Big Bang Fic: circa regna tonat, part 1

[narniabb_mod]

Title: circa regna tonat
Author:deathsblood
Rating: PG-13?
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Angst, AU, Major character death <--Highlight to view
Author's Notes:Thank you so very much to sophiap for the wonderful art, and to cofax7 for the brilliant beta.
Title comes from Thomas Wyatt's poem of the same name.
Summary: Following Edmund's assassination, the Pevensies fall apart. In desperation, Susan gets Aslan to bring him back. More trouble ensues.

Part 1

“No, Peter,” said the lion gravely, and Susan could see Peter clench his jaw out of the corner of her eye, and knew with heavy familiarity that it would hurt later. “No magic can bring back the dead.”

“You returned,” Susan countered, sharper than she would have usually dared, and stared intently at the jagged cut that ran straight through the middle of the Stone Table beneath Aslan’s paws. They looked even softer in comparison, far too velvet for what she had seen them do.

“Yes,” Aslan agreed sadly, “but it was not Deep Magic which killed your brother.”

Susan knew it wasn’t; could still see the remembered the dull flash of the assassin’s blade swinging down in slow motion, and Edmund turning a moment too late, every time she closed her eyes.

She had not slept since then, and had heard, even through the thick stone walls, her sister’s night-time cries.

The first time it had happened, she had knocked into Peter outside Lucy’s door, and they had both shoved the door open, Susan’s fingers already pulling back the taunt string on her smaller bow when she had realised that Lucy was the only person in the room, and then she had collapsed on one of the many chairs in the room, too relieved to even berate her.

“And our parents,” Susan began, with a voice so thin it sounded like it belonged to someone else, and ignored her siblings’ startled looks. “What will they think? What do they even know of our departure?”

“No one,” said Aslan, bowing his head until he was on eye-level with her, “is ever told a story that it not fully their own, Daughter of Eve.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Susan saw Peter flinch, and Lucy reached out for him with a clammy hand.

“But why, Aslan?” Lucy asked. Her voice shook.

It was curiously bizarre to hear her sister question him, and Susan realised with a start that she had never heard her do so, never heard one word of criticism from her sister’s mouth about him, though she could be more brutal about foreign dignitaries than even Edmund.

“No one is ever told that either, dear one.” Aslan replied, like that was any comfort at all, but he did not protest when Lucy stepped up to him and clutched at his mane with one hand, burrowing her face into it.

It was nowhere near as enthusiastic as it had been once; as if Lucy was simply going through the motions even with Aslan.

&

Lucy read Edmund’s book without turning the pages, as if the imprint of his gaze was still etched into the rough letters, and if she stared long enough she could somehow bring him back. She had grown so used to injuries being reversible by her cordial that it had blindsided her even more than Susan or Peter.

“Do you think,” Susan started, hesitating only when Lucy looked up, her eyes black holes in an ashen face, “that we’ll ever get over it?”

“How can you say that?” Lucy jerked up and strode out of the room, her unread book left abandoned on the small table by the window. Susan watched her go, and thought she had lost more than just one sibling.

Peter didn’t even bother to look up, “I think every memory stops hurting so much if you leave it for long enough.”

“Peter,” she said slowly, remembering the sun shining on Aslan’s mane with a sudden flow of bitter hatred. “Do you remember our parents at all?”

“No, but I doubt they mattered much,” he said, and she wondered whether one day, he would dismiss Edmund’s memory as easily. Perhaps getting over tragedies wasn’t a good idea. “Susan, we still have a country to run.”

“I know,” she answered dully, but she had been delaying matters of state for the past week. Tomorrow, she had to pass final judgement on a legal case Edmund had heard.

When Susan had first read the evidence, she had disagreed with his suggested solution. She still did, though she knew that come morning, she would order it all the same, because it had never been her decision to make.

She walked over to the window and wiped it dry with the edge of her sleeve. Outside the wind was howling, but the trees did not even twitch. They had not stirred since Edmund had -

Susan bit her lip and turned away, her eyes stinging.

Peter still hadn’t moved, nor did he glance up when she left him alone to his hopeless plans of justice, and retribution, and closure. There was no space left for mercy anymore.

&

Later that day, Lucy asked, blankets dragged up to her chin, an empty sketchpad on her lap, “Were Adam and Eve our parents? I hardly remember them.”

“I suppose they must have been.” Peter agreed, frowning slightly. “They wouldn’t call us that otherwise.”

And Susan just stared at the freckles scattered across Lucy’s nose, and thought helplessly of the wrong sibling.

&

The neighbouring countries had all sent wreaths of course, and careful condolences, but there was triumphant satisfaction in more than one ambassador’s lowered eyes, and she heard some of them laugh too vibrantly for her taste as she crossed the courtyard.

When Susan turned around, there was no one there at all. She glanced up, and down, and around, but the sky was uncharacteristically empty and the stones were just stones.

The worst part was that there was a glint of that same mad triumph in some of their subjects’ eyes, always fleeting enough to make her second-guess herself, yet constant all the same.

She walked back into the building, footsteps echoing on the stone steps, and stopped in surprise. The corridor was deserted, and the only sounds Susan could hear were her footsteps and her sister’s laugh, somewhere around the corner. She hurried towards it, but Lucy had stopped any pretence at mirth.

“What do you mean he didn’t say?” she was asking as Susan stopped just before the corner, and peeked around. Lucy's voice was dangerously low.

Her companion, a dwarf as thin as he was short, seemed to shrink back into himself. “We questioned him, Your Majesty, but he was not forthcoming.”

“Well, of course, he didn’t want to tell you,” Lucy sighed. “But I had thought you were the best for,” she hesitated, “extracting confessions, shall we say?”

“Indeed, Majesty, only,” this time it was the dwarf who hesitated. “There have been… complications.”

“What kind of complications?” Lucy asked, cold as steel.

“Unfortunately, the murderer did not survive the third stage.”

Susan turned away, feeling distinctly queasy. Nonetheless, she heard Lucy’s exclamation that the dwarf and his companions was supposed to know better.

“What did you do with the body?” asked the queen too brave to ever back down, the sister who would stop at nothing. Susan envied her conviction sometimes, though she did not wish for it.

She did not stay to hear the dwarf detail arrangements as little matched to the honourable Narnian funeral system as possible, apparently in the belief that this would make some difference to Aslan.

Instead, she went to the main audience chamber and took her seat next to her remaining brother, before giving the signal for the herald to open the heavy doors and announce the first business of the day.

It did not take long for a particularly dim-witted ambassador to propose an arranged marriage between Edmund and the Tisroc’s oldest daughter, a Princess Reyhan, going as far as suggesting further discussion “once his Majesty has returned.”

“Where from, my lord?” asked Peter, because enquiring whether someone had been living under a rock was insulting to the Talking Beasts who did. His expression had been getting gradually more thunderous with every word spoken, though he ambassador did not appear to have noticed.

“O, great High King of this most noble country, the illustrious Tash has not seen fit to bless this poor servant of the Tisroc (may he live for ever) with the whereabouts of so great a personage as your noble brother.”

Susan beckoned a page and had the man escorted out of the audience chamber with a polite request to better acquaint himself with recent events before Peter could do something drastic. Then she closed court for the day, and their attendants hurried out, though the two of them continued to sit there, both next to an empty throne.

It felt like they were the only two people in the world.

&

“Do you think,” Susan started later, reading the Calormene ambassador’s letter of obsequious justification, “that Aslan could have prevented it?”

Peter looked over at Lucy, curled up on the windowsill and asleep for over an hour. “I don’t think it matters. He didn’t.”

“But could he have done?” she persisted, because that made all the difference.

Most of the Narnians held Aslan in such high regard that to question his deeds seemed almost like blasphemy, but he had not come to help for a hundred years of suffering under the Witch’s rule. Susan had always thought that merited some explanation, but had simply been informed that it was not her story to be told.

“Susan,” he said bitterly, not even bothering to look at her. “Stop trying to be Edmund.”

“I’m not!” But the thought nagged at her as she woke Lucy and then retired herself.

&

The following day, Susan finally lost her temper with Lord Peridan.

It started innocently enough; she had selected a random diplomat to send to the Lone Islands, and it could have easily been anyone else. But Peridan had been idle in Narnia for longer than any of the others, so Peridan it was.

She waited for over half an hour before sending for another servant, because Lucy claimed it took twenty minutes to shuffle slowly across the entire castle, and four to sprint it when the hallways were nearly empty and the run was clear and straight.

Arhen, his personal manservant, fidgeted when he finally stood in front of her, shifting from one foot to another the way Edmund used to when he was lying, back in England. “Unfortunately, your Majesty, my lord is indisposed.”

“He seemed perfectly well this morning,” Susan commented. “And therefore I suspect he is perfectly healthy now.”

“The doors are all locked, your Majesty, and I must confess I have not seen his lordship since he dined with Lady Brinna at six.”

Once, she could have gone to Edmund and known immediately, but now Susan could only sigh and send him away. She ended up leaning forward with one elbow perched against the wood, fingers trying in vain to rub away a headache, which felt like it had slowly tearing her head apart all day.

&

Some time later, Susan got up and walked down the crumbling stone steps down onto the small sliver of beach near the castle, flicking off her shoes on the last one. The sand was rough between her toes, but still wet enough for her feet to sink down enough to leave a clear path for any who wished to follow her. Her guard lagged a few steps behind, ostensibly to give her privacy, in reality grumbling to themselves. Krisya hated the beach, and the constant roar of the waves in her ears, everything so soothingly familiar for Susan.

She arrived at the cave soon enough, a large cavern casting virtually no shadow at that time of day. A rather out-of-place door was hammered across the opening, somewhat haphazardly, the nails dented and broken.

There were small signs like that scattered all over Narnia, steady reminders of the Witch’s long reign.

Whatever its appearance, or its difference to the castle at whose feet it perched, it was the home of the second - no, now the first-in-command of Narnia’s intelligence service, and her information was worth a little occasional discomfort.

She knocked carefully, but did not bother to wait for a reply, pushing the door open and stepping inside. The water came up to her knees, a small and recent courtesy towards visitors. When Lucy had first come here, the water had covered her almost completely, leaving only the very top of her head peaking out.

“Queen Susan,” said a voice from the depths, verging on respect. A long, scaly peaked out, its eyes heavily lidded.

“Good morning,” Susan replied, then inquired into the whereabouts of Lord Peridan.

“On The House,” said Madame Ness, who had been Edmund’s second-in-command since merely two or three weeks following their coronation, when she’d surprised them at their swim. “Since eight o’clock.”

A whorehouse, Susan realised, with a sudden burst of rage. All this, and he still finds the time and inclination?

Her nails dug into her palms, but she thanked the sea-serpent politely and exited almost calmly. Her guards were waiting outside, shivering in the piercingly cold wind.

“May I sug-gg-gest heading up to the castle now, Your Majesty?” one of them asked, her teeth chattering. She had come with excellent references, but being human did pose difficulties, though Susan could hardly have refused her on that basis.

For a long moment, Susan did not reply. Instead, she looked out into the horizon, where the sun was beginning to set, slashing bold colour against the murky depths of the water. The colour at the place where the two met was almost exactly the shade of Aslan’s mane under the glow of firelight.

“Indeed,” she said, but her voice sounded a long way away.

&

“We all have responsibilities, my lord, now more than ever. It is hardly the time for you to go gallivanting around as if you haven’t a care in the world! If I look for you, I expect to find you near immediately, is that understood?”

“Your Majesty.” He had inclined his head respectfully, but his mouth was pursed in harsh resentment. With a sudden spur of fear, Susan wondered whether he would be the next traitor in the night; or perhaps even secretly responsible for the first one. If he could only persuade his wealthy father that Edmund’s demise would prove advantageous, he would easily have had access to scores of the finest known assassins.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have chosen to send him away from Cair Paravel after all, though it would probably prove harder for him to plot away from the castle or the border.

You have no proof, she reminded herself sharply, but the doubts nagged at her all the same.

Lately, she and Peter had suspected everybody, running through seemingly endless lists of motives, even as some of their suspects walked the corridors outside.

Maybe they had lost more than just a sibling that night, but something invisible had been quietly ripped apart, and now they were lost, adrift in a world they were beginning to hate, trusting no one at all, not even each other.

Did I wish for this, in some way, Susan sometimes asked herself at night, twisting and turning beneath suddenly too hot covers. All those times we were annoyed at him, did we ever wish for this?

If they had, it would have only been the careless spitefulness of children, I hate you forgotten in a few hours, but maybe it had made Aslan, or the Emperor-Over-the-Sea, believe that they had meant it after all: maybe they were the ones truly responsible.

Perhaps it was all just their fault, and they were unworthy of the crowns Aslan had placed on their bowed heads.

&

Some days Susan expected Edmund to come strolling idly through an open doorway, with ink stains on his fingers and hair falling into his eyes.

She kept seeing him around corners, the way she had once seen her parents when the first humans had come to Cair Paravel; a flash of hair, or a glimmer of regal-looking fabric, or even a particular phrase, no matter how ordinary.

When she thought about it, she couldn’t remember her parents clearly anymore, only faint memories of a plump woman with Edmund’s eyes and a shaky smile, and a tall man with close-cut hair and a laugh which sounded as friendly as Lucy’s no longer did.

So in hopes of preventing that from happening again, she wrote down endless lists of things she could still remember about her brother, and tried to ignore that certain statements kept repeating, and some thoughts were forgotten before she could set quill to parchment again.

“Oh,” was all Lucy said when she found out, having come in unexpectedly to see Susan scribbling frantically, her writing un-regally messy. Then, “Why?”

Because it’s the only thing I can do now, Susan thought, but she wasn’t used to admitting weakness, not even to her siblings. “In case I forget, that’s all.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever forget,” said her sister, with all the idealism not yet fully knocked out of her by experience. “I don’t think we ever could.”

Susan had once thought they couldn’t ever forget their parents, stuffed on a busy train and spat out at in the middle of nowhere. And yet, it hadn’t been long after their coronations when she had stopped being able to visualise the Professor’s face, or the precise shape and function of a gas mask.

&

“Lune could have done it,” said Peter when he returned from his ridiculous, though thankfully rather short, conquest of Ettinsmoor. Both Lucy and Susan had pleaded with him, to no avail, that the giants weren’t intelligent enough to purchase an assassin who could murder a monarch, at which point Peter had switched his suspicions to the Marshwiggles.

“Oh, honestly,” Susan sighed, “They can’t all be involved.”

“But if it’s Calormen,” Lucy commented, looking up from the stack of petitions Susan had been adamantly ignoring, and chewing her quill thoughtfully. “Then we can’t attack, they’re far too populous.”

“Exactly,” Peter agreed, “so it only makes sense to conquer the others. Then we’ll have a bigger army, and stand a far better chance against them.”

“But then we’ll have more rebellions to deal with,” Lucy argued. “Most people don’t like being conquered, you know, and besides, people die every time you decide to fight. Our subjects, Peter. We’re responsible for their welfare, and you’re just gambling with their lives.”

“Sometimes they die of colds!” Peter snapped back. “We can’t prevent it, the cordial can’t be used everywhere at once, nor can we afford to use it all the time. It’ll run out soon, or possibly even get smashed in a battle. You can’t take it so commonly to the wars!”

“It’s mine,” Lucy protested, bright spots of colour appearing high on her cheeks. It reminded Susan of the way Edmund had always argued back. “Father Christmas gave it to me!”

“Aslan made me High King,” Peter answered, but it lacked any real bite. Nonetheless, a rather awkward silence descended on the room, in which they all avoided looking at each other.

Glancing around, Susan noticed that the curtains on the window looked strangely worn, and squinted. Moth-eaten, perhaps. She would have to get some owls or ichneumon wasps to catch them, though they were most likely just dumb beasts rather than treasonous subjects.

“Lune has only just recently lost a beloved son,” she said finally. “I hardly think he would be so quick to cause others that pain.”

“He might think we were involved,” said Peter stubbornly.

“We helped him chase Bar,” Lucy protested.

“But we failed,” Susan pointed out.

“Still, he’s our friend.”

“I don’t think royalty can afford friends,” said Peter sadly, who had been claiming that they could merely weeks ago, his arm around some good-looking young Galmian, who he insisted was ‘just a friend’.

Lucy scoffed, almost laughing, “What nonsense. Mister Tumnus is certainly my friend. He protected me, remember?”

He brought you into the danger in the first place, Susan thought but didn’t say, because they had had that argument already.

“Peter, you can’t blame everyone” she said finally, even though it broke her heart. “It’s done.”

“We can’t just let it go like that. Someone ordered it!”

“Yes,” she agreed, “but we don’t actually know who.” That was the worst part, the thing preventing any real closure, because if you didn’t know, then you let them get away free, which meant betraying Edmund’s memory. They couldn’t protect him in life, and were now unable to avenge him in death.

She reached for her own pile of petitions, and began to read, writing a neat ‘denied’ on every application to leave the country, whether to return home or visit close ones.

Her hands never shook.

&

Later Susan sat alone in her private study and watched the flames flicker in the fireplace, feeling utterly cold. It took a long time for the plan to fully form in her mind, but she had been certain of one thing all along: it really wouldn’t do.

&

So the next morning, she called on Aslan himself on the beach, wind pressing her hair flat against her scalp, and eventually he appeared, stepping out of the sea foam. Bizarrely, she found herself remembering the legends of Venus, about whom Bacchus was ridiculously close-mouthed , though he always flushed the colour of fine Galmian wine.

She was almost absurdly relieved he had come at all; after all, he wasn’t a tame lion.

“Susan Pevensie of Narnia,” he said, his voice soft as always, and for a minute it was all Susan could do to restrain herself and not step forwards to sink her face into his soft mane like Lucy had done so often. “I do not think you are fully aware of the repercussions which await you.”

There were no questions poised there, just pure comprehension of motives.

“I am,” she responded, sinking her fingernails deep into the palms of her hands. It was too late to turn back. Royalty could never seem indecisive, and she had been doing this for long enough that to be otherwise shouldn’t have even crossed her mind.

“He will not be the brother you remember. The dead can never replace the living, for experience changes all men.” Aslan warned, and perhaps this was where Susan should have stopped, reconsidered, asked him how. Maybe she should have turned back, and walked back to the castle and forgotten about her brother.

Instead, she lifted her head high, and met Aslan’s eyes in an unspoken challenge. “That doesn’t matter.”

“Everything matters in the end, Daughter of Eve. The smallest change can cause great effects.”

She did not hesitate. “We need him back. Narnia needs him.”

“You and your siblings are enough to rule the land.”

“And yet what use are broken rulers to a country? We failed him before we first came, and now we have failed him again. We should have been more careful, appointed more guards to watch over him. Maybe then he would still be alive.”

“All things come in time, O Queen.”

“We would not have lost him so soon. Aslan, it was our fault.” Susan said, and then, when he did not answer, corrected herself. “No, it was my fault. I was supposed to take care of them, and I failed.”

There was something obscuring her vision, turning even the lion into a golden blob, bright against the glasz of the sea. When she lifted a hand to her eyes, it came away wet.

“After the Battle against the White Witch, you asked Lucy if more must die for Edmund. But you know what Peter will do better even than he does. He’d raze whole countries; massacre everyone he thinks might have been involved. Thousands of lives, lost because just one was taken. And he’ll tear himself apart doing so, and rip apart Narnia in the process, because nothing will ever be enough.”

Aslan had remained silent during her speech, but when he spoke, it was with the voice that had sung the very world into being. Susan felt the ghost of it ripple across the air, run up her arms like shivers or goosebumps.

“There is always a price to be paid, Susan Pevensie of Finchley.”

She dropped to her knees on sand, feeling a stone stab her knee as she landed, and begged, her head bowed in supplication. “Please Aslan.”

“There is always a price to be paid,” he repeated. “And it is not only for those who seek.”

“I would give up anything.”

“You may change your mind in time, Daughter of Eve,” warned the lion. “And help does not come when called.”

“I won’t.” Susan assured him, with all the confidence of one unaware of what she was losing, both for them and for Narnia itself.

Then Aslan tossed back his mane and roared to the sky, and the very ground beneath Susan seemed to twist, shifting beneath her like the Whirling Sands told of in whispers in Calormen.

Some of the sand flew upwards into her eyes, and she reached up with a hand to rub them. When she could finally see properly, Aslan was gone, and there was a very familiar body lying on the ground next to her, his chest rising and falling in impossible semblance of life.

&

Her first thought was that he somehow looked younger, though of course the memories had already began to fade.

He fit into her arms just the same; chin butting familiarly against the sharp bone of her shoulder.

“Let’s go up to the castle. Peter and Lucy will be delighted.” Susan said, and he followed her without complaint, though his steps were unsteady and slow, and soon enough he had to lean on her for support, his arm wrapped tight around her waist.

His easy obedience should have been a sign, really.

&

She strode into the castle with her head held high, and a sense of triumph thrumming through her veins, half-carrying, half-dragging Edmund in his arms through the courtyard and up the large steps, and ordered one of the gaping onlookers to direct Peter and Lucy to her private rooms.

It did not take long before they came, Peter with a brisk stride, and Lucy barely managing to dodge courtiers in her run.

“What’s going on?” Lucy gasped out, face flushed from exertion. She had a dark flower tucked haphazardly into her hair, but all it did was bleach her face further.

Susan stepped aside to let them through the door, pointing towards the bed in the middle of the chamber, where Edmund lay, seemingly asleep.

Beside her, Lucy gave a startled gasp. Peter just stared, his face utterly blank.

“What have you done?” he said finally, and his voice was so quiet she had to strain to hear him, though he still stood by her side.

“What I had to do,” Susan replied, and pulled the door closed with a soft thud. It echoed in the silence, made more pronounced by the sudden absence of hooves thudding on stone, and the seemingly eternal conversations outside.

&

“It can’t actually be him.” Lucy repeated, perching on the bed, and very carefully not touching Edmund. “It’s impossible.”

“Is anything truly impossible in Narnia?” Peter asked, not looking at her. He seemed to be deep in thought.

“I suppose something must be,” said Susan, who always strove to look at everything logically.

Rather than replying, Peter looked down at their brother. Edmund's face was very pale and his freckles very visible, but the usual shadows were missing from under his eyes. He seemed a lot more delicate, a constant reminder of how easy it had been to lose him.

“Perhaps we should -” he began, stopping when Edmund stirred. All three of them stared at him until his eyes opened.

“Who are you?” he asked, voice hoarse, and Lucy’s face crumbled. She turned away, and dashed out of the room.

Susan shared a long look with Peter, and then followed her.

&

It took surprisingly long for Susan to catch up with her sister; despite her status as queen, palace staff tended to be most sympathetic towards Lucy whenever a fight occurred, and one of the maids had tried to placate her with nutty bread.

Eventually she found her sister on a veranda, sitting on the stone wall supposed to act like some sort of fencing.

“Get down from there,” she ordered. “You’ll fall.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Lucy sullenly. “All the sea folk like me.” And, then she added, suddenly mockingly cheerful, “Besides, I suppose you’ll just resurrect me, and everything will be just fine.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Susan snapped. “This isn’t a game.”

Lucy turned to look at her, and then slid herself down to land next to Susan. Just then, a cold gust of wind blew past, almost knocking her against the wall.

“See?” Susan couldn’t resist pointing out. “You would have fallen.”

“How could you do it?” Lucy snapped out, and did not give her time to answer. “They look to us to lead them, you know, and what we’re showing them is that necromancy is fine. The dead should stay dead.” Lucy’s eyes were red and raw, her mouth pulled taunt.

“Aslan did it.” Susan sighed. “Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia. That’s the way it has to be.”

“It doesn’t make us immortal, Susan,” Lucy said sharply, and Susan heard her exhale before looking away. Finally, she continued, her words jarringly soft, “We’ll all die eventually, and you can’t keep doing this, over and over.”

“Aslan did it,” Susan repeated, because there was no one Lucy admired more.

“Well, he won’t do it again.” Lucy said it softly, who had always been the closest to him.

They stayed there in silence for a few more moments. Twenty feet beneath them, waves were crashing at the dull rocks.

Edmund would have laughed and teased Lucy that she thought it was a special sign from Aslan. From her sister’s sudden silence, Susan guessed she remembered it too.

“Come on,” she said soothingly, reaching out to take her sister’s hand, but Lucy flinched away as if stung. “We should go back inside.”

Rather than answering, Lucy turned away, and stared sullenly far out to sea. After a few minutes, Susan gave up and simply left her there.

&

Peter’s office was panelled in light oak wood, with a large window overlooking the inner courtyard.

At that moment, Susan hated it, resenting the fact that she had to stand there and attempt to explain her actions to her own brother, as if being queen did not mean she alone was responsible for her own actions.

Somewhat predictably, Peter had sided with Lucy, and his voice brokered no argument. “You shouldn’t have done it.”

Susan didn’t even try to reason with him.

“You should be pleased,” she pointed out instead. “Ed’s back.”

She would have liked to be able to honestly claim that it had been done purely for the Narnians, who were becoming accustomed to their rule, and the empty throne in Cair Paravel; rather than the rapidly fading memory of Edmund’s wit, and the way he only let himself truly relax when they were alone.

“No,” Peter insisted. “He’s not.”

He sighed, and sat back down on his chair. The sunlight peering through the window turned his hair into spun gold, but it highlighted the tired shadows on his face. He looked impossibly old, far too ancient to be the boy Aslan had crowned not so long ago.

“The thing is that it’s not quite him, Su,” he said finally. “He doesn’t remember us. By Jove, I had to explain to him who he is.”

“So we’ll explain everything to him,” she said, in an attempt to placate him. It didn’t work.

“You might as well have gotten a doppelganger. I’m sure that would have taken less effort.”

“A doppelganger would not be our brother,” she said sharply, and left him there too, not giving into the urge to slam the door on the way out.

&

Edmund was awake when she entered, propped up against the elaborate headboard. Predictably, he had a thick tome on his lap and a cup of something vaguely medicinal in his hand, from which he took tentative sips every few minutes, and winced every time.

Susan leaned against the door frame and watched him.

It took him longer than usual to realise, but eventually he looked up with a faint smile.

“Hello.” At the very least, his voice was back to normal. “Are you Susan?”

Susan had to bite the inside of her lip very hard in order to maintain her composure. “Yes, I am,” she answered with a weak smile.

Edmund’s answering smile was small, and more than a little cautious. He held up the book by way of explanation.

“Peter has explained some things,” he said. “But it’s all rather confusing.”

“I suppose it would be.” She moved towards him, and sat down on the side of the bed. “Do you remember anything?”

“Bits and pieces. Most of it doesn’t make sense, though.”

“Well, anything in particular you’d like to know?”

Edmund shrugged slightly, one surprisingly bony shoulder bobbing up. “There’s probably too much for that. Who is Aslan? The book doesn’t say, but the author seems rather impressed.”

“Aslan is,” Susan found herself searching for words. “Do you know what a god is?”

Edmund looked at her thoughtfully for a few moments. Then he answered, “A man wearing a dress?”

“No!” Susan stared at him in astonishment, but calmed herself when he almost flinched back. “Why would you think that?”

“Someone used to take us to one, I think.” His voice was tiny.

Belatedly, Susan remembered Sunday services at St Mary’s. “No, he was just a man who devoted his whole life to teaching others about God. Well, God could do anything, and most of the time he helped people, and that’s kind of what Aslan’s like. He’s very powerful, and normal rules don’t apply to him. He brought you back.”

“Did I want to be brought back?”

The question made her smile. Edmund had always been inquisitive to the point of sheer irritation.

“You didn’t want to go in the first place.”

He didn’t seem particularly mollified. “Okay. So why did I?”

“Politics,” she said, after a long silence. “We’re royalty, these things happen.”

Except that they didn’t, not to four schoolchildren from Finchley, but it had been almost a relief to realise that when people hated you, it was never as personal as it seemed.

&

“But what made me go away?” asked Edmund later, finished book set to one side and demanding a more useful one.

Behind them, Lucy made a faintly disapproving sound. Susan had not even noticed her come in. “You mean die,” she corrected.

Edmund’s eyes went very wide, flickering between them. “Dead people don’t come back.”

“Sometimes they do,” said Lucy, with a very pointed look at Susan. “Apparently.”

“What do you mean?” asked Edmund. “What’s going on?”

“Just a small matter of policy we disagreed on,” Lucy lied, not looking at Susan. “How are you?”

But as Edmund lapsed into a cascade of rapid words, Lucy interrupted him. “Sister dear. I do believe you have unfinished business with some foreign dignitaries.”

Her words were sweet, but her tone was pure ice.

“Indeed.” said Susan, matching her tone. “Do excuse me.”

It hurt more than she had expected, though truthfully, she hadn’t given much thought to her siblings’ reactions.

&

Unfortunately, Lucy was right, since by that time the newest gossip had already been tweeted all around Cair Paravel, courtesy of some rather gossipy parrots. So Susan made her way to the throne room, where she summoned all the foreign ambassadors currently residing in the castle.

The majority of them did not look particularly pleased to be there. Apparently their rulers did not bother to arm their liars with acting lessons.

Their moods did not much improve when she had finished talking, though they made a valiant attempt to pretend otherwise.

“O, fair queen, this is a blessing indeed,” claimed the Tarkaan whose name she had somehow managed to forget, despite his recent lapse. “I had feared that the sun had darkened forever in your eyes.”

“How can this be?” asked the Galmian ambassador, a tall, slim woman with dreadlocks the colour of fresh seaweed. “There had already been a funeral for His Majesty.”

Susan smiled serenely. “A gift from Aslan,” was all she said, as she watched them bow and exit in small groups, and pretended not to hear the comments about devils and dark magic.

She did, however, order an arrest warrant for the squat Lone Islander who dared to compare her to the White Witch. There were limits to diplomatic immunity, even in bizarre circumstances.

&

Peter caught up with her at the entrance to the Long Gallery, grasping her elbow lightly and pulling her from the throng of people into a small alcove nearby.

“Why are we imprisoning Sir Istmul?” There was laughter in his voice; he appeared to have forgotten their previous conversation.

“Apparently, he finds us reminiscent of Jadis.” In the darkness, she was aware she looked it; the feeble light seemed to leech all the pigment out of her skin, leaving her pale as ice and as smooth as one of the Witch’s sculptures.

Peter grinned with all his teeth. Combined with the mess he had somehow managed to make of his hair, it made him look a bit like Aslan, temporarily trapped in human form. “Is that the royal we?”

“He wasn’t considerate enough to specify.” Susan laughed, reaching up with both hands to try to brush his hair into place.

“What a shame. I had to confine Rogin to his chambers for accusing the Galmian ambassador of arranging the,” he paused. It hardly seemed appropriate to refer to it as a murder anymore, since Edmund wasn’t dead, and yet he hadn’t survived it. “Incident.”

“How bad is it?”

Peter sighed. “They’re all accusing each other. Thankfully, it hasn’t turned violent yet, but I doubt it’ll take long.”

“I’m almost surprised it took this long.”

He shrugged. “They were all in mourning, or at least pretending to be. But we need to sort it out before it really deteriorates.”

“How?”

“We need to find out who was really responsible,” Peter answered, leaning back against the cold stone. It couldn’t have been comfortable, but it did manage to make him appear significantly more regal.

“Does this mean you’ve worked out a strategy beyond conquering all our neighbours?” She had aimed for sarcastic, but it came out hopelessly fond. He smiled slightly in response, but it was only feeble and fleeting.

“No, but I’m sure you and Edmund will manage to. You’ve always been better at things like that than Lucy and I.”

“You want him to investigate his own murder?” Susan spoke slowly, trying to make him understand.

“Who better? I’d assume he wants revenge.” Peter had never been able to comprehend why other people didn’t react in the same way he did. It led to many problems.

“He doesn’t even remember it!”

“He probably remembers more than he thinks he does. Like we do of Spare Oom.”

“I think we remember less than we think. What was our father’s name?”

He frowned, before shrugging it off. “But that doesn’t matter; it’s not relevant to our lives in any way.”

“Well, personally, I’d like to remember.” Sometimes, the gaps in her memories kept her up at night, lying in bed and thinking for hours.

“I’m sure Ed would too, especially since it would help Narnia.”

“He doesn’t feel any obligation to help Narnia anymore,” Susan pointed out. “He can barely remember it.”

“So he needs to get to know her again, and then the duty will come back.” He detached himself from the wall, and stepped away from her. “Oh, and don’t tell him about what happened with the Witch. He doesn’t need the guilt.”

And with that, he was gone, his footsteps echoing against the marble floors.

&

“Susan!” came Lucy’s voice behind her, and Susan froze in place, shivers running up her arms as she waited for her sister to catch up.

“I want to apologise,” said her sister. “I don’t blame you for doing it.”

Susan looked at her. Lucy’s jaw was clenched very tight.

“I couldn’t have done it,” she continued. “Aslan had already refused.”

“And yet he changed his mind,” Susan pointed out, squinting at the wall opposite them. Was that a drawing of -?

“But why? Why should he? He always knows better than us.”

“You’re the one who always understood him best.”

“You make it sound like he’s some sort of pet. You know perfectly well he’s not a ta-” Lucy began, but the words seemed to choke her, and she stopped and thought for a minute. And then she said, “I don’t think we’ve ever quite understood what that meant,” very quietly, as if that made it any less of a failure.

“I don’t think we really understand him at all,” Susan admitted softly, and almost wanted to take it back at the look of sudden despair on Lucy’s face.

“Maybe we shouldn’t,” she added. “Maybe that’s the point. He’s more than human, and we can never be.”

“Well, he understands us,” said Lucy, attempting to smile. “Perhaps that should be enough.”

Susan looked down. There were muddy paw-prints leading up to the staircase at the end of the corridor. She hoped it hadn’t been a member of the Royal Guard.

“Do you still think I shouldn’t have done it?” she asked finally.

It seemed to take forever for Lucy to answer, her quick-witted sister, who was always ready with a vibrant laugh. “I can understand why you did.”

It was all she would get, so it had to suffice. Nonetheless, Susan’s spirits were dampened by the time she sat down to examine Lord Istmul’s proposal for a new bridge to link the capital Avra to his native Felimath.

The man himself may have been temporarily incarcerated, but unfortunately that didn’t mean they could afford to pay any less attention to him.

&

Dinner made for a rather stilted affair, not aided by the way the servers were unable to resist staring at Edmund, who in turn fixed his eyes on his plate, watching diligently as more and more food was piled on it.

“How did I die?” he asked eventually.

Peter paused, goblet halfway up to his mouth. He set it down just as Lucy’s knife hit the ground with a dull thud.

“Assassins,” said Susan when none of them moved to answer.

“Why?” Edmund demanded. He sounded as if he were enquiring about the weather.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Peter replied. He had stopped eating entirely. “You and Susan, in particular.”

“Why them?” Lucy asked, leaning forward. “I’m perfectly capable - ”

“I need you near the Archenlander border,” said Peter hurriedly. “In case Lune decides to do anything.”

“You mean in case he chooses to strike pre-emptively, before you decide to invade his country?” Lucy smirked,

but at least she appeared mollified.

“Our borders need to be protected,” said the High King seriously. “There have recently been raids near that area.”

“What our dear brother isn’t telling you,” said Susan in a low voice to Edmund, “is that the raids were specially ordered by him against Archenland.”

“They attacked our people,” Peter protested.

“Which is what you will say to Lune, no doubt,” she answered, raising a goblet to her lips. The wine was old and fine, and had originally belonged to petty Archenlander lords who had the misfortune of residing by the Narnian border.

The triumph was sweet against her tongue, and Susan signalled for more. Mrs Beaver’s daughter served her, but uncharacteristically she did not lift her eyes from the plain tablecloth.

“They attacked our people,” Peter reiterated. There was a dark flush against his collarbones.

“We attacked theirs first,” she side-eyed him.

“No, that was those nasty outlaws, with whom we have no affiliation whatsoever.”

“How are we meant to figure it out?” Edmund asked, effectively changing the subject. “Are there clues?”

The old Edmund would never have asked that.

“No,” she answered, and drained her goblet to avoid saying anything sharper. “This isn’t a detective story.”

“I don’t know,” said Peter with a bright smile. “You were always in charge of espionage.”

Edmund’s eyes widened. “I was a spy?” he asked incredulously.

“Not a field agent. You were the one who received all the reports, though.”

“So who do they report to now?”

“Madame Ness. You can meet her on the morn; it’s far too late to bother her now. She can’t stand being woken up.” He gestured for more wine.

&

“Absence has not increased your intellect, I see,” observed Madame Ness, who was the only person in the world capable of talking to Edmund like that. “Of course I do not know who ordered the attack. Do you not realise that they and all their kin would be only a faint memory upon this earth if I did?”

Stifling a laugh, Susan realised that she had sorely missed overhearing their conversations.

Edmund blinked. “If you’re the spymistress, shouldn’t you know everything?”

“No one knows everything, dear,” said the serpent, her tone almost pitying. “Besides, you were the spymaster, with all of your little reports all carefully filed and coded.”

Living secluded from any sort of court, she had not needed to learn any diplomacy during the Witch’s long reign, and it showed.

“Coded?” Edmund’s voice had risen in pitch. He sounded utterly panicked.

The old Edmund would have wanted to shake him very badly.

“Multiple times,” confirmed Madame Ness, with a steel glint in her bulbous eyes. She seemed to be greatly enjoying herself.

Had she really been willing to sacrifice anything for this, this boy who simultaneously was and wasn’t her brother? Perhaps Aslan had been more right than she wanted to believe.

“Do you receive them now?” Edmund asked, peering past her into the gloom. Susan felt something vaguely slimy brush her leg, and kept very, very still until she felt the pressure ease.

“Hardly,” scoffed the serpent. “Parchment isn’t yet waterproof.”

“Your office, Ed” Susan said, and their eyes met.

&

Edmund’s office looked like it hadn’t been inhabited in a very long time; someone had cleaned it the day after his funeral, but few had entered since, so there was a very fine covering of dust across his otherwise empty desk. Susan pulled off the ornate sheets covering the filing cabinets and folded them carefully on top of each other. They were all from the same set: cloth-of-gold whorls on heavy crimson velvet, the fabric of their winter bedspreads.

“The key should be somewhere in here,” she said. “Check in the ones by the window; I’ll do these.”

She was shifting gingerly through the papers, careful to keep them in order, when a glint caught her eye. She reached under the pile and dragged it out.

It was a nondescript envelope, thick and smooth under her fingers, but when she flipped it open, the waxy seal was unbroken.

It was dark brown, almost black, with indentations marking out the shape of four acorns positioned together like a clover. Susan knew it well: it was the emblem of the Terebinthian Imperial family.

“What is this?” she called out, and heard Edmund move towards her.

He stared at it for a rather long time. “I’ve never seen it before.”

“Do you mind?” Susan asked, waving it half-heartedly.

“Go ahead,” he answered, making a move towards one of the chairs in the room, before gazing down at it in distaste. He remained standing.

Susan slid her thumb under the flap, and brushed it along the parchment before pressing upwards to dislodge the wax. It did not break cleanly, but rather fell apart into clumps, half-sticking to the paper.

She pulled out a wad of badly-folded documents. The parchment was fine, and obviously expensive, but the ink was strangely pale.

“I don’t know the code,” she said, after staring at the words for a while.

Edmund reached out for it, and she handed it over gratefully. “Something about the thirteenth day,” he said finally.

“You died on the thirteenth,” Susan pointed out. “What else does it say?”

He didn’t answer. “I thought it was the fifteenth.”

“Who told you that?”

“A leopard, I think. Could have been a cheetah, I suppose. I was too surprised that it was talking to me to pay particular attention.”

“It was the thirteenth,” she repeated, then sighed. “Someone lied.”

“Maybe he just made a mistake,” Edmund suggested, unusually generous.

Susan shook her head. “It’s not the kind of thing anyone could make a mistake about.”

“I doubt it was as important to random citizens as it was to the three of you.”

“You’re a monarch,” she stated. “Trust me, it was important.”

&

Edmund couldn’t translate any more of the message, and Susan had been at Anvard when that particular code had been invented, so they went to Peter.

They had tried to find Lucy first, but were informed that she had ridden out to join Tumnus for tea, and was not expected back until nightfall.

“Is it the anniversary?” Edmund asked unexpectedly, and then, when Susan had stopped to stare at him, added jovially, “I do remember some things, you know.”

“That’s not for a couple of months,” she replied, but couldn’t help smiling nonetheless.

&

Peter stared at the message for a very long time. Finally he took a small pencil out of his pocket and crouched down to scribble something at the bottom of the parchment.

“Where did you get this?” he asked finally, his voice cold.

“What does it say?” Susan asked instead.

Peter looked right at her. “Where did you get this?” he repeated.

“In my office,” Edmund answered. “Answer her.”

For a minute, he sounded like his old self.

Peter looked at him for a long moment, before switching his gaze to the parchment still in his hand, and recited. “Princess Elluera, rightful ruler of the Isle, to Parnrtya Tarkheena, High Priestess of Zardeenah at the Calavar Temple. Let it be known to you that by the thirteenth of the discussed month, your fears will prove unfounded. I will await the favour I have been promised by no later than the anniversary of our initial meeting.”

“Who are these people?” Edmund asked.

Susan frowned. “There is no Princess Elluera of Terebinthia.”

Peter nodded slowly, and added. “All the High Priestesses in Calormen are based in Tashbaan.”

“So either codenames or a red herring.” said Edmund.

“It wouldn’t be a very good one,” Susan pointed out. “It’s really rather obvious.”

“Maybe they think we’re stupid.”

“Don’t call it a red herring,” Peter chimed in. “The fish might take offence.”

“It wouldn’t be a very good false clue then,” Edmund corrected. There was a vile combination of a smile and a smirk on his face. It reminded her of England, of lies and shouts in small cold rooms. “Happy now?”

Peter matched him in tone. “Very much so,” but he didn’t look it.

What if Peter, Susan caught herself thinking, but stopped that thought before it could get any further. The only people they had left to trust were each other.

She couldn’t lose that too.

&

The clearest memories Susan had had of Edmund had all been from the day he died; the morning, rubbing sleep out of hazy eyes, dark bruises upon an eternally pale face, and then later, the way the blood had stained his favourite blue tunic a damp purplish brown, and that last gasp of shocked pain before the endless silences.

She had forgotten so many things, the way he drank endless cups of coffee but never Calormene tea, and the way he woke up all at once, unlike Peter’s slow stirrings; or the way he always played chess as if the pieces were real troops, the game eternal and endless, self-contained victory or defeat as final as the result of the Germans’ bombs.

She remembered it now because of the glaring contrast between Edmund then, and Edmund now. He had been so good at chess and biting sharp comments just this side of affectionate, but now he just stared at the pieces on the board, and it was painfully apparent that he was trying so hard to strategise beyond moving a random piece and hoping for the best, but it wasn’t working.

Susan had lost a brother once, but she hadn’t quite gained him back yet.

&

It got worse.

Lucy came back early, her hair windblown, and her eyes wild. She almost jumped from her horse, ignoring Alambil’s strident protests, and tore through the palace as if attempting to out-run an army.

“Susan!” she panted, “You’d better come quickly.”

There was a thick envelope squeezed tightly in her hand.

Susan stuffed the cap back onto her best inkwell, and followed her downstairs, one arm hovering over the banister.

&

“Where did Tumnus get this, Lu?” Peter asked, gesturing to the document Lucy had insisted on holding onto.

“What is it?” Edmund asked simultaneously.

Lucy looked right through them. “He said someone had left it on his coffee table while he was on his daily walk.” Her words were stilted, as if she were fighting to get them out of her mouth at all.

Susan reached over to brush her sister’s hand away from the envelope, and met with surprisingly little resistance. Lucy sat with her back utterly straight, as still as one of the Witch’s sculptures.

It already had been opened carefully, so she was able to slide the papers out easily. It felt like her heart had stopped beating.

Wordlessly, she extended it to Peter, who blanched.

“What is it?” Edmund demanded.

None of them answered for a long time, Edmund looking between them frantically.

“Your suicide note,” Peter breathed out finally, the words a single oomph of withheld breath.

Edmund blinked. “What! I thought it was a murder.”

“It was,” Susan assured him.

“It’s not real,” Lucy said hurriedly, sounding as if she were trying to make herself believe it too. “It can’t be.”

“No,” Peter confirmed, looking down to read it through. Unbelievably, he laughed.

They stared at him in astonishment.

“What the heck is wrong with you?” Lucy demanded.

“Ed seems to have suddenly become greatly melodramatic,” Peter chortled. “Listen to this.” He cleared his voice and read, “My darlingiest siblings, it has gotten far too much for someone as insignificant as me to bear.”

Even Edmund burst out laughing at that.

“Are they mocking us?” Susan asked when they had all finally calmed down, before side-eying Edmund. “Darlingiest siblings?”

“As insignificant as me?” Lucy added, giggling.

“Finally developed some humility, have you Ed?” Peter questioned, raising his eyebrows.

“I think we’ve all established that I did not, in fact, write this.”

“They took quite a good stab at your handwriting though.” Peter commented, and then, when Lucy glared at him, added “metaphorically speaking, of course.”

“This makes no sense,” Susan pointed out. “First they’re trying to make us think it was the Terebinthians, and now Edmund’s supposed to have bought that assassin himself?”

Peter shrugged. “Maybe they changed their mind about the scapegoat. All we know is that it probably wasn’t them.”

“But that’s what they want us to think!” Lucy appealed. “Think about it, they make their attempt purposely clumsy, so that we’d know that it’s just framed, because it was them all along.”

“Perhaps that’s precisely what they want us to think,” Edmund suggested.

It was making Susan’s head ache. She’d never been good at theoretical thinking, much better at practicalities and logistics than deciding on a culprit.

All in all, a terrible sleuth, she realised, and glared at Peter.

He didn’t even notice.

&

“But it could have been anyone,” she protested later when Lucy and Edmund had both gone to bed, tired out. Edmund had a lot less energy than she remembered.

“Let’s not talk about that,” Peter answered, getting up to exchange a few words with the guards outside the room, after which Susan heard retreating footsteps.

He’d said that at breakfast too. “You keep saying that,” she remarked, striving to remain calm. “Pretty soon we’ll be conversing about the weather.”

“Lovely for this time of year, isn’t it?” Peter commented jovially, just as a faun entered to pour them summerwine in long champagne-like flutes.

He raised his glass. “To success.”

“To Narnia,” she said instead, licking her lips.

“Is that not the same thing, fair sister?” He laughed, but it was flat and bitter, and sadder than she’d ever heard him.

“Indeed,” she agreed, and wondered whether they were all falling apart even more now that Edmund was back.

&

Five cups later she was laughing, and Peter was spinning her around the room to imagined music, and then he was laughing too, and for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, she could forget, and just feel happy.

He deposited her gently on the ground, but her head felt like it was still spinning, her vision dodgy, and when Susan reached up to kiss him on the cheek, her mouth landed at the corner of his instead.

Instantly, he froze, and pulled away from her, hands clutched very hard around her forearms.

“What are you doing?” he asked, as if it wasn’t perfectly obvious. Susan laughed, a little breathless.

“What do you think?” she responded, stepping closer to him, and if her head felt a little fuzzy, then it had been like that for days.

“You’re drunk,” Peter proclaimed, and pushed her away, so hard that Susan stumbled backwards and wobbled for a bit.

He was at her side almost at once, one arm held very tentatively around her waist.

“Come on,” he said, as soothingly as if she were still merely a child and not a queen. “Let’s get you to bed.”

&

When she woke up, it felt like there was something extremely heavy laid across her brow, heavier than a thousand of Peter’s crowns, and it was pressing down from impossible angles.

Susan pushed herself up, and only then realised that it was just her head. Cautiously, she tilted it back and rested it very carefully against her headboard.

There was a flurry of movement to her side, and one of her handmaidens pressed a vial into her hand.

“To relieve the pain, Majesty,” she murmured. Susan took it gratefully, and pulled the small cork off with one hand.

It tasted surprisingly bitter for such a sweet-smelling substance, but it worked swiftly. Within moments, Susan felt so light she thought she could float up to the high ceiling, and touch the figures painted so lovingly upon its surface.

She did not even notice her eyes close.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3