I intended to use this one for, y'know, the entire thing I'd previously been setting up for, but the Dark Heart has messed everything up! xD I'll figure it out as I go I guess.

Prompt #14: An assassination attempt gone wrong.

He was cold, so cold. His hands were shaking, and he could not stop them. Soon they would stop, frozen still by the wind and the terrible, creeping mist.

A distant neigh caught his attention: Aeron, sounding desperate and terrified. He would have gone to his aid, but perhaps his feet were frozen into the ground, for he could not move them.

"Tell me again." His words were garbled by cold.

"Prince Edmund!" The vampire's voice was close, and sounded desperate. "You have to trust me, Prince Edmund."

The name wrenched him out of the stupor he had been sinking into, ready to give up, here in the near-darkness. How long had he been in the Dark Heart? It was sunny outside. If outside even existed any longer, or had been anything other than a hallucination.

"Not my name."

"Trust me, little king!"

"Can't." He forced himself to add, "Can't do anything." It was getting harder every moment.

"If you die in here, the Dark Heart will be infinitely harder to cleanse," she said, panic lacing her words. "Get up!"

"Need warmth." His body was tipping over, and he could not control it. He no longer cared. He would have liked, vaguely, to see Aslan again, but clearly that wasn't possible.

"You didn't die when the Witch stabbed you," snapped the vampire, all panic washed away by seething anger. "You didn't die when the wolf attacked you. Get up, you pathetic little prince."

He tried; he tried with every ounce of his strength, reaching into the deepest reserves, the ones he had had to breach to survive until Lucy came with her cordial through the chaos of battle. And he could not move a muscle, and collapsed to the ground, hard, pain lancing through him in a way that briefly wiped out his vision.

When it cleared, he became aware of the vampire gripping his shoulders, lifting him like a toy, and beginning to stride forward in the direction he had been heading.

"Where are you taking me?" Her hands were scalding, the unnatural cold beginning to retreat a little through him.

"Somewhere safe, you idiot. You were practically standing in the Tash-cursed centre of the Dark Heart, by the Lion's Mane!"

He peered vaguely at her, her face revealed for the first time. "Do I... do I know you?"

She snorted, sounding much more human: yes, and looking more human with every stride. "I'm a commoner you've seen around occasionally, little king. Outside this cursed place, I look like a human. In here, I am forced to remain a vampire. But I cannot leave here for too long, or eventually I will be affected as you are, and if I stay too long out of there, eventually I will die. My life, to some extent, is tied to Tash... and evil itself."

As she said the words, her face took on a horrifying cast, and her hands burned violently, so that Edmund cried out and wrenched himself from her grasp. She had held him long enough that his limbs were working again, and he backpedaled, though clumsily.

"Little king, did you truly think I was good? Did you believe I had your best interests in mind?" Shadows filled her face, and her eyes gleamed dully, the terrible colour of blood. "I told you of my past, of my dark origins. That should have warned you. Now for that, you will die."

"The Dark Heart needs destroying," said Edmund, common sense seeming to have deserted him, all inhibitions gone. "This place is an evil one. In the Lion's own domain, under his very muzzle, Tash's evil lurks. No wonder we have still been discovering evil lurking in corners and shadows."

"If this place is destroyed, I will die!" she said, hurrying forward with hands outstretched.

Edmund knew instinctively that something terrible would happen if he allowed her to touch him. He wheeled around and fled, uncaring of his dignity. "Aeron! Aeron!" he cried, the strength of desperation lending him voice. "If you are ever to come to me again, it must be now!" Then, whirling to face her, one hand outstretched behind him with the desperate hope that Aeron would come to him, he said, "Aslan's Mane, woman (though that is not what you are, I know), why would you save me if only to try and murder me?"

The monstrosity in her face faded for a moment, and he saw a woman, torn with indecision. "I want to save you. I want to save us both. And I cannot do that."

"We may reunite in Aslan's country," said Edmund gently.

The indecision vanished from her face, replaced with only wrenching grief that nearly made him weep to see her. "Aslan's country is not for such as me. I am Tash-created: the one whom I have become. I was Aslan-made, once. Then I agreed to a dark endeavour; I believed it right at the time. The golden paw of Aslan walks not in the mists of the Dark Heart." She took a breath. "Go, Edmund, King of Narnia, you on whose shoulders the mantle has been cast by Aslan himself. Go, before I change my mind, and come after you."

Edmund stared at her, imprinting her face into his mind forever. "If nothing else, Lady," he said, in a quiet, earnest tone, "we shall remember you."

I intended to make this chapter longer. Then it ended. Please review!