The man stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. His opal-coloured eyes shimmered strangely in the candlelight, unreadable as ever. The mass of scars that curved from his temple to his jaw gave his face a permanent smirk, though there was little humour in it.

Drinian leaned back in his chair, regarding his unlikely ally with wary familiarity. "What news?"

Diamande moved to the table, gloved hands resting against the wood. "I have secured them passage to Terebinthia."

Drinian stiffened. "From the Den?"

A nod.

The Den – a festering scar on Narnia's heart where slavers flourished in the shadows, peddling lives as easily as coin. Caspian had made its destruction a priority, but like a disease, it had spread deeper than expected.

Drinian had given the man funds to buy and free them.

"How many?" Drinian asked.

"Two this time. More to come."

Drinian exhaled, feeling the weight of that number. It wasn't enough. Drinian opened his mouth to press further, but the door to the antechamber opened before he could speak.

He turned – only to see his…guest.

Rubi stood in the entrance, clad in a borrowed cloak too large for her frame. But despite her ragged appearance, she carried herself with the same fierce presence as when he'd first seen her.

Introductions were in order.

He gestured to Diamande and froze.

The sorcerer had gone utterly still.

Not the casual stillness he adopted when observing, nor the careful stillness before he struck like a viper. No, it was something deeper. His opal eyes, always dancing with unreadable amusement, had locked onto Rubi with an intensity Drinian had never seen before.

And in that moment, Drinian knew.

He recognized her.

Rubi's gaze flickered to Diamande, and something shifted in her face – wariness, calculation.

The silence stretched taut between them.

Drinian straightened, his grip tightening on the edge of the table. "You know each other."

Diamande's lips parted slightly, as if tasting her presence in the air. Then, ever so softly, he said,

"…Priestess."

Drinian turned sharply to her.

She did not look surprised.

She did not correct him.

She only let out a slow breath and murmured,

"…Your Highness."

"She is a priestess from my home-world," the sorcerer said.

Drinian's breath hitched.

Priestess.

He glanced at Rubi, her crimson eyes flickering in the candlelight. A priestess? He hadn't thought much about her past beyond what she had revealed—the fiery witch who had defied Dustan, who had nearly been executed before he intervened.

But Diamande's words carried weight.

"A priestess from your home-world?" Drinian repeated, shifting his gaze back to the sorcerer.

Diamande leaned forward, his scarred face unreadable. "She is no mere witch, Lord Advisor. She is one of the Blessed – those attuned to the Heart." His lip curled slightly as he glanced at her worn state, at the faint bruises on her wrists. "And yet, here she was, shackled and starved like a common criminal."

"I knew your king would not listen." Rubi's voice was resigned.

"And yet you came anyway," the sorcerer, with his half-burnt face, looked even more fearsome in the flickering light of the torch. "It was brave, Rubi."

Then her eyes flickered to Drinian's own. "You've not yet freed his mind."

"Ah yes," Diamande turned to Drinian then. "Your mind has been meddled with more than once – the enchantments are battling each other." And then he touched his staff to Drinian's brow before the man could even raise an arm to stop it.

Light flooded the cell and Drinian's eyes snapped closed as something flooded through his mind.

Flashes of blue fire and green mist.

The emerald lady in the Southern March.

Her words that she was to be Queen of Narnia, that she was to be wed to Rilian.

The blue-eyed woman he had encountered in the marshes and her sad, sad eyes when he'd spoken of searching for Rilian.

His realisation that the woman knew him.

Rilian was alive.

Rilian was alive.

Drinian's pulse thrummed in his ears as he processed the revelations unfurling before him. But then Rubi spoke again, her voice unwavering.

"It was upon my orders that my coven took Sapphyre."

Silence crashed down like a thunderclap.

Diamande turned to her sharply, his opal eyes widening in horror. "You what?"

Rubi met his gaze with a steady defiance. "It was the only way to weaken them. Apart, they lose their strength. Separated, they can be undone."

Diamande took a step toward her, his expression unreadable, but something dark flickered behind his eyes.

"You fool," he whispered, his voice laced with something close to fury. "You have gravely underestimated my sisters' bond."

Sisters?

Drinian pressed his hands to his temples, feeling as if he were three steps behind whatever was unfolding before his eyes.

Rubi's jaw tightened. "I did what was necessary."

"You think Emerylda will let this stand?" Diamande pressed, his voice rising. "You think she will not burn down your entire coven to retrieve her sister? That she will not rend the sky itself to get her back?" He let out a sharp breath, shaking his head. "Sapphyre is everything to her. You have not weakened her – you've done nothing but enrage her."

Uncertainty flickered across Rubi's face.

Drinian watched the exchange with a growing sense of unease. He had only just learned of these witches, of the danger they posed, and already it seemed they had underestimated the forces at play.

"Together, they destroyed a world. If they were to move on Narnia…" Diamande hesitated, then exhaled, his voice low and certain. "I do not doubt they would succeed."

A heavy silence fell between them.

Drinian looked between them both, trying to catch up, to understand.

His pulse hammered in his ears.

By Aslan, what was happening in Narnia?

The Far West. The Witch-City.

Rilian.

The morning light filtered pale and soft through the flaps of their tent, casting long shafts of silver across the rumpled furs.

Rilian lay still, half-awake, watching her.

Sapphyre sat cross-legged across the tent, the sheen of sleep still on her skin, her fingers methodically working over the dark leather of her armour. She'd stripped it down to its separate pieces, laying each out with the reverence of ritual, wiping away the dust of travel, the memory of battles passed. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, though her hands moved with the ease of long practice.

Something in her had shifted.

He could feel it – like the change in the air before a storm, subtle but undeniable. And he knew it wasn't just her.

The Silver Chair had done something to both of them.

For her, he saw it in the silence behind her eyes, in the hesitation before her touch, as if she were still hearing whispers only she could decipher. She hadn't spoken of what she saw – of what it had shown her. But she hadn't needed to. He'd felt it when her body trembled against his the night before, when she'd kissed him like she was searching for something to anchor herself to.

And for him… it was as if a veil had lifted.

The Silver Chair had torn open something inside him. Not with pain, but with unbearable clarity. It had unravelled the false truths that had clung to him like cobwebs, and left behind something raw, something real. He remembered.

Not everything. But enough.

His mother's voice in the gardens of Cair Paravel. The scent of the sea. A golden crown. The weight of duty and legacy on his shoulders even as a child.

He was Rilian.

Not just a man who fought and survived.

He was the son of Caspian. The Heir to Narnia.

And yet… there he was, watching her from across a tent, tangled in feelings he didn't yet have words for.

He had not left.

And he didn't want to.

"I can feel you staring," Sapphyre said without looking up, her voice low, rough with sleep and restraint.

He smiled faintly. "You always can." He stood, crossed to her, crouched before her. "You said I was a prisoner once. But it's you, too. You just wear your chains better."

She looked at him then – really looked – and in her eyes he saw a flicker of longing.

Of fear.

"I want to tell you everything," she whispered.

"Then tell me."

But she looked away, back to the armour.

Back to her duty.

And Rilian, for the first time, felt the weight of her silence like a blade.

Underland. The Dark City

Eirwyn.

Eirwyn stood at the edge of the Pale Beaches once more, her cloak trailing behind her like a trailing mist of snow. The waters of Underland's black lake lapped softly at the shore, but her thoughts were not on the hush of the waves.

Emerylda was gone – whether by design or distraction, Eirwyn neither knew nor cared. For in her absence, the frost fae had begun their quiet preparations. They had lost one of their own to a fight that was not theirs.

Neve, young and bright and curious, had been taken, swallowed by Underland's secrets.

And though Eirwyn trusted Sapphyre to find the girl, she would not risk any more of her kind. Not for a kingdom not their own.

Around her, her people moved like a drifting storm, silent and resolute. Already their belongings were packed, the ice-bound relics of their home gathered with reverent efficiency. There was no need for words. They would leave before the next sunless dawn.

The Knights of Underland – Acastin and Vasas among them – offered quiet assistance. They did not try to stop the frost fae, nor did they question Eirwyn's decision.

Eirwyn bid them farewell with a nod and a few solemn words.

Eirwyn's expression remained unreadable, but her thoughts were sharp as frostbite. Underland had taken enough. And the frost fae had never been ones to linger where they were not wanted—or where the ground beneath them threatened to crack.

They would return to the places of cold and silence. To the stillness that did not betray. She cast one last glance over the dark expanse before her, then turned to vanish into the quiet whiteness of her people.

She turned then, her gaze drifting across the ranks of her people – and paused.

Gwyneira stood apart, her pale cloak unfastened, her hands empty. Her short white hair caught what little light existed in Underland, and her pale blue eyes met Eirwyn's with quiet certainty.

"You do not come with us?" Eirwyn asked.

Gwyneira shook her head slowly. "No. Neve is still out there somewhere. And I… I cannot leave her."

Eirwyn studied her in silence, something unreadable flickering in her expression. Not surprise. Not disappointment. Only the ache of understanding – old as frost and twice as still.

"You will be alone," she said.

"I have always been so."

At that, something passed between them – acknowledgment, perhaps, or farewell unspoken.

Eirwyn did not embrace her. That was not their way. But she stepped close enough for a moment that the chill between them hummed with meaning. Then she turned, the folds of her cloak sweeping behind her like a glacier carving its slow, inevitable path.

The Knights of Underland watched them go.

The frost fae faded into the dark.

Only Gwyneira remained.

The Far West. The Witch-City.

Sapphyre.

She felt him before she heard him. Barefoot on the soft rugged floor, his presence drew near – warm, steady, quietly disruptive. Sapphyre kept her eyes on the gauntlet in her hands, fingers tightening the last strap with more force than necessary.

"I don't understand," Rilian said gently behind her. "You follow Emerylda… but you question every move she makes."

Sapphyre didn't answer right away. The silence hung heavy in the space between them, like the breath before a storm.

"You disagree with her," he pressed, stepping beside her now. "You hesitate when she speaks. Yet still you follow."

"I don't hesitate," Sapphyre said evenly.

"You do."

She finally looked up. He was crouched across from her again, eyes piercing in the morning light, concern threaded through his expression. His hair was still mussed from sleep, and she hated how much she wanted to reach for him. To forget the question, the consequences.

"I owe her everything," she said at last, voice soft and measured. "She saved me when Atlantis burned. When I had nothing left, she gave me purpose."

"And what did she take?" he asked, not cruelly, but with the kind of calm that cut sharper than anger.

Sapphyre's throat tightened. "That's not how loyalty works."

"No," he agreed. "But love shouldn't cost you your soul."

She stood, too quickly. The leather fell from her lap, forgotten. "You don't understand."

"Then help me," Rilian said, rising with her. "Make me understand."

She stepped back, needing the space, needing to breathe. "I can't just abandon her. I am bound to her. She's my sister."

"She's your cage."

Sapphyre's eyes flashed. "You think I don't know that?"

The tent was quiet again, save for the rustle of wind outside. Her heart was pounding, and she didn't know if it was from anger or from the way he was looking at her – like he saw through every chink in her armour, every lie she'd ever told herself.

"You sat on that Chair," he said. "It showed you something. What was it?"

She shook her head, almost a whisper: "It reminded me who I was before."

Before the betrayals.

Before she had seen how her parents truly ruled.

Before they had torn their world asunder.

"And who was that?"

"I don't know anymore," she whispered, throat tight. She looked at him, at the man who had once been her prisoner and now held her heart in his hands. "There would be hatred in your eyes if you knew everything."

"There is only truth in mine," he said quietly. "Why do you run from me?"

And when he reached for her, she didn't pull away – just rested her forehead against his, her eyes closed, as if she could hide from the war inside her.

The silence between them stretched like a blade, sharp and trembling, cutting through the soft breath of morning that curled around the edges of their shared tent. Rilian knelt before her – barefoot, shirt half-buttoned, golden in the rising light, eyes searching hers with quiet insistence.

And still, she said nothing.

Sapphyre stared down at the gauntlet in her hand, then slowly let it fall to the floor. Her throat felt too tight to speak, but the words had been pressing against her for days – years, maybe. And with his question hanging between them like a fragile thread, she realized she couldn't carry them anymore.

"I need you to listen," she said at last, her voice low and steady.

He nodded, saying nothing.

So, she told him.

Of Atlantis, and the war that had sundered their world.

She told him how she and her sister had fled through worlds like ghosts, bearing the weight of what they'd done, how they had come to Narnia seeking refuge… and control.

"We found Underland," she said, voice barely above a whisper now. "And we thought—I thought—it was a fresh start. A chance to build something better. But all we've done is repeat the same mistakes."

She lifted her eyes to his. They were wide, shadowed, but he did not move.

"We imprisoned the Earthmen. Enslaved them. My sister said it was mercy. That they needed guidance. And I believed her. I believed it all." Her voice cracked. "I killed for it. Killed because I thought I was right. Because I wanted to be right."

Her hands curled at her sides. "I've done unforgivable things, Rilian."

He still said nothing.

"I kept you prisoner," she said, and the words nearly undid her. "I watched you suffer. I let it happen. I was the one meant to make sure you never escaped."

Silence.

"I told myself it was duty. That you were dangerous. That we couldn't let the surface world find us. That your father was a tyrant." Her voice broke, and she turned away, ashamed to look at him. "But you were kind. You were gentle. And I—"

The air shifted.

He was there behind her, close but not touching, and for a moment she thought he might turn away. Might curse her. Might hate her.

She waited.

But instead, he said, "And still… you saved me."

She blinked, stunned.

"When it mattered most," Rilian said softly, "you saved me. You've stood between me and your sister's orders. Over and over again. You've kept me away from her."

Her lips parted, but no words came.

"You say you've done unforgivable things," he murmured. "Maybe you have. Maybe I have too. But don't you see, Sapphyre? That's not who you are anymore."

She turned to him, her eyes wet, searching his face for disbelief. For anger. But there was none. Only sorrow. Only understanding.

"I don't deserve forgiveness," she whispered.

"Then don't ask for it," he said, stepping closer. "But don't turn away from me either."

He reached for her hand, his fingers wrapping around hers with quiet certainty.

"You are not your past. And neither am I."

She let out a trembling breath, and for the first time in years, the weight she bore cracked—just a little.

"I don't know how to be free," she said.

His voice was the gentlest thing she had ever heard.

"Then we'll learn together."