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Disclaimer: Edmund and Peter Pevensie and all the characters and situations in the Chronicles of Narnia belong to C. S. Lewis and not to me. Oreius also does not belong to me. I do, however, wish I could play in Narnia.

Chapter Three

We spent two days at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, the closest refuge available to us until we were able to make our way back to Cair Paravel. Due to my size, I could do no more than rely on reports from my lieutenants and look in through the doorway from time to time. What I saw was always the same: the dark colt lying on a blanket, unmoving, his brother refusing to leave his side.

All this time, while Mrs. Beaver worried and fussed over them both and Mr. Beaver demanded to know what was to be done to avenge the Gentle Queen, Edmund did not wake. Peter did not sleep. He did not eat. He barely spoke. He only sat there on the ground, dark-ringed eyes fixed on Edmund's face as if he feared that, with even a glance away, he would look back and find his brother gone.

But as far as I could tell, as best Mrs. Beaver could tell, the cordial had done its work. The younger colt's wounds, wounds that were less than a breath from proving mortal, had been healed. Now he was only regathering his strength. We did not know yet what he had suffered at the hands of his captors. Or what he had seen. None of us made even an attempt to wake him. He would have to face his memories soon enough.

"Why hasn't someone gone after those devils?" Mr. Beaver demanded, not for the first time.

I glared down at him. "As I told you, our scouts are searching for them. They've found no sign of them yet. They will bring word the moment there is anything to tell."

"You ought to be with them," he said, glaring back. "Not hangin' about wasting time here."

I lifted a forefoot, thinking how easy it would be to silence him, but I stamped it on the ground instead. "I will see my Kings home."

I had nearly said "my colts."

"We will be leaving this morning as it is," I told him coldly. "They will be more comfortable at Cair Paravel, and no doubt the Queen Lucy will be looking for them. I am certain she has received the message the High King sent her."

Mr. Beaver frowned. "She won't like it. She won't like being told to stay put when she needs her brothers and they need her. Grieved as she must be."

"No doubt. No doubt." I looked in through the doorway and saw Peter still sitting there, not moving. "High King?"

For a moment I thought he had not heard me, and then his eyes flicked to mine and, as quickly, back to his brother.

"Yes, Oreius?"

"We should be leaving now, Majesty. The sun is already getting high, and we have far to go."

"All right."

He stood, still with his eyes fixed on Edmund. Then he lifted his brother up, blanket and all, and carried him out into the summer sunshine. Unsteady but determined, he managed to get Edmund and himself onto the Horse's back without aid.

Phillip, too, had been unable to enter the home of the Beavers, so he had stood outside it these past two days, looking in at his boy as often as he was able, waiting for word that he had awakened and spoken. But when he looked back at his riders, it was only the High King who met his gaze and nodded for him to move on.

"Take us home," Peter said, his voice low and longing, and with a soft whicker, the Horse turned to the east and Cair Paravel.

It was a long, weary way back. All along the road, the Narnians gathered, heads bowed with sorrow and reverence as their bereft Kings passed by. The body of the Gentle Queen had been sent ahead with the messengers. By now she already lay in state, awaiting the return of her brothers before she was forever laid to rest. The whole kingdom grieved, and there was nothing to comfort them.

The Queen Lucy came first to meet us when the Robins brought news of our approach. She looked pale and strange in unrelieved black, but she held her head high as she stood in the courtyard, holding her arms out to the High King. Whether she wanted to take his burden from him or was merely seeking the comfort and shelter of his arms, I could not say, but she ran to him, pressing her face to his side before he could dismount and then pressing her lips to Edmund's dark locks.

Despite her obvious resolve a moment before, she was weeping now and the High King was weeping, too. He kept one arm around his brother's limp form, but with his other he pulled her close, pressing his lips and then his cheek against her bright hair.

"Lu. Oh, Lu."

Seeing his weary desperation, she found her resolve once more and reached up to stroke his cheek. "It's all right now. You're home. You're both home. It's all right."

She led Phillip up to the steps that went into the castle. Then she helped the High King dismount. He would not let anyone else do it. He would not let anyone else take up the burden he carried. But when he stumbled on the stairway, I caught up him and his brother both in my arms and carried them to the High King's chamber.

"Rest, Majesty," I told him as I settled them in the wide bed. "Your brother is here. You need not leave him. Your sister is with you now as well. You are home."

Queen Lucy sat on the bed beside him, stroking his fair hair, soothing him with the soft comforting sounds the Gentle Queen had always used. If they had been motherless before, they were doubly so now, and the Valiant Queen was still such a child to attempt to fill that place when her sister had been little more than a child herself. Still, Queen Lucy was not called the Valiant without cause.

Already she had coaxed her elder brother into sleep, though after a full week of wakefulness, he could not have resisted much longer. Afterward, the healers were able to shift him farther to the side of the bed and then examine his brother.

"We find no sign of injury now," the Cherry Dryad said, looking on the sleeping Kings with pity. "Aslan with them, they both need merely to rest."

Queen Lucy had stolen over beside the younger of her brothers, holding his hand in both of her own. "Oreius, please, tell me what happened. The report said almost nothing other than he and– and Susan had been found. What did they do to him?"

I looked at the dark colt's throat, long, pale and smooth with his head thrown back against the pillows, and tried to blot out the memory of it slashed and gaping. His young face was now unmarked, but I could still remember the bruises and cuts, the burns that had marred it as he lay in the bloodied straw where we had found him. His hands, slender yet strong, made as much for a pen as a sword, were not now swollen and broken. And his breathing was almost silent, deep and slow, in and out, full of peace, yet I could still hear him gasping, half-drowned in his own life blood as he reached towards his brother and the healing of the cordial. I could still–

No. I would not remember it anymore. Both colts were home. Both colts were well. It was the only thing that mattered. That and the destruction of that filth Zeier.

That much I would not forget.

Author's Note: Okay, I don't know if I'll post every day for much longer, but we'll see. Do let me know what you think so far. Is the Oreius POV working? More to come.