He was in the courtyard at Cair Paravel. The smooth stones were the same, their geometric pattern in slate green and orange sandstone familiar. Familiar, and beautiful, but he was uncomfortable. The sun was shining in the west; sunset was near. The shadows were long and black and the light was a deep orange, so deep it was almost blood-red.

A cold wind blew and he shivered. His knees were cold. The sensation was so odd after so long that he looked down. He was wearing short pants and knee socks as he used to as a boy. As he was wearing when he first entered Narnia. In fact, he realized these were the clothes he had been wearing, and these were his eleven year old legs. The light was very queer.

He entered the short passage leading to the Great Hall, and the echo of his footsteps was unnaturally loud. The joyful castle was mournful and silent. Edmund felt his heart beating in his throat. None of this was right. Where were the fauns? The centaurs and the dryads wandering the halls as nobles of the court? Where was Lucy's laugh?

The stained glass window behind the thrones faced east. He had never really liked to look at it at night. Then all the comforting Narnian symbols were indecipherable against the darkness and the fanciful designs turned eerie, phantasmagoric. He had commanded a lantern set outside the window in the evening; he had done that almost the first week he was king. Why was it not there now?

Then he looked in front of the window and saw that it framed them in a horrid tableau. The White Witch—she!—was standing in front of the thrones. She was looking away from him, staring with an intent hunger at Peter's throne. She took a step towards it. He meant to shout "No!" but the scream died on his lips. He had seen what was but a little to her right.

Peter stood in front of Susan and Lucy, his jaw set, his eyes defiant. He was brandishing his sword. He was perfectly immobile. She had already turned him to stone. He had died defending his sisters. Susan was at his shoulder, clinging to Peter, her beautiful features arranged in an expression of horror and surprise. She was the vision of an artist, a Narnian Venus de Milo, and to see her beauty petrified made him gag. But worse, infinitely worse, was that Lucy was crumpled at Peter's feet, clinging to his legs and still very much alive. She was sobbing.

Edmund ran to her at once. His shoes made a terrific noise as he crossed the marble floor, but the Witch was still staring at the throne. She must have noticed, but she let him pass.

"Lucy! Lu! Come on, we have to get out of here." He tugged at her arm, but she wouldn't budge. She kept on crying.

"Now! While there's still time!"

She didn't get up. Instead, she released her hold on Peter and threw her arms around Edmund. "We can't leave Peter and Susan!"

"There's nothing we can do for him right now. We have to go. We'll find Aslan—he'll set things right."

Strangely, Lucy stopped crying at once. She glanced to the other side of the dais, in front of where her own throne was. Edmund followed her wide-eyed gaze and saw Aslan. He was there, but his living gold had been turned to gray stone. He thought he had seen this in the Witch's courtyard but this was worse. Far worse. Aslan was dead. There was no resurrection this time. His arms trembled around Lucy. "We have to go," he repeated thickly. "We still have to try."

"Oh, Edmund! It's too late." Lucy cried into his shoulder. She clung to him, her whole body heaving with sobs. Then all at once she stopped moving, and he realized she had suddenly become cold and stiff. Now she too was stone.

The Witch was standing above him, and she was smiling. "Son of Adam, Prince of Narnia, you have served me well. Would you like a piece of Turkish Delight?" her smile was cruel.

Edmund awoke with a sick, choking, wet gasp which shuddered through his entire body. He knew before he even looked at the clock what time it would be. 3am.

He turned on his side and gazed out the window. There was a full moon hanging in the sky. It shed a soft light over everything, but it was a small, faraway moon. A breeze moved through the treetops and Edmund shivered too. He rested his cheek on his hand and found out that it was wet. He had been crying in his sleep. This was not the first time.

How he hated that dream! He had dreamt it before in many variations. Sometimes the Witch descended upon them at Beaversdam. Other times Peter made his last stand at Lantern Waste or Susan led the flight to Archenland, winding her horn on the way. But they were always, always caught. They always died while he watched. That was only just. He had escaped it in reality only to watch his worst moment replay itself in his nightmares. A light sentence, compared with what might have actually happened.

He got up and wandered down the hall, limping slightly as he went. His knee was still stiff. He passed the girls' room, inhabited only by Susan for the moment. The door was ajar and Susan was curled in her bed. The moonlight shone on her face, and her hair curled on the pillow and around her shoulders in soft black waves, like the sea at night lapping white sand. Her eyelashes fluttered on her cheek, and whatever dream she was having was a happy one indeed, because the faintest smile pulled at her lips. He wondered what other people dreamt of, and if ever in Susan's subconscious she went back to Narnia. He hoped that she did.

He turned away from her and continued down the hall. Peter's door was half-open; he pushed it the rest of the way and entered the room as silently as he could. Peter was lying on his back his arms thrown out wide, stretching across the bed. He looked noble as he always did, but something in his face made Edmund realize his boyhood wasn't so far behind him. This is the sleep of those with a restful conscience, Edmund thought.

He went back to his room, dragging his leg and mulling things over. The moon was soft, like a pearl of light, and as he stared at it the plea bubbled up inside him, almost unbidden. Aslan, please. Give me the rest that Peter and Susan have. Help set me free.

The next thing Edmund knew he was standing atop a hill, staring at Cair Paravel winking like a jewel in the full light of sunrise. He stared at the castle a second and then realized instantly where he was. The Stone Table. Oh, if this is another nightmare, if it all happens here…

He willed himself to turn around as quickly as possible, to get it over with, to see the worst. But instead of finding his brother and sisters facing the White Witch, he was staring at the Stone Table split in two. The light was very new and yellow and the grass was a vivid, real green, warm colors that filled him with a full joy and a peace that spread to his toes. At last this was a dream and not a nightmare, and he was so happy he didn't know what to do. Overhead, the sky was shining an opaline white. Everything was wet and dripping as if there had just been a rainstorm, or possibly a melted frost. Edmund stooped to touch the dew on a flower petal and then raised his fingers to his lips. The taste of the dew was glorious, so clean and free and new. Why am I here? What part of me deserves this?

He felt at once that he was not alone, and he was a little afraid but not startled. He looked slowly over his shoulder and saw Aslan sitting on the other side of the Table, his tail wound around his legs.

"Edmund, Son of Adam," he said in a low voice which echoed around the empty space. "I have been waiting for you."

"Waiting for me?" Edmund stammered.

"I have waited here for many years." The Lion did not blink as he spoke; his steady eyes were fixed on Edmund.

"But how--? Is this a dream too?"

"Is that important?"

"No," Edmund said, looking down. "I suppose not. But sir, why have you been waiting? You have always come to us before." He noticed that his voice was higher than he was used to, the voice of a child. So he was a boy here, too.

"I was waiting for you to come to me."

All at once, without knowing what exactly caused it, Edmund felt like he was going to cry. He swallowed hard.

"You are despairing, Son of Adam. Come to me for comfort."

Edmund looked up at Aslan, so huge and so brightly gold, and he shook his head. "I can't," he said, his voice breaking.

"Why not?"

"Aslan, I—I know what you did for me. Here, at the Stone Table."

"That is only right. I meant for you to know." Still, Aslan remained immobile, his only movement the twitching of his tail around his paws.

Edmund screwed up his face, making every effort not to cry. He hadn't cried since way before he ever even knew of Narnia, not even when he was king and those sort of things were okay. "Why, Aslan? I don't deserve this."

"No, you do not."

And now at last he could stop the tears. When he had seen Peter cry, the tears flowed smoothly down his cheeks, but that because he was unafraid to cry. Edmund body shuddered with the sobs because he was trying to hold them back. He tried to speak between them. "I tried. I tried to be good. I tried to earn it."

Aslan's eyes were still very steady as he said "That is impossible to do."

Edmund was beginning to realize that this was his worst nightmare. He was about to give himself over to despair, that horrid poisonous feeling scathing his insides, when Aslan said "Son of Adam, walk with me."

There was nothing Edmund could do but obey. He tried to wipe some of the tears off his face, but of course this was useless as he wasn't done crying. He only succeeded in making his face dirty. He shoved his hands in his pockets—they were the pockets of his short pants—and crossed the distance to Aslan.

Aslan led them in a circle round the Stone Table, and Edmund felt caught between his Scylla and Charybdis. Either he would be dashed against the rock of the Table or devoured by the Lion. After they had made a full circuit, Aslan said at last, "Son of Adam, you are despairing, but I have not meant for you to despair."

"What else am I to do, Aslan? You died for me. And who am I? I can't even be worthy of such a thing."

"You have forgotten what we spoke of when you returned from the Witch."

"Never! Never for a second," Edmund stopped crying to protest in earnest.

"Then you never really understood." He stopped and placed his heavy paw on Edmund's shoulder. "You cannot earn forgiveness or sacrifice, Edmund. It is a gift given freely. There is no justice to it. You have spent long years seeking a reason, seeking a logical solution, but the thing does not exist. You have served me well, and you have learned from your actions, but there is one thing you have failed to see in all this time, and it is the one thing that I wanted you to understand the most."

"What is it, Aslan?"

"There is a force stronger than justice. Stronger than laws or magic. And that is love. Edmund, you cannot earn what I did for you, but that doesn't matter, because you are loved. In that knowledge, love others and despair no more."

There was a swirl of color, and at first Edmund had a hard time understanding that he was back in England in his bed. He was staring out the window to see a fine summer morning, full of blue sky and sunshine. The sun was already well above the horizon. He felt a cool shadow stretch across him, and he turned his head to see Peter standing over him smiling.

"Well here's a turn of events," Peter said. "Usually you are up hours before me. Have you slept through the night for once? Come on," he tossed Edmund a jumper. "We have to catch the train to meet the others."

A/N: Okay, the dream sequence with Aslan was incredibly, incredibly hard to write. I'm still not sure if it came out well, so constructive criticism there is especially appreciated. It had to do so many things, I hope it succeeded at least in part.