Susan heads south to search, guided by the robin. Mr. and Mrs. Beaver go west and east, respectively, quietly gathering aid along the way. The closest thing Peter has to a Narnian guide is Lucy, and they go north together.
Lucy knows little of Narnia beyond what Tumnus told her in a few furtive visits, and yet it is enough: she gravitates towards the right trees for shelter and follows the deer trails instead of the rutted road. In the end, they find neither Aslan nor Edmund, but return to the Beavers’ Dam with a small army in their wake. Mr. Beaver likewise returns with allies — most of the network he had spent the winter cultivating for such a day.
Mrs. Beaver brings Aslan, the rest of the army, and enough food to feed it.
It is Susan who finds Edmund huddling next to a stone lion for what meager warmth it absorbed from the sun. She asked him no questions (not even about the mustache scrawled on the lion’s face and half rubbed away, nor Edmund’s raw hands stained with charcoal). She only marches calmly into the castle of ice and offers herself as a far more useful prisoner in her brother’s stead.
Amused and crafty, the Witch accepts her bargain and turns the traitor loose — for now — even while planning to use him later.
Susan watches and waits and obeys like the good girl she has always been called, and like the wolves that haunt the gardens. She makes herself a useful pet to the Witch, and she curries favors where she can among the army. Opposable thumbs are relative rarities in Narnia, after all, especially ones that come with small, deft hands that can write, that can work locks, that can mend wounds and clothing alike. Susan learns little of magic but much of Narnia… and of how to cultivate allies.
To the Witch, Susan’s gentleness is a weakness. A sign that she is not a threat. To Maugrim, it is the fleeting memory of the Pack, of warmth and wagging tails. To Skarr the Minotaur, it is a healer’s touch, a gift all but beaten out of his people. To the snow leopards and other snarling, solitary cats, it is something to be ostentatiously ignored yet subtly mimicked. To the Black Dwarves, it is greeted with suspicion at first, until Susan proved that her gentleness went hand in hand with an iron will, proves by the forge-burns of her own that she acquired while treating others.’
In our world, we compare the comings and goings of winter to a lion. In Narnia, winter ends Gently.
When Aslan comes, the Witch tries to claim Edmund and Susan both. But the Deep Magic was already at work — a blameless one had sacrificed herself in the traitor’s stead — and Susan had made herself too useful to kill. When Jadis tries, belatedly, she finds herself facing a phalanx of her own wolves, snow leopards, Minotaurs and Black Dwarves. All around the garden, stone statues stir to life. Edmund stands between a lion and a Lion, ready to reclaim his sister. Lucy is in a tree, and soon roots strengthen and heave up from underground, shaking the very foundations of the Witch’s castle.
The Witch stands still, as if frozen… with indecision, perhaps, but more likely with her own magic turned back upon itself by a Deeper power. Her already pale face drains of all its color. Her arm falls stiffly to her side, her wand leeched of its power.
Peter steps forward. No snarling wolves rush to meet him. Susan walks calmly forward, her army at her back. With their embrace, spring bursts forth in glorious bloom.
There is no battle, only rejoicing — and a peace that thaws from cautious to lasting under the nurturing care of the four new monarchs. Spring reigns, long and lasting, spreading quickly to the four corners of Narnia.
A thousand years later, they still tell the stories: Edmund the Lion-Friend, Lucy the Tree-Waker, Peter the First King of Spring… and Susan the Gentle, High Queen of Narnia.
A thousand years later, they say Aslan himself still roams the hills, from time to time. They also say that, to the south, between two of those hills, there is a crystal-pure lake left by the glacial melt of the Witch’s castle. In the middle of the lake stands a lady of stone, her arms at her sides, her face blank with incomprehension and worn by time. They say that, if the statue should ever thaw, Queen Susan herself shall return to face her, with a Lion on one side and a wolf at the other — armed with deep magic to Gentle the Witch.
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