𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐑𝐄𝐅𝐋𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 ✯ 𝑝𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑝𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑒 ✓

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓

Rosaleen stumbled over her own feet when Alexander roughly shoved her towards the ice, but when she glanced over her shoulder, she understood his actions; three other wolves quickly made their way down towards this shore, jumping from stone to stone that dripped with water of the melting snow.

'Go, go, go,' Alexander ushered her and she quickly broke in a sprint over the ice with Mrs Beaver. However, as he followed in his sister's footsteps, a sharp pain shot up through his leg when a wolf bit in his ankle. He fell with a thud on the ice, his breath pushed out of him with force and the wolf dragged him back onto the shore as he sunk his fangs even farther into his flesh. Alexander let out a painful scream, struggling to get out of the wolf's grip, and Rosaleen whirled back around.

'Alex!' she shouted as the distance between them grew bigger and bigger. She slid the twin swords out of their sheaths stripped onto her back and the iconic ring of metal shot through the air like a harbinger of death. Before Rosaleen could run back towards her brother, though, a deep gash appeared in the ice in front of her and a large chunk broke loose.

Mrs Beaver pulled the blonde back by the far end of her fur coat before she fell into the water, and Rosaleen screamed wordlessly when the distance between herself and Alexander was now cut by a wildly streaming river. She could no longer reach him, unless. . . but then she caught her brother's eyes and he shook his head at her. Tears burned behind her eyes when another wolf snarled at him and jumped onto his chest, snapping his jaws shut not far away from his face.

Mrs Beaver forced Rosaleen farther and farther backwards as the ice kept on breaking at the edge, and it took every fiber in her body for Rosaleen to turn around again. The swords trembled in her hands and she blinked a few times to sharpen her vision as her tears kept on threatening to escape.

'Look, just because a man in a red coat hands you a sword, it doesn't make you a hero!' Susan's voice shot sharply through the air, and Rosaleen noticed how another pair of wolves had managed to get close to the others; one of them even pinning down Mr Beaver while Peter had his sword pointed at the other wolf called Maugrim.

'Just drop it!' Susan screeched at her brother, but then Lucy screamed his name, pointing at the crackling waterfall next to them. Huge fissures appeared in the layer of ice, splitting across the frozen surface like the nerves in a leaf. Rosaleen's eyes grew wide, the waterfall was about to collapse.

'Hold on to me,' Peter ordered his sisters while raising his sword in the air and stabbing it into the ice. His gaze caught Rosaleen's but she was too far away to reach them in time, yet, without any hesitation, she followed his example and stabbed her own two swords through the icy layer. She hoped Peter's plan would work ─ if he even had one ─ but she had no time to worry about that as the first stream of ice cold water sprayed over their heads, right out of a horizontal fissure.

Then, the frozen layer of the waterfall thundered downwards with the force and strength of an avalanche. The ice and water surged down in the river and the last chunks of ice broke loose as a huge wave splashed up. The massive torrent delved under the humans, beavers and wolves, and the river finally flowed freely after being frozen for a hundred years. The turbulent water churned, sizzled and bellowed like a living creature, but other than that it was disturbingly silent.

Seconds passed by as the waves raged on, and all of a sudden, a hilt rose up from out of the water. The gold coloured lion's head shimmered fiercely in the rays of sunshine as the light bounced off the water as well.

Peter gasped for air, still holding on tightly on his sword with one hand while he pulled Lucy farther upon the chunk of ice that floated back to the river's surface. Susan held onto his other arm with a firm grip, and Peter desperately searched off the waters for any sign of Rosaleen, but he couldn't spot her anywhere.