A Breath of Spring

He didn't want to tell her.

Aslan had said there was no reason to talk of what was past, that he never needed to reveal what the great lion had said to him. But he knew she would ask, and he most certainly did not want anyone to know, especially her.

Ayadine was walking toward him, her silver hair swirling around her in the wind. Every so often, she would stop and speak briefly with a member of Aslan's army. Oreius, the stern Centaur warrior that had carried Edmund on his back to safety at the Stone Table walked with her, speaking in a low voice. Edmund couldn't hear what it was they were saying. He could only watch the way Ayadine gestured with her slim hands, watch how the soft sunlight made something on her wrists and forearms glitter like coins in the sun. When she finally made it to his side, he saw that her wrists had something like fish scales sprayed over the fair skin, like another person would have freckles.

"Are you a mermaid?"

The question is out of his mouth before he can help himself. He ought to know better, he berates himself. She doesn't even have a tail, for goodness' sake. How could she be a mermaid?

"I'm a nymph," she says, holding out her hand. "Come with me."

He takes her hand, finds it soft and cool in his grasp. He can only watch the light play on the crystal pale strands of her hair as she leads him high upon the hills. She has a great thing to show him, and he wants to see, but he is afraid to be near her, afraid that he will blurt out the thing he doesn't want to tell her.

Just when he begins to sweat from the exertion, and he feels he must take his hand back to help him climb, they reach the top of where Ayadine has been leading him all this time. She sinks down to the grass, and pats the green growth beside her for Edmund to sit. He does, gingerly. It is like walking on shards of glass, or chips of ice. He doesn't know why he came, only that he had to go with her.

"Look," she whispers. It seems a place for whispering. "Do you see it?"

She points now, out to the East, where the sun is rising. Below their vantage point, the whole land of Narnia flows out before them, like a great and gentle river or lake. He follows where she points with his eyes, and sees something, a small white something that fills his heart with joy for a moment.

"Do you see it?"

He shook his head, and murmured, "Not very well. Sorry."

She reaches out, her fingertips brushing his thin, black eyebrows. She gently runs her fingers down over his eyelids, and something tingles through his face and behind his eyes.

"For just a moment, do not think. Feel. Become. See as I see. See through my eyes."

He opens up his eyes and looks again where she points. This time, the world is washed in tints of green and blue and pale aqua. It wavers and shifts, like looking through a rain-splashed window. With his new eyes, he sees the castle she is pointing at. It is colored like the shallows of a river, pale as air, sparkling with the morning light kissing every window like glimmering fish scales. Everything is sharper and clearer, and that new image of the castle lifts his spirits even more.

Then he feels lips on his cheek, right over the yellowed bruise where the White Witch struck him; a feather light touch over the cut that is there as well. He blinks and turns to Ayadine. But that blinking has restored his normal sight.

"Why did you..."

"I've always wanted to kiss a king," she murmurs shyly. "But... Edmund. King Edmund. Your Highness. I bring you here to lighten your heart. What troubles you? What is it?"

And suddenly he finds himself telling her everything, like an outpouring of poisonous guilt. He cannot stop himself, he has to tell her. He has to tell her everything, about the lying to Peter and Susan and letting Lucy down. About telling the Witch where his family was and how she tried to have them killed. How he'd been there when the Witch turned the little Christmas Party to stone, and the Fox as well, the first Narnian to call Edmund "Your Highness." How he'd seen Tumnus the Faun, seen what his own greed and envy at his siblings had cost the Faun. He tells her everything, and when he is finished, he weeps, and she draws his wet, tear-streaked face down onto her shoulder.

After he'd cried himself out, and been still for a time, did she murmur, "And this is why you will be a great King of Narnia, and a force to be reckoned with in the War against the Witch. This is why you are one of the Four, and no other. And this is why I am yours, my King. My just and righteous King."

He looks up into her face, into her eyes like swirling, jewel-like waters, and he knows that she speaks truth. He takes her hand, and she squeezes his in reassurance.

After a time, he feels her head on his shoulder, and it gives him peace.

Oo8oo8oo8oO

"Edmund?"

He looks over to see Lucy seated on the floor beside his bunk, looking up at him with her eyes dark and worried.

"What, Lu?"

"Will you be all right?"

He notices she doesn't ask him if he's all right at this moment. Of course he isn't. He can feel tears on his cheeks.

"I hope so, Lu. I really hope so."