Part 2

"It's Peter," Susan said. Her eyes were red. "His ship…"

Isabel let her voice wash over her. The words sea storm and night and drowned floated in the air, meaningless.

Peter's latest letter had arrived only two days ago, a page and a half of his observations of the Islands and their people, of his hopes for increasing trade and stamping out the slavery and pirating that ran rampant in the beautiful waters in which he now sailed. It had ended with his typical, oh-so serious affirmation of love.

Heart pounding, limbs tingling, she tried to speak. And then a hand was on her shoulder, and she found her nose buried in Susan's long hair. When Susan pulled back, Isabel felt moisture on her cheeks. Whose tears were they?

If I don't say it, it won't be true.

The world was crashing, tilting, like the sea on dark stormy nights. Never again – his laughter, his smile, the touch of his hands, the smell of his skin – all of that, vanished in a single instant. The sun was blotted out and dimmed. Earth shifting beneath her feet. Something was squeezing her chest, and when she raised her hand to her heart she saw that it was shaking.

"I can't," she choked out. Isabel had meant to say I can't remember the last thing I said to him, but all that came out were the first two words, a desperate plea.


She still dreamt of her husband, nearly every night. Sometimes he appeared as he had been when she last saw him; the wind ruffling his hair, laughter in his eyes as he prepared to board the ship and she made some parting jest. Those were the bitterest nights, when she woke in the dark, fumbling for something in the too-large space beside her, so sure that the previous weeks had all been a terrible dream.

And sometimes she sat up in the bed and screamed, her mind filled with the sight of his body drifting in blue-green water, his face blank and torn, eyes etched by horrifying sights, the blue turned to a muddy gray, the gray of death and desolation. His mouth would be open, as if there was one last thing he had forgotten to say, except the current swept him away, down into the deep and the cold where silence and night reigned over all.

Every time she would stumble to her daughter's crib, where Francesca lay in peace. She would look at her daughter's long eyelashes and slow rise and fall of chest until a measure of peace returned to her.

Ours, she thought in such moments, a part of you whole and thriving. It is enough.


"You may not like what I am about to say," Edmund had told her. One night he had found her weeping, and told her some tale about their first winter, when Peter had slipped while skating, and turned her tears to laughter. Thereafter she went to him in those long days when loneliness stretched out like a dark road before her, and listen to him speak.

In the course of the long evenings they spent talking, he spoke of their childhood, of the golden boy who had been their mother's favourite (no hint of emotion but for a clenching of his teeth), and of the hazy years growing up in a distant land before they had become kings and queens. What emerged was a picture of the boy who had been her husband before she knew him; stubborn, proud, serious and hard-working, an infuriating brother and a natural leader. And here and there Isabel saw a glimpse of Edmund; resentful and worshipful at once, their clashes corrosive still after so many years.

"Don't stop," she would always say, or "Go on, I want to know," whenever Edmund hesitated before he said something not entirely complimentary of his brother. The memories Edmund had of Peter were crystal-clear and rarely sentimental; besides, he was an excellent story-teller. Listening to him brought her a peace she suspected was very like to healing.

Tonight the wine was drained until only the dregs remained, and their meal lay cold and sticky on her plate. Edmund stifled a yawn, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. The gesture made something protective and somehow maternal stir within her.

"Thank you," she said reluctantly. "Please don't stay up too late."

"Not a chance," he said, following her to the door. His eyes told her he was sorry to see her go.

"I mean it. Are you still having bad dreams?"

Gaze flickering, he said: "They don't mean anything."

She reached for him, touched his hand. "I do, too. It's as if he was here again, and then when I wake up he's gone. Every night."

"I never thought it would be like this." His voice was low.

He had told her that when they had spoken of death they had both assumed it would be on the battlefield somewhere, by sword or lance or tooth and claw. Not by the whim of fortune, by sharp rocks jutting out of an unforgiving sea.

She shivered. "Neither did I." Thought with that familiar falling sensation of their wedding day, when they had stood beneath the warm sky and sun and sworn to each other eternal oaths. In the end, they had only been words.

"Can I ask you a question?" he said.

"Yes."

"Are you scared?"

"Of the future?"

"Of never seeing him again."

Such longing in his voice. She thought of catechisms learned in childhood, of gazing out to sea to look for a land beyond the reach of her eye. Of the immeasurable space that lay between the living and the dead.

"Yes," she whispered. And then:

"Edmund. Do you think there is a heaven or hell? That Paradise awaits us?"

"I don't think about it as much as I should," he admitted. "I'm not sure that it matters, when there's the same work to be done, no matter what awaits us."

She was surprised. In all their time together they had never spoken of Aslan, whose land it was said the good and valorous went to after they had passed on.

"Not even –"

"If there is a heaven or hell," he said, "they are here, on earth. All three at once."


Winter came early that year, and they were all of them kept busy by a wave of sickness that swept through the castle. Edmund escaped the cough that overtook his sisters and his brother's widow.

Still, he was kept busy by his duties. And then one cold night, Francesca ran away. Everyone in the castle was set to searching for the lost princess. She could not be found in the kitchens, or the courtyard, or the gardens, or the orchards, which were all her favourite places. It was beginning to rain icy sleet, and Edmund felt a chill run down his spine at the thought of his niece buried beneath purest snow, cheeks cold, breath vanished. The rain had washed away her scent, puzzling even their best bloodhounds.

What would a young child do on such a night? Edmund wondered. Where would she go? Who would she look to in the darkness that was already falling?

He knew, and it was his own feet that took him along a path he had neglected for nearly half a year. The sanctuary was dark and empty, the coloured glass embedded in its ceiling drumming with the beat of the rain. Shadows waited in the corners, and there was a hush, like an expectant breath.

"Is anyone here?" he called.

Silence, but for the echoes of his own voice. Once this place would have given him the greatest of comforts. Now it made him uneasy to look upon the golden lion's face, for so long as familiar to him as his own heart.

"It's me, darling," he said. "Don't be afraid."

Enough, he told himself. It was time to leave.

From far above him came the roll of thunder, except that for a second it almost sounded like something – someone – roaring. A shiver ran down his spine like cold water. And then lightning flashed far above him, flooding the sanctuary with light and movement. It took a moment for him to feel it. Something, a change in the air, a shifting of the darkness, and he turned around, nameless hope mixing with dread in his pounding chest.

There was no one there.

"Damn you," he shouted, slamming his fist against the wall. A sharp pain lanced up his arm and he raised his bloody hand to his eyes. He swore again. He had not cried since he was young, had not wept even when they had received the news of his brother. Yet now tears of rage blurred his vision. Angrily he wiped them away.

When he looked up, he was staring into a pair of wild golden eyes.

A breeze rippled along his face and neck, smelling of rain and soil, of something wild and alive and growing.

"Aslan," Edmund whispered, and the name was strange and familiar and terrible and wonderful at once.

"My son," said the lion in a voice as sad as if he had been the one weeping.

So tightly had he clenched his fists that his nails dug into his skin. The pain was sharp and welcome. "Where is she?"

"Your niece is safe."

Edmund found that he was trembling. A part of him, the part that noted the dull pain emanating from his hand, noted that Aslan's mane was dry and full despite the rain outside. He knew that Aslan was waiting for him to speak. But now that they stood face to face all the things he had wanted to say withered away.

"Why?" asked Edmund.

"Why did the storm hit at the exact moment your brother's ship was most vulnerable? Why did the ship not hold, and was instead dashed against the rocks, sending forty-two souls down in to the depths of the ocean? Why was he torn away from you so suddenly? Is that what you ask of me?"

"No, I –" Edmund shook his head in anguish. The right words would not come. "I looked for you."

"And what did you find?"

"Not you. Not when I needed you."

"Not when it seemed as though the world was crashing down about your shoulders," said Aslan, and he stepped forward until they were so close Edmund could feel his warm breath on his skin. He had not realized how cold he was. There was something there, something hovering on the edge of his memory, a half-remembered dream of someone tall opening his arms to embrace him.

"And now, child?" asked Aslan.

"Will I see him again," he began, voice shaking.

"I know," said Aslan quietly. "This grief is hard."

"Aslan, I can't –"

"I know," said the great lion again. Those great golden eyes shone with sorrow and love.

Above them in the night the rain fell and thunder roared and lightning flashed, and something inside him was breaking, dissolving. He thought of his brother and the uncountable ways he had loved him and hated him, of the broken promise of endless summer days, the lifetime that should have stretched before the four of them.

And in a voice as low as the rolling of thunder: "I know."

"Oh, Aslan." He buried himself in the golden fur.

.

On his way back to the castle, he met a sodden figure on the empty garden path. In all the commotion, no one had noticed that the Queen Consort was no longer in bed.

"What are you doing?" he demanded. Her eyes were bright and feverish as only the ill possessed.

"I heard…" She dissolved into a fit of coughing.

"Francesca is safe. We've found her. Please, go inside and we'll talk."

"Oh, thank goodness." She brought her hands to her mouth, reached for his hand. Her touch burned of fever. "You're hurt."

"Go. Now," he said frantically, taking hold of her shoulders and pushing her in the opposite direction. "The doctor said you could die, don't you understand?"

"What happened?"

The skin had split when he smashed it against the door, and blood mingled with rain to make a spectacular rosy bloom on the white of his sleeve. But the pain was already faint and distant.

"It's better than it looks."

"You always say that, Peter," she murmured.

For a moment she said nothing, eyes downcast, and then they flicked up in a panic, skimming over his features. "Edmund," she breathed, "I meant Edmund. I… I wasn't thinking, forgive me."

He let out the breath he had been holding. "There's nothing to forgive. Now, come on."


It was Christmas, and as per tradition his older sister sat them down to dinner, though it was more subdued than in other years. Francesca was allowed a sip of champagne before being bundled off to bedtime, her mother excusing herself in turn. Shortly after Lucy said she was going out for a walk to clear her head, taking Tumnus with her. Susan, sighing, announced that she was going to bed.

"Will you be alright?" Susan asked him very quietly before she left, a hand on his shoulder. Before she might have stroked his hair, as their mother used to do. Now everything was different.

"Yes, I think so."

"Good."

"Something strange happened today, Su. I was at the stables, and a newborn colt tottered up to me and put his nose in my hand. He was looking for treats, I suppose. His nose was cool and moist and he had such dark, limpid eyes. I was looking at him and then for a moment I was happy, really, perfectly, happy."

He had forgotten how it felt, not to think about his brother every hour of every day. The perfection of that moment in the stables lingered in his mind still, a flash of dazzling joy.

She smiled wearily. "Good. Peter would have been glad."

"And you, sister?"

Susan kissed his cheek. "Do not worry about me. Goodnight, brother. Merry Christmas."

"May the Lion watch over you."

"And you."

He downed the rest of his glass and returned to his chambers. The castle was dark and quiet at night, and he nodded to the guards as he passed them in the hall. Along the way he paused at an open courtyard that led to an enlarged balcony overlooking the city lying at the foot of Cair Paravel.

A woman stood there, looking out over the edge. Her back was to him, and the skin on her neck glowed in the moonlight. Her shining hair was bound up in a crystal hairnet. She turned at his approach, and the sight of the tears that glistened on her cheeks sent a strange jolt of pain mixed with sweetness into his stomach.

"Listen," Isabel said, "they're still singing."

From far below came the faint, clear sound of old, familiar Christmas carols.

"It's lovely, isn't it?" She was shivering. Gooseflesh stood out on her skin, and automatically he took off his coat and stepped forward to wrap it around her shoulders. As he did, she put both her hands around his waist and held him there.

"Will you honour me with a dance?" she asked. So that was what she wanted.

"I'm a terrible dancer," he demurred. His voice came out lower and rougher than he had expected. She gave him a smile as sweet and sad as the one his brother must have fallen in love with.

"Just once," she said. "Before the song ends."

Isabel took his arm and placed it around her waist, and then she held his other hand and placed her own hand in it, entwining their fingers. She stepped up to him. The night air was cold but very clear, and above him the stars shone peacefully, sparkling white and yellow and blue. The sweet tang of champagne lingered in his mouth, mingling with the perfume of her hair, and he knew then that the feeling would be with him for the rest of his life.

When the music faded away, Isabel whispered, "Merry Christmas." He didn't let go. They stood hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, close, so very close, and then she lifted her head. For a long moment the world shrank to a pair of brown eyes. After, he couldn't recall who moved first, only remembered the tilt of her jaw and the heat of her skin. She tasted sweet and salty at once, joy mixed in with sorrow, and a heavy, burning sensation slid down his throat, setting him afire.


Whoo-ee it's been a while hasn't it... re-wrote this part in a burst of boredom! Let me know what you think.