It wasn't easy for anyone to get some sleep with the storms tossing the ship back and forth, but Caspian insisted they should, seeing as how sailing the ship now took twice as much strength and ten times more energy. Edmund winced as he lay down in his hammock, his back screaming in protest after hours of being pelted by huge waves. After a while, the waves felt less like water and more like bricks. Edmund didn't realize how truly exhausted these storms made him until he lay still for the first time in what felt like days. He heard Caspian groan as he took the hammock next to Edmund.

The High King realized he must have been truly exhausted since he didn't even raise his head to get one last look at Caspian before sleep dragged him down.

At first, Edmund didn't realize this was a dream. He was still on the ship, swinging in his hammock. But then he heard someone call him. Lucy was calling him from the captain's quarters. He felt no pain as he stood. He didn't even feel the chilled dampness of the floor as he padded barefoot to Lucy.

Lucy then screamed Edmund's name.

Edmund broke into a run, his heart cutting off his airway.

"Lucy!" He cried as he burst through the door. The storm pelted the large windows of the cabin. That was weird, though. Edmund didn't remember running through the rain on the top deck. But he must have, right? "Lucy! Where are you?"

The cabin was empty. The only sounds he could hear were the waves against the windows and his own panting breath.

A chill suddenly permeated the air around him. He curled up against it as he stepped further into the room, calling for Lucy. The temperature was getting colder. Ice was forming on the windows and frost was clawing its way across the floor towards him.

Lucy called him again, and this time, the voice came from the closets across the room. Edmund reached for his sword, but then his stomach dropped when his hands hit nothing. His sword was missing from its sheath. How?

"Edmund." The chill of the room seeped into his blood, freezing him in place. He knew that voice. It was the voice that haunted his every nightmare. "Find me, dear. Come find me."

Her voice came from the closets, too. Dread made his feet heavy as he came closer. If that bitch did anything to hurt Lucy…

He yanked open the door to the closet, stepping back into a defensive stance, but the closet itself was empty.

"Edmund." That sinister voice sing-songed. His eyes shifted over to the mirror on the door, and he screamed.

Jadis stared back at him through the mirror, smiling pleasantly at him as if seeing a fond friend. "Edmund, my dear. I have missed you so. You have grown into such a fine, young king. It is such a shame that no one but I can see your true value."

Edmund wanted to look away, to run, but the ice on the floor seemed to have taken his feet, almost caressing him with their painful grip. His breath was a dense fog in the air as he struggled to breathe through the panic inside.

"Your parents," she sighed, shaking her head, "They are so willing to forget you. To cast you aside for your brother, Peter. And Peter? You know if he was here, you would be forgotten here, too. That Telmarine boy who wants to take your throne, your power? Are you so certain that you can trust him?"

The ice holding him moved further up his legs, making him cry out in agony as it seemed to freeze him down to the bone.

"You can trust me, my dear. Join me, Edmund. Be mine. Stay with me. Be my King."

"I will never be your King!" Edmund hissed, crying out as ice speared through his hip. "What you wanted me to be? What you were trying to create? It will never exist. I will never join you."

Jadis laughed, and the sound took Edmund's breath as a searing cold spread through his chest.

"You don't have to. You are already my King."

Her disgusting, trilling laughter filled the cabin as Edmund slowly froze. As frost and ice climbed up his chest, his arms, he saw the skin underneath being leeched of color, leaving the white flesh of a corpse behind. His veins stood out, blue cracks of ice buried under snow. He twisted and thrashed, crying out in pain as he burned and froze from the inside out.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jadis crying out as well, but he couldn't hear her voice. All he heard was his own. It wasn't until the pain suddenly left him that he looked up. What he saw made him collapse to the floor, curling into a ball. He covered his face with his hands and screamed.

In the mirror, Edmund's skin was frozen white. His hair was a pale blonde, stiff and sheened as if it was ice. And his eyes! His eyes! His eyes were solid black, as cold and heartless as the eyes that haunted him since he first laid eyes on Narnia.

The White Witch didn't need to return. She finally had her White King.

Edmund woke with a start, his heart pounding in his chest and sweat soaking through his shirt. His stomach rolled and clenched painfully as he suddenly felt too hot, too covered. As much as he needed to get out from the smothering blankets, though, he couldn't. He was sure if he felt even a lick of a cool breeze, he would scream.

"Father!" Caspian cried in his sleep. Edmund looked over to the Telmarine, noticing with alarm the green mists drifting under them. "Father!" Caspian mumbled pained words under his breath, tossing from side to side. Edmund felt the strong urge to collect Caspian in his arms, to protect him from his pain.

"Edmund." The voice from his dreams called. The panic still coursing through him solidified, wrenching his heart painfully. The green mists around them coalesced and formed across from him into Jadis.

"Edmund." She called again, this time he had to look. The face that he saw brought back his dream in full force. He dug his fingers painfully into his arms to remind himself that it wasn't real. It could never be real.

"Join me." She said.

The image of himself, white-skinned and frozen, suddenly flashed in his mind. He sat up, unsheathing his sword, thanking Aslan that it was there, turning it on the specter in front of him.

The weight of the blade in his hands pulled him back from his rising panic. He was King Edmund the Just, High King of Narnia. He destroyed the White Witch's wand. He was the one who faced this ancient evil, after having fallen to its tempting grasp. He was the traitor that paid for his sins on the battlefield, dying at her hands, before being given a second chance. This shadow, this thing, was no threat to him.

"Edmund!" Lucy's quiet voice broke through the haze in his mind, pulling him out with a gasp. Like waking from a dream, his heart raced and seeing Lucy, here and unharmed, helped to slow it.

But then he tensed, looking again across the room to where Jadis stood. She wasn't there. She and the mists vanished.

He sighed in relief, the tension in his body leaving slowly and painfully. "Lucy." Thank Aslan you're okay, he wanted to say, but then Caspian woke with a start, looking around wildly.

He saw the open fear on the other King's face, as well as the aversion in Lucy's. "Let me guess," he said, "Bad dreams?" Bad being an understatement in his case.

No one answered him, but Lucy looked away with an incredible sadness in her expression. That was answer enough.

"So either we're all going mad? Or something's playing with our minds?" He laid back in his hammock, slightly relieved that his blanket fell off his overheated chest but dreaded the faint breeze seeping through his shirt. He worried if he was forever scarred against the cold. If he returned to England, would he ever be able to enjoy snow again?

He allowed himself to close his eyes for a moment, but then the sight of Edmund, blonde-haired and black eyes, forced them open again. Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes and they stung, but he fought them back. Caspian and Lucy were being haunted, too. He had to be there for them. To protect them.

With another sigh, he stood, holding out his hand for Lucy. "Take my hammock and get some sleep. I'll keep watch. If the mists try to affect you again, I'll wake you up."

"Edmund," Caspian began.

"You too." Edmund cut him off, sitting on the floor between the hammocks. "You need to sleep, the both of you. I wouldn't be able to even if I tried. It's fine."

"Ed-"

"Lucy, please." Edmund begged, gripping the hilt of his sword tightly. "Sleep."

Edmund didn't know if it was the unshed tears in his eyes or the tone of his voice, but eventually Lucy laid down in the hammock, fidgeting for a couple of minutes before falling back asleep. Edmund was then aware that not only was Caspian awake, but he was also watching Edmund with a sharp gaze.

"Whatever you saw, Edmund, it wasn't real."

Edmund looked up at Caspian, unable to meet his eyes for long. "It was real enough." He forced himself to relax his death grip on his sword. "Sleep, Caspian." The name, as always, sounded soft as it left his mouth. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't say it any other way. It was like the man he was addressing. Too perfect. Too beautiful.

"It is like you said, Edmund. I would not be able to sleep even if I tried."

Edmund scoffed. "Try anyway."

"If it isn't unwelcome, Edmund, I would much rather stay awake with you. The idea of leaving you alone while you feel this way is highly detested to me."

"Well, what do you suggest, your Majesty? I don't exactly have my chess set with me."

Caspian smirked, the light sound of his laughter making Edmund smile back. "I would like to know more about you, Edmund. The world you come from. What Narnia was like during its Golden Age. Anything you would see fit to tell me." The Telmarine then crossed his legs, sliding as far back into the hammock as possible. With a gesture, and just a little hesitation of Edmund's part, Edmund stood and climbed into the other side of the hammock, sitting across from Caspian. Outside, they could begin to hear the shouts of the men above deck, cheering the fade of the storms.

"Where should we start?" Edmund snarked. Caspian's eyes met his and warmth spread through him, chasing away the phantom chills of ice and frost.

"Something easy, I suppose." Caspian replied, a soft smile on his face. "Your favorite color?"

Edmund laughed quietly. "Something easy. Very well then. My favorite color is green, like the grass in the spring." Caspian nodded, still smiling. "What about you?"

"Blue."

Edmund was no longer freezing or overheated as he spoke to Caspian. Somehow, for some reason, as he spoke to the King of Narnia, he only felt a gentle warmth move through him. A warmth that, after a while, weighed down his eyelids. Before he could make sense of what was happening, he found himself laying down in a warm hammock with warm arms wrapped around him.

"Sleep, Edmund."

The idea sounded really good and a sleepy haze settled over his mind. Before everything faded to black, however, he swore he could feel a pair of warm lips touch his forehead.

"Sleep." The voice soothed again.

When Edmund slept this time, thank Aslan, all the dreams he had was of never feeling the cold again.