He was a Prince now. He knew that. He was a Prince and She was his Queen.

And he loved Her.

She had kissed him on the forehead, upon his arrival to the castle. He had been cold, and when She kissed him, the cold had gone all the way through him, in the most delightful way. Then he did not feel cold anymore, as though ice could not hurt him, being the same temperature as his own skin, or warmer perhaps.

It had been such a lovely feeling. "Kiss me again," he said, and She kissed him again, and it had given him a lovely warm feverish feeling, from his head right down to his toes. He had forgotten everything that is and everything that was, and everything he had ever known but the castle, and being a Prince, and of course, Her.

"Kiss me again," he said again, and She shook her head.

"No," She had said.

"Why not?"

"If I did then I should kiss you to death."

She would not have him die. Not yet. She had told him so. He had begged Her for death, once. After She had— but no. He couldn't think about that.

She had refused.

He knew that he would die eventually. Sooner or later, She did intend to kill him, though not today, perhaps not for many years. Perhaps he would have a short life, but he knew that if She willed it, he could have a very long life, a very long life indeed, not quite as long as Hers, but comparable. And then, at the end of eternity, he would lie down on the cold stone. She would bind his hands and his feet, and with impunity and emotionless precision, she would sink the wicked knife deep into his breast and cut out his heart. And he would feel everything. And he loved her.

He was cold again.

"Y-your Majesty." Kiss me again.

"Yes, my Prince?" Her pale lips pulled a mocking smile. When Her subjects, the goblins and the werewolves and the animals She ruled, came before the throne, they made obeisance to Her, and he liked to imagine they were bowing to him as well, though he knew they were not. They mocked him, as She mocked him, as he sat there on the little chair beside her, legs folded in a white fur, with pale skin and dull eyes. He was a pet and a trophy.

If only She would kiss him again. He knew something was terribly wrong. But when She had kissed him it had obscured the terrible fear and dread like a fog of breath on glass.

It was the thought of breath on glass that derailed his request. At that moment he remembered something. A different she. This one with a small cherub-face and pink lips. The last breath that had come from those lips in a small cloud.

And the way she had looked at him in the last moments, the moments before she froze- with mixed hope and fear—but never with hate. She had looked at him with love, and sympathy, and pity even – and then she had turned to stone.

"Lucy!" cried Edmund in a fit of sudden agony.

"What did you say?" asked the Witch, rising to Her terrible height.

"Nothing," he choked out.

She was strong. He felt the sting of Her nails as she backhanded him across the face; he fell from the chair and slid a short distance across the ice.

"Don't lie to me. What did you say?"

"I s-s… I said…" He bit his lip and fought himself. She wouldn't like the truth. But She would know if he lied. It was pain either way.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Then, he thought, he'd be damned with her name on his lips.

"I said Lucy."

To his surprise, no further strike came.

Instead, She walked up to where he lay. She took him and bundled him up in Her arms, in the fur, and set him again in the seat by the throne, where he huddled shivering with the pelts around him like a cocoon. Then She kissed him again.