"Didn't find her?" The White Witch's voice was so cold it seemed it could freeze the air itself. She held a wand in her hand—translucent, crystalline, as if carved from pure ice.
By Kamar-Taj's taxonomy, a weapon about eyebrow-high or taller, something you could swing like a club, counted as a staff. Something the length of the arm, usable only as a casting focus, was a wand.
A staff was not automatically superior to a wand. Different tools for different needs.
The thing in the White Witch's hand right now was a wand. Small. Elegant. She raised it and touched the tip to the prostrated new alpha. The wolf turned to stone.
Its expression froze in terror, but the transformation took almost no time at all—a single breath, and its life signs were gone. In its place stood a lifelike stone statue.
The rest of the wolves panicked and pressed themselves flat to the ground, begging for mercy.
"It didn't find her. Did none of you?" the White Witch asked, voice like steel.
"You—did you not find her either?" Her wand whipped out suddenly, its tip aimed at the very wolf Bella was controlling.
The turning-to-stone effect never materialized. Before her magic could land, the wolf's body simply detonated—flesh, fur, bone, all of it vaporizing into a pale green mist that billowed outward toward the White Witch.
The White Witch had overestimated herself. And she had badly underestimated Bella's methods.
Caught flat-footed, her heavy pleated dress dragging at her movement, she had not fully cleared the poison cloud by the time she shook free. Her left hand, from fingers to wrist, had picked up a dusting of the toxin. The skin there was a sickly green.
Poison. Powerful poison.
"You little bitch. You've made me angry." Her eyes were full of killing intent. She glared at empty air.
Bella's voice drifted in from nowhere in particular. "Old woman, cut the posturing. Worry about the antidote first."
She didn't need Bella's advice. Magic was already pouring out of her palm, drawing the toxin out of her flesh.
This was something Bella had engineered herself, pulling from old manuscripts: mind poison.
The thoughts of sentient creatures were arguably the most toxic substances in the world. She had extracted three drops of blood from the previous alpha's heart, distilled the poison, and laced the decoy wolf's body with it. Undetectable. The White Witch—no slouch as a magic-user—had completely missed it, and had even gone posing with her wand to strike. Watching the whole thing unfold, Bella had almost laughed aloud.
The White Witch had never seen anything like mind poison. Once it was in her, she felt off all over—head dulled, soul affected, magical circulation cut by a solid ten percent.
She tried seven or eight different cleansing techniques with no real luck. The best she could do was suppress the toxin with raw magical force. Extracting it completely would be a slow grind, needing real time.
Her teeth ground in fury. Not a single wolf in the pack that had witnessed her humiliation was left alive. She slaughtered them all. But the slime-green tint on her forearm remained—a permanent reminder. She had taken a hit. A big one.
From a peak not far from the castle, Bella was using the poison itself as a probe, reading the White Witch's strength through it.
This one was strong.
The two of them worked from different magical systems, which made fine comparison tricky.
Broadly, though: the White Witch was a touch above her.
Bella's advantage was that she'd spent the last several months immersed in Kamar-Taj. The Ancient One had walked her through Kamar-Taj magic at length. She understood the White Witch's fundamentals. The White Witch knew nothing about her.
Know your enemy and know yourself—that was Bella's edge.
Second edge: her equipment was more varied.
Disadvantage: the White Witch had a whole roster of subordinates—Minoboars, Minotaurs, Harpies, on and on. Bella was a one-woman army. Even counting Pyramid Head and Jason, that total wouldn't make a dent in the White Witch's numbers.
The mass beatdown at Kamar-Taj, where over a hundred students had swarmed her, was proof enough. Fully surrounded, she couldn't hold out.
As the village's one and only hope, Bella made her way back to the Beavers' home.
The Beavers fed her grilled fish. She pulled out several apples and offered them to the little creatures.
With half her psionic energy already spent—and still no coordinates for the material plane—she decided to spend another night at the Beavers' place to recover.
Narnia's night was not quiet. The howl of the north wind, the intermittent cries of wolves, the rustle of branches—all of it hummed in her ears.
The Beavers were used to it. The two plump little creatures curled around each other, sleeping soundly.
Bella used her own brand of meditation to rest and restore her psionic energy. When subtle footsteps broke the crust of snow outside the den, she opened her eyes.
Her staff and cross-hilted sword lay nearby. She walked out of the cave empty-handed.
A massive lion with golden fur was approaching slowly. The wind and snow that shrouded Narnia's night parted around him like guards, peeling back on either side.
His eyes held intelligence. His stride was powerful without feeling oppressive.
"Hello, Miss Bella." The lion spoke with easy politeness.
"Hello, Aslan."
The lion studied her for a moment. "You are not the Daughter of Eve the prophecy spoke of."
In front of this figure—something close to a guardian, or a guardian god—Bella made no effort to posture. She simply said what she thought.
"Sons of Adam, Daughters of Eve—honestly, I don't know. You should know I didn't come here of my own will. This wasn't an accident. It was some kind of—arrangement. You understand?"
Aslan nodded. "I understand. The same way the White Witch arrived here. For certain beings, a prophecy is only an experiment—a way to challenge the rules of the world, a probe against its limits."
That was a hard line to respond to gracefully.
The Ancient One had been very good to her. Passing on her arts, correcting her flaws—the old woman had discharged every duty a teacher owed a student. What more could she ask?
The age of filial piety—of revering heaven, earth, ruler, parents, and teacher—was over. But a master who taught you a craft was still owed respect.
Out of that debt, Bella had decided to stay in Narnia. Otherwise she could have climbed onto her carpet and flown off. There was no obligation to stay and slug it out.
Bella didn't know about the Ancient One casually dumping Sadako's clone on Cybertron. But after three months with the old woman, she'd picked up on one of her core philosophies: protect Earth. Everything else can burn. A classic Earth-first mentality.
Any territory outside Earth, the Ancient One didn't care about. Didn't think about. Didn't spare a thought for.
Dumping an evil copy of herself into Jotunheim was exactly the kind of thing the old woman would do. You lot have this land sitting empty—might as well do something useful with it...
Bella knew which side she was on. The gentle reproach Aslan had aimed at the Ancient One needed a response. "We are not gods. We can't expect every outcome to land inside our predictions. When a problem shows up, you fix it. That's what should be done right now. And I think that's also the baseline for this conversation."
Aslan turned it back on her. "Then will you solve this problem?"