CHAPTER FIVE:
AT DAWN

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THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO, long before Rosalie Hannigan was born and abandoned, a man fell in love with a woman. Now, this was no extraordinary thing. Since the dawn of time, people had felt love's scorn and came back for more; like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, just the idea of love lured even the strongest of men and women into wanting just one more taste of the forbidden fruit.

The man and woman of this tale were no different.

One was a common boy (barely a man, really) who was born and raised in the fields of the Scottish Highlands. He was... unassuming, taking whatever God graced upon him and his poverty-stricken family with a smile on his face. His father was a farmer, and his mother a housewife. They didn't have much, but their love had given them seven children, and that was more than enough for them, so it would be for him too.

But deep down, their youngest son — the common boy, the Hero of our tale — yearned for adventure.

And God heard his prayers, as unintentional as they were.

On the eve of his twentieth birthday, he was out late in the barns herding away the cattle for his father, who had become sickly since his youngest son dawned into adulthood. Our Hero didn't mind. His five older brothers had long since left behind their life on the farm, and his sister was yet to leave school, being only fifteen. It was up to him, and he welcomed the burden, for it distracted him from that ache in his chest, the sinking realisation that his heart hoped for more.

That fateful night, the smell of his mother's stew was tantalising in the air. He was hurrying across the field, eager to return home to a hot meal, when the darkness tripped him up and he smashed his head on a rock. The pain was skull-splitting. For a terrifying instant, Our Hero prayed that, if this was death, it would take him quick.

But death would not come for him.

Not yet.

When he woke, blinking out of the shadows, a woman with fire for hair and eyes like glittering emeralds leaned over him, one of her hands on his neck feeling for a pulse. The ground beneath his back was dry like sand, and the scent of seawater was sweet in the air, his mother's stew a distant memory.

Our Hero had never seen such a beautiful woman before — one that wasn't his mother, that is. It was then that he realised something was very, very wrong. The Scottish Highlands were long gone — worlds away. But this woman was beautiful, and she insisted on helping him with his head wound, and it was so easy to fall in love when one's heart was vulnerable, and perhaps a little unused to such a wondrous feeling.

Which was where Our Heroine made her grand debut.

She was a soft-spoken soul, the youngest of two sisters, the one who was always left out of the limelight. Born and bled on Narnian soil, she knew she didn't truly belong in this life she'd been given. She wished for more; a quiet life, a loving husband and children, lots of children. Simply... an existence that wasn't quite so lonely. Sure, she had her sister, but her sister was her opposite in every sense of the word — fierce, perhaps a little cruel, and willing to do anything to get to the top.

When Our Hero dropped out of the sky, a man with no ties to Narnia but a heart rather like hers, Our Heroine thought God had finally heard her prayers. She knew it was her fate to look after him. Why else would she have been out by the river the day that he appeared? And he loved her, couldn't help the way she made him feel. Our Heroine had never been so lucky.

They were met and married within a year, settling down with their first child just a mere month away. Our Heroine hoped they would be the first of many, that the barren rooms of their new cottage by the river would be filled to the brim with life in just a matter of years.

But fate, as she would come to realise, always had an underlying clause in its contract.

And the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden — as sweet as it was — was laced with poison.

Her Hero disappeared one night. Out tending to the garden, she heard not a whisper as he departed. If not for the child growing in her womb — his child — she would've thought she'd imagined him and the life they were creating together. She waited days, weeks, a whole month for him to return, all the while Narnia grew colder and colder. But Her Hero never came back, and so their daughter was born without her father there to meet her.

At dawn, the first snowflake fell. Winter had come at last. It was then that Our Heroine realised something was very, very wrong. For the first time in months, she had to light a fire in the hearth, her palms stinging for the rest of the day. She nursed her baby with a sinking feeling in her chest. That, come nightfall, she was going to join her husband in whatever purgatory he'd been forced into.

When the sun set, she was ready. Her arms felt empty and hollow as she stood by the fire, the flames dancing a funeral march in her eyes when the door shattered inwards.

"You knew I'd come," Our Villain sneered at her back. 

Our Hero didn't answer. She waited for death to take her as ice suffocated the heat in her veins. And with her dying breath, she laughed her sister's name through blood and flame, knowing that her daughter, who her sister was after all along, was worlds away.

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THAT NIGHT, ROSALIE LAID beneath the stars but couldn't sleep a wink. On one side of her, Edmund had his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling with each even breath. On her other side, Susan faced Lucy's back after a murmured conversation that Rosalie hadn't felt comfortable listening to. Both girls had eventually dozed off, leaving her alone in the Narnian woods, her thoughts plagued by the life she'd left behind.

Were her parents worried? Did they even care that she hadn't come home? Perhaps they were relieved. At last, the burden had been lifted. Michael would certainly be happy...

Since the moment she learnt the truth, Rosalie had lived with the weight of every mistake she'd made on her shoulders. Feeling like a stranger in her own home, her own life... She hated — despised — the fact that she missed her family when they deserved nothing less than to fear for her safety. But deep down, despite every wound they'd left on her heart, it ached to reassure them, to take their burdens as her own.

Rosalie sighed and turned on her side so she was facing Edmund. He seemed to sense her gaze on him; his eyes flickered open to catch hers in the dim firelight. It made Rosalie wonder if he'd actually been sleeping, or just letting his mind wander into the silence of the night.

"What are you doing awake?" he asked, his fingers brushing hers in the space between their bodies. He didn't seem to realise what he'd done, but Rosalie knew. She was keenly aware of every single movement, sound, feeling...

"Can't sleep," she shrugged when he murmured her name.

"A lot on your mind?"

For a while, Rosalie didn't answer. They simply laid side-by-side, staring up at the branches drenched in moon-light. Then, as her heart tightened in her chest, her lips parted and anxious words slipped through.

"What happens at home while we're here?" Silence. Rosalie almost regretted asking; but if anyone knew what would happen to her family, it would be him. "Does time just continue without us?"

"I'm not sure," he admitted. Edmund had never truly grasped the concept of time between Narnia and their world. "When we were here last, we lived here for decades. But when we went home, only seconds had passed."

The thought wasn't as comforting as Rosalie had hoped.

"You should try and sleep," he said. "We've got an early start tomorrow."

This time, when his eyes closed and his breaths evened out, Rosalie knew he had dozed off. And eventually, she slid into a state of unconsciousness, where her family greeted her in her dreams. Her father's beratement and her mother's disappointment and Michael's taunting smile. Rosalie knew, even if years did pass at home without her, the life of the Hannigan family would not change.

Rosalie Hannigan was fleeting and forgettable, sometimes even in her own heart.

At dawn, she was the first one awake. Just her luck. Her eyes were heavy, longing to rest again, but with the sun creeping higher into the sky, she knew they needed to get a move on. So she pushed herself up, yawning as she pulled twigs out of her hair, and froze when she realised two spaces around the snuffed-out fire were empty.

Lucy and Peter were missing. The others slept on unwittingly.

"Edmund," Rosalie anxiously shook his arm. "Edmund, wake up!"

At the unexpected urgency in her voice, Edmund's eyes shot open. "Rosie?" he murmured, still somewhat out of it. "What's wrong?"

"Lucy and Peter are gone!"

"What?" It was Susan who answered, her alarmed ion striking in the early-morning light. She and Trumpkin had woken to the commotion, and were already up on their feet by the time Edmund helped Rosalie up. Dew clung to the trees in droplets, covering the grass in a glistening display, but Rosalie couldn't bring herself to enjoy the scenery with Edmund and Susan so worried. "We need to find them!"

"But where would they go without telling us?" Edmund frowned, the rest of his question left unspoken. What if they were taken?

"They can't have gone far," Rosalie insisted, kneeling beside a fresh pair of footprints in the mud beside Peter's abandoned resting spot. The marks disappeared as the grass thickened, but they were new. Lucy and Peter had only disappeared in a matter of minutes. "We should—"

A high-pitched shriek echoed through the trees, taken by the wind before they could recognise it. Rosalie's heart hammered as Edmund took off in its direction, forcing the others to race after him, four frantic bodies quickly losing themselves in the forest. A second later, they heard another shout, followed by the unmistakable clashing of swords.

"Peter!" Susan yelled her brother's name.

All of a sudden, they burst into a clearing. Rosalie spotted Lucy first, the young girl shaking behind a cluster of shrubs. On the other side, Peter had a rock clutched in his hands, standing against his own weapon in the grip of an unfamiliar man. He was dark-haired, and wore distinct Telmarine armour despite being surrounded by dozens of Narnian people.

Rosalie had never seen anything like it before. Centaurs, dwarfs, bears and more. She'd wandered into the pages of a storybook and had no idea how to find her way out.

But she knew one thing. Whenever her heart raced like this, her emotions heightened, and control slipped through her fingers like water. Her palms burned with sparks of fire, like a flickering candle threatening to start a forest fire. Terrified, she rubbed her hands against her dress before the flames could erupt, ribbons of charcoal passing off as dirt from their trek.

"High King Peter?" the man from before murmured, recognition slowly creeping onto his face closely followed by horror. Rosalie counted herself lucky that he didn't seem to notice the scent of smoke; nor did any of the others who were focused on their Kings and Queens of Old.

Peter looked down his nose at him, trying his best to salvage the last of his pride. "I believe you called."

"Well, yes, but... I thought you'd be older."

"If you like, we can come back in a few years—"

"No!" the man — who could only be the Prince Caspian of Trumpkin's tales — exclaimed hastily. "No, that's alright. You're just... you're not exactly what we expected."

"Neither are you," Edmund retorted then.

He had inched closer to Rosalie's side, his wary eyes lingering on the army of Narnians that crowded around them in a ring. In particular, he frowned at the only other person who looked remotely human in the group. Rosalie caught the woman's eyes and was startled by the bright gold hue that was already staring back at her.

That, and her shocking mess of ice-white hair.

Slowly, the woman grinned, reminding Rosalie of a lion assessing its prey. She winked in Edmund's direction, her fingers fluttering in a haunting wave, and then she turned back to Caspian like a dutiful soldier. Everything about her was composed, confident, rehearsed.

Rosalie had a feeling she could be trouble when she wanted to be.

If only she had known how much.