Whispers of fog crept over the stale waters of the Vidalian shore. After watching the waters of Narnia play, dance, and leap, only one word could be used to describe the silence that permeated the still sea-Death
The ship parted the waters as the fog bell rang out from the mast above as if announcing-Demise follows the prow of this ship.
I held my cloak close to my chest as the chill of Vidalia, the shaded country as some called it, came ever closer. Even in the deeps of summer, its cold winds held warmth captive from its people; greedily and without remorse.
"Land, ho!" Shouted a sailor from the crow's nest.
Surely enough, Vidalia pulled her foggy curtains back to reveal the greyish hues of the bustling pier. Beyond it, was the beginning of the settlements; the village. No streaks of vibrant colors danced across the streets, children didn't dart out between the adults in fits of giggles; only soldiers patrolling the streets in armor black as the night and villagers scurrying about with their heads down.
The ship reared up to the dock, and the sailors wasted no time mooring the ship. I stayed in the shadows, savoring every moment before my feet would touch Vidalian soil.
The week-long journey had been rough. Storms churned the seas as if the gods themselves were fighting my departure—forbidding it. Every night, I pulled myself into a tight ball in my hammock, engaging every sense to remember Caspian; what the feel of his arm felt like draped against my waist, or the remark he would have made at the kind of knots these sailors made. Every empty space cried out for his presence.
The gangway slammed onto the dock, knocking aside a crate of hens in its clumsy release, causing a series of squawks to fill the air, while a merchant began to curse out the sailors responsible in many different tongues.
"It's time," Said a scruffy old sailor ambling over; ready to grab my upper arm.
Stepping out of his reach, I said, "I hope you get your coin."
"That I will, missy, and lots of it," He said with a toothless smile.
His throaty laugh followed me as I made my way down the gangplank. Despite the musk that clung to my dress, and the mess my hair became from the squall of the winds, I held my head high.
Soldiers stood at the foot of the gangplank waiting for me. The crest emblazoned on their gloves and cloak was not that of my family crest, but Erik's—two swords crossed over each other with a fire blazing behind them.
"Where am I being taken?" I said before stepping into their grip.
They didn't utter a word as they corralled me towards a black carriage. The cold steel of their armor permeated the fabric of my gown and cloak further chilling me in the frigid air.
As I stepped into the carriage, a single word came from one of the helmeted guards—Traitor.
I whipped around to tell him exactly what I thought, but the door of the carriage slammed closed behind me; leaving me in darkness aside from a small lantern hung from a hook inside the carriage. Curtains shrouded the windows, that even if the sun itself road in tandem with my carriage, its light couldn't breach the cloth.
The carriage rattled over the cobblestone streets; the murmurs of those standing in the streets bled through the wall of cloth that separated us.
"Who is that?" Voices hissed.
"It was a girl."
"She looked familiar."
Slowly, I crept to the edge of the carriage seat and moved the curtain just enough to peak out. People lined the streets as the royal carriage made its way down the main thoroughfare.
"Princess? No!" One woman cried out at the sight of my face peering through the curtains. My very presence in the country was the symbol of loss—even the most powerful couldn't escape.
The carriage came to a sudden halt. The guards began to shout, "Move out of the way!" As the sound of rumbling footsteps thundered around me. I leaned out of the carriage once more, and throngs of people had flooded the streets blocking our route.
A hand grabbed my wrist through the open carriage window, and an elderly woman stood there; big blue eyes contrasting from the grey pallor of her skin that she had inherited from the spiritless skies, "Princess," The woman hissed.
"Who are you?" I whispered, leaning closer to the woman.
As I leaned forward, the woman shoved a heavy item wrapped in sackcloth into my hands. She looked around to see if anyone had seen the conspiratorial exchange, and turned her glassy eyes back to me, "Do what you must, girl," She gave my wrist a more tender squeeze and whispered, "For Narnia. For Aslan."
The carriage began to lurch forward again as the crowd parted for our entourage. The crowds had fallen silent again, no loud commotion or shuffling of feet; just murmurs, rumors, and speculation.
My heart took up a rhythmic song against my chest as I unfolded the sackcloth. As the scratchy cloth fell away, my hands almost lost purchase of the item enclosed—a dagger.
Do what you must.
Somehow word of my impending arrival had been leaked to the Narnian underground. They were arming me for battle. No one needed to brief me on what this symbol meant—If Erik gives me the opening, I need to take it.
Underneath the dagger was a leather holster. Quickly, I hoisted up my skirts and buckled the contraption against my skin, and slid the weapon into its home.
My father had given me a dagger and it had saved my life once, but it was stripped from me once I boarded the ship set for Vidalia. But this—this wasn't a means of protection. This was a tool of intent. A blade imbued with a mission.
The carriage rattled along, taking sharp turns left and right, stopping suddenly; no secret messages passed on at those stops. But with each roll of the wooden wheels over the cobblestone, it took us closer to wherever Erik had asked that I be delivered.
Will it be the gallows? The dungeon?
The carriage halted again, and the sound of metal creaking punctuated the heavy silence hanging inside the dark transport.
I knew that sound. I had grown up hearing it. The castle gates were opening for the carriage. I was entering the belly of the beast.
My hand reached out beside me, expecting to find Caspian's. That had happened many times over my journey. Sometimes I forgot that he wasn't there sitting beside me, or cradling me at night, and I'd roll over to tell him something or touch him, but only the phantom of his memory seared the air.
The door to the carriage came opened to entrance steps carved from an obsidian-like stone, streaks of white marble bleeding through it—some would have called it an impurity or an aberration, but it was like a jet of light streaking through the darkness. Hope.
Every step up the stairs pulled my shoulders done as if boulders were being stacked upon them, for I knew what awaited behind them—every nightmare that I had beheld in my sleep in Narnia. My past, the life I had owned for many years, had become a harbinger of death.
The mighty doors swung open, revealing the low-lit castle. Shadows seemed to eke out of every corner and its tendrils reached out to grab me.
On the walls were the trophies, the taxidermied bodies of Narnian creatures. As a child, it had not bothered me. They're animals they said. But I had learned that they were more human, more alive than most of us. My eyes examined the floor. I couldn't gaze upon the bodies any longer.
"You came," A voice echoed down the hall sending shivers down my spine.
Around the corner came Erik. His russet hair gleamed in the torchlight; black empty pits of his eyes looked as if they'd hollow out my spirit. His face was placid; no anger or rage sent even a flicker of emotion across his smoothed brow.
"You've been gone for months and don't have much to say?" Erik said coming closer.
"What would you like me to say, Erik? What playbook can I read from?" I said, my eyes searing him as I beheld the man who had stolen everything..
"You've allowed your tongue to sharpen during your sabbatical," Erik said eyeing me.
"I want to see my brother," I said, my fists clenched at my side.
"He's very ill, and you've been galavanting around with the enemy as he lay dying," Erik closed the distance. The unwelcome touch of his breath bridging across my cheek.
My eyes snapped to his. The dagger on my thigh seemed to cry for purpose; to be put to good use, but I waited—it was not the time.
Does he know that I know the source of my brother's illness? Or is he waiting for me to spill every piece of intelligence I have gathered on him?
"Galavanting?" I spat.
"Another word for bedding the enemy," Erik huffed out a laugh, "Your screams have never been quiet, dear."
My face grew hot at the reminder to the times Erik and I had taken part in. It was an invasion of privacy for him to even remember any part of me in that way. He was no longer welcome to dream of me.
"You are disgusting," I spat, "You have no idea what you're talking about."
"I do though," Erik's eyes were brewing with darkness, "You betrayed everyone you've ever cared for to romance the man who killed your father, and you call me disgusting?"
"My father was a monster!" I yelled, my hands sweeping in a wide arc showing the display on the walls, "He ripped children from their families and drenched the lands with blood."
"You would say that," Erik shook his head, "Head full of Narnian lies."
"The truth. I know the truth, Erik. All of it," I clasped my hands in front of me as if we were having nothing more than a polite, courtly conversation, "You think you're crafty-"
Before I could finish the sentence, Erik had pushed into my space and wrapped one hand around my throat, and shoved me into the wall. He didn't squeeze; my life held in his hands.
"You should think twice before crossing me now. I'm regent and you're a traitor," Erik leaned down to my ear, "You know what we do with traitors."
I had indeed. Drawing and quartering was standard; a painful death of being torn limb from limb. One meant to prolong the pain for as long as possible.
"Then do it," I said, pressing into the grip of his hand; unafraid of what he could do.
His face clouded and his hand began to close around my throat, but I held his eyes. He held on for longer and longer until I was sure he was committing to the act. Black spots began to flood my vision as Erik became a hazy figure before me.
"Erik, stop," A voice said calmly, but an undertone of panic tinged the words.
When his hand released me, I crumpled to the ground choking and inhaling air like it was my last supper. As I found my breath, I looked up to see the woman who had always scorned me staring down at me; a blend of emotions on her face fighting for dominance.
Erik looked as if he was out of breath and ran a hand through his hair as he watched me massage my neck from his iron grip, "You're just a coward. If someone speaks truth, you snuff them out. You're weak."
Somehow over the years,, I had escaped Erik's fury. Many servants and those beneath him had been victim to his outbursts, but now I was the one beneath him; dust on his shoes. He was a disease that had spread past the wound into the veins of Vidalia; somehow becoming as good as a king.
Erik took another step toward me before my mother shot her arm out and said firmly, "Go...I'll handle her."
Erik's eyes simmered before he stalked off down the darkened hallway. He wasn't finished with me yet; that much I knew.
I pushed my hands against the wall to get purchase to stand as my mother watched me struggle. Meeting her eyes, I said nothing. Her gaze was as sharp and calculating as ever; taking in every perceived flaw I had to offer.
"You've been gone a long time," My mother said. She was once a queen consort; the title lifting from her head upon my father's death. Queen Phillipa, Chancellor of the Damned—the people called her. She was quick to throw those who opposed her in the dungeon and let them rot, but what was she in that moment other than my mother?
"Yes," I choked out, still massaging my neck, "I have been."
"I hope you've been well," She mustered. Words seemed to stumble out of her like two cogs where the teeth didn't quite fit together.
"It's not like you've cared," I said, eyeing her.
Her eyes flared to life, a sadness swimming behind her steely exterior, "Don't ever say that again."
"The truth is painful, Mother," The young girl inside of me was crying out begging to be loved by the one person who should; to be comforted in her sadness instead of tucked away when her emotions pushed past what was respectable.
"I don't expect you to understand," She said, turning her back and beginning to walk. She paused halfway down the hall; I realized she was waiting for me.
I kept a few paces behind her as she wove us through the halls. Servants walked down the passages with their heads down, so unlike Narnia where laughter echoed through the halls, and life bloomed under Cair Paravel's roof.
My heart wanted to go back to those blessed halls and hear Caspian's voice coming from just around the corner; to dream that this was just a short trip I'd get to return from. Sometimes one doesn't know just how content they are until it's all taken away.
Mother was leading me towards the King's chambers where my father had slept for years when he was even in the castle. Mother never slept there once in my childhood memory. Her rooms were across the castle; conveniently minutes away from the guard's quarters where Warwick was housed.
Warwick.
I had pushed his death so far back into my mind so that it wouldn't hurt, but seeing my mother—the woman he loved, brought his presence back into my mind.
After his death, I had wondered how she had found out, but we knew there was a mole in Narnia, so she knew. Besides, I could see it in her face. Maybe I had always beheld my parents in the way they looked when I was younger, but she seemed to have aged in my time away. Her hair was streaked with more grey and her face wasn't as taut and firm. Losing the love of her life and caring for her dying son had swept through her like a raucous wind and torn her apart.
"Erik had said he wouldn't allow me to see Alexander-" I began.
"Erik may be regent, but he's not the king. Alex wants to see you," My mother said before pushing open the large, wooden doors.
A pang went through my heart. What this reunion would entail, I wasn't sure. Did he want to see me to chastise me, declare my execution, or maybe was he just a brother wanting to see his sister?
The curtains were drawn in Alexander's quarters and incense burned to leave a trail of smoke like a low-hanging cloud in the chamber.
Before my eyes fully took in the figure reclining on the bed, my eyes snapped to the elderly woman leaning over him, wiping his forehead with a damp cloth; her wrinkled hands gently dabbed at the young man's forehead as her mouth was stitched in a thin line.
"Una?"
At my words, the woman's eyes fixed on me and the rag in her hands and dropped to the bed. She covered her mouth with her hand, and tears welled in her eyes before she ran across the room to me; despite her age.
Her frail arms wrapped me in a tight hug, "My girl. My sweet girl," She whispered smoothing her hand over my hair as she held me.
I sank into her embrace like a small child. She smelled like lavender as she always had; the familiar scent lulling me into a small moment of peace.
"I've missed you so much," I said, pulling back from the woman.
Una took a step back and took me in, cupping my cheek, "You look so healthy."
It was nothing I could hide. My skin glowed from days in the sunlight, my hair had a glossier sheen from the wide array of fruits and vegetables the Narnian farmlands had to offer, and I had ascended into a new person on the inside.
"I was treated well...very well," I said, the familiar pang in my heart returning.
"I know you were," Una said, her Narnian childhood practically dancing across her eyes.
I knew that Una saw Caspian taking me away as a blessing, not a curse. Una had prayed that nothing would take me from Narnia, and my presence in Vidalia once more was a manifestation of the dread she had carried while I had been gone.
My mother stood off to the side during the whole interaction. She stared straight ahead as if she hadn't seen the maternal bond that Una shared with me; that she resented. Why she resented it? Over the years, I had wondered that myself and many reasons came to mind, but one stood out over them all—guilt.
Una gently placed a hand on my arm and guided me towards the canopy bed. Lying on the bed was a man I didn't recognize. My brother had been a robust warrior; sturdy with a strong jaw and a head full of hair. Before me was a dying man, his cheeks sunken in and the whites of his eyes cloudy like the haze before a storm.
Time is so fleeting, but regret lives on. I wish I had had more time with him as a child so that we could have simply been children. We didn't even squabble as much as normal siblings do, for we lived such separate lives—Alexander being the heir apparent and me training to be the meek wife to Erik.
"Alexander?" I knelt beside the bed grasping the limp hand that laid against the duvet, "It's your sister."
His eyes settled on me, and one corner of his mouth pulled up—a twinkle of a dimple deepening in his cheek. No response came from his lips.
Una put a hand on my shoulder, "He can't speak, dear," Una motioned to her throat, "His throat...it's blistered."
Alexander's eyes shifted back to the wall at the statement; tuning out any reminder of the state that he was in.
"Here," Una put down a piece of parchment on top of a book with a quill, "He can communicate this way. It exhausts him fairly quickly though."
Alexander reached out a shaking hand for the quill and painstakingly wrote out—Hello. He fell back on his pillow eyes searching me for a response.
Tears surfaced in my eyes watching him suffer, "I'm so sorry for leaving you here like this."
Alexander took a shaky breath and picked up the quill for a moment, pausing to think—You were safe.
"Yes...yes. The Narnians took good care of me," I said, before using the back of my hand to wipe the tears that were welling up in my eyes.
Alexander's brow knit in the effort it took for him to write out the words—Safe is good.
I gripped his hand harder and laid my forehead to it, and let the tears flow again. Even in his limited vocabulary, it was so clear what he was trying to say—Don't be sorry that I was here and you weren't. You were safe and that's what matters.
"We should let him rest," My mother spoke up from the foot of his bed. Her eyes tender, looking upon her frail son.
I began to rise from the bed, but with surprising dexterity given his condition, Alexander's hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. With his other hand, he gestured to a tiny symbol he had hurriedly scrawled in the corner—a circle with a cross in the middle.
It took a moment for the realization to dawn on me. Memory began to surface from many moons ago when we were only children—
Alexander and I sat before the fire in father's office as the sun set on a snow-covered Vidalia. The snow had put all commerce to a stop, for the flurries had turned to flakes and then into impassable mounds of snow.
Alexander rolled a toy horse across the warmed rug as I practiced my letters.
"Your Grace, the council has called a meeting," A squire said, stepping into the office as Father penned his correspondences.
"I'll be there shortly," Father said, looking up from the parchment and waving the squire away.
"Don't go, Father," I said, craving his rare presence, even if he wasn't engaged.
"A king must attend to many things, but I'll be back and we'll all go down for dinner together," Father said, ruffling my hair; loose strands falling from my braid.
As soon as the door clicked shut, my brother, only the age of twelve, hopped to his feet.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Don't you ever wonder what father is writing?" He said, beginning to circle around to father's leather chair.
Though he had only two years on me, I found that recklessness overtook him more frequently than it did me.
"Father will be furious if he knew that you've been looking through his things," I said, setting aside my quill.
"Father would have to find out for him to be angry," Alexander said with a toss of his head as he flipped through papers on the desk.
The fear of facing Father's disappointment quickly disappeared as I joined Alexander at his side. The desk was chaos; no sense of organization or rhyme to how the papers were laid out, but many of them carried words I recognized, but others were written in such a hurried scrawl I couldn't make them out.
"What's this?" Alexander said holding up a letter addressed to Father.
Grabbing it from his hands, my eyes scanned the document. It was a series of shapes and symbols grouped together; some of them repeated, but there was no sense to be made of it.
"It's a code, sister," Alexander said with a roll of his eyes, "Obviously."
"If you're so smart, figure it out then," I said, shoving the paper into his chest and returning to my place by the fire.
Alexander huffed and sat in the chair, the size of the seat swallowing him as he placed a hand to his forehead and tried to decipher the characters.
Minutes ticked by, but only the sound of grumbles and curses he shouldn't have known at that age, likely handed down by Warwick, slipped from him.
"Have you figured it out yet?" I asked.
"No," Alexander returned to his spot by the fire, "I didn't care what to know what it said anyway..."
"Sure," I snorted.
Alexander stared into the flames for a moment before turning back to me, "We should make our own code."
This idea was one I got on board with easily, "So Mother won't know what we're talking about?"
"So no one will know what we're talking about," Alexander reached over and took my parchment and quill for me.
I scooted next to Alexander, looking over his shoulder, "We should have a code for—bring cookies immediately."
"Good idea," Alexander tapped the voluminous feather of the quill against his cheek, "How about this?"
Alexander drew three circles organized into a triangle, "That's perfect!" I squealed.
Father didn't come to get us for dinner as he said he would, but the sting of a forgotten promise faded away as we giggled and imagined many different code words for scenarios that would never happen, such as—release all the horses from the stables or cartwheel across the room during a royal address.
"We should have some serious ones too," Alexander said.
"What do you mean?"
"Ones that have a purpose," Alexander scribbled on the page, "This one can mean—I'll see you soon."
Alexander had drawn an arrow with two sets of fletchings halfway up the shaft with a small circle at the base, "So we'll know to expect to see each other shortly?"
"Exactly!" Alexander laughed, "But this one...this one is important."
Alexander pressed his hand against the parchment to make sure it was perfectly steady, and drew a small circle with a cross inside of it, and then said, "This means—I'm in danger. Help me."
The memory faded to dust before me as I stared at the symbol on Alexander's parchment. A cry for help. A king begging for the traitor's help. My brother begging for his sister's aid.
"Of course," I took his hand and squeezed it before rising, "I'll help you."
As I began to walk out of the room, I was formulating plans on how I'd help him; for I was a prisoner myself, but the leather sheath of the dagger on my thigh held every answer I needed.
A hoarse voice cried out my name just as I stepped over the threshold of the door, and I turned to see Alexander holding up his parchment; it wavering in his hands as they shook.
An arrow with two fletchings mid-way up the shaft and a small circle at its base—I'll see you soon.
"I'll see you soon, Alex," I stated, giving him as much reassurance as I could in just one look.
A weak smile spread across his face as the door closed behind me.
There were no more doubts in my mind—Erik would die, and it would be at my hand.