Prologue: The Curse
Narnia - Golden Age
Now that Edmund thought about it, it was all too happy for him back then. He should have certainly doubted that something bad was to inevitably happen. It was always did for him, usually because of his stupidity. But he had been so good. For years, while he ruled Narnia, he had been good and assumed that things weren't to be like as they were. Good fortune follow good deeds. He was wrong, of course. So very sorely wrong.
At the moment, grabbing desperately onto his chest, as his heart started to ache, Edmund could feel thin icy tendrils spreading across his body. He recognized the sensation. He could recognize it any time. However, the pain was immense, and he couldn't properly talk to let his extremely worried siblings know that this was the White Witch, her vengeance.
"Edmund! Edmund!" Lucy called, her red-tinged hair sparkling like amber in the sunlight even as she was looking down at him, fallen on the ground at this point, with tearful eyes. Edmund could only gasp for breath in response.
Peter in the background was frantically yet somehow charismatically ordering the guards to bring in the court physician. Susan was right beside Lucy, her dark brows furrowed so intensely that Edmund worried she would gain a permanent crease. Her hand was on his own tightened fist above his heart, grabbing onto it as if to give whatever strength or remedy she could through so. Edmund noticed that both of his sisters' beautiful garments were now soiled by the muddy ground after last night's heavy rainfall. Internally, he chuckled and sighed at the thought of how he had ended up ruining their morning picnic, only when he had finally joined it, having been too busy until then to attend the event. It was strange. His body was in extreme pain, but his mind was so at ease that he was thinking such things. Perhaps the pain was too much to even be processed by his mind anymore.
Slowly, Edmund's vision began to fail him, its edges darkening. There was a loud roar from afar that sounded very familiar to him, but by the time the roar and the thudding approach neared him, Edmund has lost all connection to what he could see or think. And he fell into a deep slumber.
Narnia - hundreds and thousands of years later
Edmund opened his eyes to an uneven and dimly lit ceiling of what seemed to be a cave. He was draped with a dark emerald green silky cover, which appeared to be (but he hoped not) a shroud. He tried get up when there was a soft purring noise beside him. Edmund turned his head to find none other than Aslan, the great lion himself, sitting somewhat above where Edmund lied and watching him.
With difficulty and plenty of effort, Edmund pushed himself up, his eyes both wearily and warily on the lion. "Aslan… what happened?" He asked.
The lion's eyes became somber at the question. He let out a steady breath and looked away, flicking his tail while doing so, seemingly habitually as felines do. After minutes of silence, what felt like years to Edmund, the lion finally answered. "You've been cursed."
Unable to hold down his sarcasm, Edmund impatiently replied. "That much was obvious. I mean, what happened?"
The great lion turned his gaze back to the young man before him before he sighed. "The White Witch… seemed to have used you to salvage her legacy after her defeat."
"What does that mean?" Edmund asked, confused and also frustrated. Why did it always have to be him?
"It means," the lion patiently remarked, "that small shards of her wand had entered you that day during the battle, and now her hiemal power courses through you."
Edmund could only stare. But by being still, he discovered that he couldn't feel his heart. He quickly placed a hand over his chest, but there was no rhythmic beating one would expect from a heart, just frigid numbness.
"The curse has taken root in your heart. That's where the shards are." Aslan answered the tacit question.
"How am I breathing? How am I alive?" Edmund shouted in disbelief.
The lion gave no answer. His eyes stayed gently on the disoriented man until finally Edmund realised, "Lucy's cordial," to which the lion nodded.
Remembering his little sister's worried face before he lost consciousness, Edmund hastily asked on, "Where's Lucy? And Susan and Peter?"
To Edmund's dread, the lion's eyes darkened with certain sadness. Edmund was already shaking his head in denial before Aslan could even begin to speak what had happened. He could feel that it was not going to be good.
"Young King… when Jadis's curse collided with the life you were given by Queen Lucy's cordial, you were put to sleep. By no one's power could you be awakened, not even mine. Then I placed you here, the Cave of Echoes, where time refuses to flow, where you have remained asleep for… many years."
Your brother and sisters, their time had come. They chose to leave Narnia."
"No, no, no, no, they wouldn't have just left me here alone." Edmund muttered. It seemed that the numbness of his heart had spread to his head. He shook his head weakly. "I know they wouldn't."
Aslan again nodded. "Indeed, King Edmund. They did not leave you. They came back. But... your slumber was to continue."
There was an urge to cry, weep like a baby, if he could, but Edmund found that he couldn't. No tears fell from his eyes. It was as if his inside had become hollow, empty, incapable to carry any touching emotions. "What - why?"
"The curse, though it cannot kill you, corrupts your humanity. The longer it occupies in you the colder and closer to Jadis you'll become. Eventually, her spirit will manifest through you."
"What? How - "
"You must return."
Edmund bit down on his lip, but Aslan continued regardless.
"Once you reenter the world you came from, your body will return to its original form. Essentially, you'll be turning back the time. The curse, along with your body, will return to its primitive stage as well."
The lion then gazed down at Edmund, expectant of some kind of response. Processing Aslan's words, Edmund with a flicker of hope asked. "If, if I'm going back time, will, will I be seeing my brother and sisters?"
Yet, to Edmund's distress, the lion slowly shook his head.
"Even with the gap of time flow between Narnia and your world, the time spent by your curse is too great. The earliest I can send you back is 50 years after the moment you've left your world."
"50 years?"
Something akin to anger began to boil inside Edmund, but before he could fully process the feeling, his chest erupted in great pain, his face scrunching instantly and his breaths quickening. He looked up where the great lion sat, even more confused and frustrated, desperately wanting an answer.
Aslan grimly responded. "Even when your humanity is strengthened enough to break through, the curse will bind it down. If it ever overcomes the curse, that is, if you're ever able to express how you truly feel, it will shred your heart to pieces and will surely kill you."
Learning this, Edmund gritted his teeth, trying to calm himself. "And what of its cure? How can I cure this curse?"
The lion answered readily but slowly. "The only way is to get rid of those shards…"
"But?" Edmund asked with dread. He sensed that this conversation would not end the way he would like it to.
"I'm afraid they are embedded too deeply in your heart." Sighed the lion.
Edmund dropped his head low, his eyes set on his pale fingers. "So I'm doomed."
The lion purred as he descended from where he sat. He nudged Edmund gingerly with his head. "Do not despair yet, young king. Once you return to your world and you become younger yet, you will have time to search a way to get those cursed shards out of you. And I have found a place that can aid you in doing so."
"Where?" Edmund asked, once again a little hopeful.
"There's a school that teaches witchcraft and wizardry. A good man I once knew leads it."
"Wait, there's a school for witches? Like Jadis?"
"Yes, witches and also wizards, but no, not like Jadis. You should know that they are just young people who were born with ability to perform magical deeds and are learning to refine that ability."
That brought several thoughts to the young and wise king. Nevertheless, Aslan did not wait too long for those thoughts to pass. Instead, he gestured toward a big crack between the two protruded cave walls. Impossibly, as all usually was around the lion, light began to slip through the crack and shone on Edmund's face.
"Enter through here, and you'll find yourself where you need to be." Said the lion calmly with a hint of affection.
Edmund swallowed a big breath in determination. If things were to flow such way inevitably, then he would sail with it the best way he could. He glanced once more at the lion before he stepped into the blinding light now pouring out of the crack.
A/N: Of course, I do not own anything beside this new plot... and the Cave of Echoes thing. I'm aware there was no such thing in Narnia, but I had to come up with something to keep the story make sense. I don't know if you've noticed, but this was inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen.
