𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐒 ✯ 𝑛𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑎 𝑥 ℎ𝑜𝑔𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑠 ✓

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍

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𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐂𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 in an instinct when she fell towards the frozen over courtyard in exhaustion. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets and her lips were blue from the cold whereas her skin resembled the snow all around them in an eerily pale manner.

Peter clenched his jaw in effort as he put one of his hands under her legs and the other around her waist, slowly lifting her up. Her body radiated with cold, the icy temperature even traveling through his own clothes and he suppressed a shiver. She had to get out of the cold, and fast.

'Noelle,' Peter said, calling the female archenlander who stood on the lowest step of the stone stairs.

Noelle averted her eyes from Caolán who sped over the courtyard with a line of several horses behind him.

'With me,' Peter ordered and Noelle quickly followed the High King up the stairs.

The chart room lay across the throne room and the fire in the hearth crackled as it danced over the burned wood between the stones. The flames spread a pleasant heat throughout the area and Peter laid the unknown girl in front of the fire.

'Try to get her to open her eyes again, but don't let her drink or eat anything warm until she's fully conscious, alright?' he said to Noelle, and she curtsied.

'Understood, Your Majesty.'

Peter nodded curtly at Noelle, though he did not take his eyes off the passed out girl. He adjusted the blanket around her a bit before standing up and hurrying out of the chart room, back towards the courtyard.

'How exactly are we going to carry fifteen people out of the forest?' June wondered out loud, handing Peter the reins of an auburn stallion while she herself led a black mare.

'We have to try,' Caspian answered and he mounted his horse Destrier.

The others followed his example and the hooves of the horses clattered on the stones as they shot out of the gate in the direction of the twilight forest.

The branches of the pine trees bend downwards under the weight of the snow ─ rather sorrowfully looking, in a way ─ and the wind whistled around the group while they ushered their horses to go as fast as possible. (Caolán was quite glad he had added the snow spikes under the iron horse shoes earlier this day when he had given them some exercise.)

'She must have come through here,' Darkan shouted when he spotted some turned over snow at his side. The tracks lead up a small hill that marked the beginning of the tree line. Darkan jumped off Sunfire, strengthening his grasp on the edge of the saddle when his feet threatened to slip away but he quickly found his balance again.

'The horses cannot follow through there, though,' Caolán said with a worried look.

'There's a wild path not much farther up ahead,' Caspian said, observing the tracks the girl had made for as far as he could. 'I think it runs mostly parallel with these tracks, for now at least. We'll go that way while Darkan follows the trail. Let's hope the girl's friends aren't too far away from the path.'