A/N: Hehe...I seem to have noticed that I've neglected to thank my wonderful, wonderful reviewers for their fantastic reviews! I did NOT expect to get this many reviews in the space of maybe...a week? I'm overwhelmed. You guys are so great. :D
You just keep me going. =D Thank you all so much for your support.
Okay, now we get down to business.
I've gotten several complaints of needing to spell check, and I've just shaken my head in wonder every time, because I could have sworn I spell-checked it all thoroughly.
Well, in all truth, I did. On the document on the upstairs laptop with no Internet. I didn't realize that I hadn't transferred it down to the one WITH Internet. I thought I did, but...xD
So I did that today, and I'm going to go back and edit the previous chapters to clear the errors. x.X" Thanks for being so patient with me and such.
Anyways, enjoy.
Disclaimer - Um, I own nothing. =D

Sunset found me on the floor of my cell, shedding quiet, bitter tears as the red light streamed across the stone.

So what if I cried. You'd cry, too, if you were feeling as though you had willingly betrayed your own country for the second time, for nearly the same reasons. You'd cry if your source of comfort and life was gone and was replaced by a hollow, cold space in your heart. You'd cry if you believed that your only brother wanted you dead and out of his life.

You'd cry if you had to decide between death now, or death later.

I wiped my eyes on the backs of my hands, feeling tired and guilty and just flat-out depressed. I leaned against the wall, a cold kind of numbness replacing the love I had once held specifically for my brother and my King. I wondered if he had sacrificed his own love for me very long ago. I shifted the chains on my wrists and sighed shakily, getting up and leaning against the bars.

"HEY!" I shouted hoarsely, hoping to snag someones attention. "HEY!"
A few heavy footsteps later brought a very cranky looking guard.

"What's all this, then?" He muttered blearily, rubbing his eyes. "I was having myself a very good sleep, thanks."

"I wish to speak with Miraz," I said blankly, making up my mind. He glared, but complied, begrudgingly unlocking my door and leading me up the steps. The torches fluttered against the chill air and cast strange shadows along the walls, and I couldn't seem to find any warmth from them. They held no happiness or hope for me in their fiery depths as I walked quietly along behind the soldier to my death.

I knew that no one would be hurt by my absence, so what was the point of living? Maybe Lucy would be a bit upset, but she'd get over it. They all would.

We walked down the corridor, footsteps hardly making any noise against the dark walls of the castle. I shivered slightly in the chill air. It would soon be all over.

We soon approached two large oak doors - Miraz's personal study. The guard knocked tiredly.

"What is it?" A voice snapped from the other side.

"The kingling-boy-prisoner seeks an audience, your lordship," The soldier replied heavily, rubbing his eyes again. I stayed nonchalant.

The voice's tone changed dramatically.

"Send him in, then." Came the calm, suddenly cheerful voice. I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

The guard sighed dramatically and pulled open the door. We both stepped inside, and the warmth of the fire in the grate immediately hit us both, but I didn't even feel it. The soldier bowed to Miraz before backing out slowly and closing the door. I was left alone with the man who now ruled Narnia with cruelty and dictatorship.

He sat behind his huge wooden desk, which was filled to the top with papers and other odd little trinkets, and he set down his quill in the ink pot, folding his arms politely and addressing me.

"Edmund," He said cheerfully; I hated how my name sounded on his voice. "What brings you here so late?"

You know very bloody well what, I couldn't help but snap in my mind as he stared patiently into my eyes. I stared numbly back, preparing for death.

"I have made my decision."

"And?" He asked curiously, eagerly; He was like a hungry animal, waiting for its prey.

I sighed quietly, feeling broken and tired and ready to get it over with, Aslan help me. I looked into my murderer's face, ready to end it all.

"I accept."

And just like that, I fell to the floor, blood spattering the carpet, accepting death with open arms as breath was stolen from my lungs; And in my place stood a new Telmarine soldier, ready for Miraz's use. He fixed me with a sort of steely pride, and I hated it. But then again, I hated him, so it was really rather explanatory.

"Very good. I should have felt awful if I had been forced to shed such noble blood as your own..." He tried at complementary, and I fixed my expression so that nothing would reveal the battle I was fighting beneath.

'No you wouldn't have...' my mind snapped again, but I chose to ignore it and awaited my first command.

He cleared his throat and stacked a few of his papers pompously.

"You will have to be sworn in, of course," He muttered to himself, going through the many pieces of parchment on his desk haphazardly. "That should be done immediately - tonight, I should say..."

I continued to stand, awaiting his direct order. He looked up again, smiling that awful smile that I detested so much, but I had no choice but to smile tentatively back, as he was now my lord and king. He stood from his chair, taking a key from the desk and coming forward. He soon had my wrists un-shackled, and I rubbed them gingerly, wincing slightly as the blood began to flow freely to my hands once again. He threw the chains aside and laid a hand on my un-injured shoulder.

"I will gather the witnesses - Queen Prunaprismia will see to it that you are properly taken care of until it is time. You are dismissed."

I bowed a little stiffly, turning around and exiting the room at his command, feeling his hard eyes boring into the back of my head even as I closed the door.

And as the Queen led me briskly down the hall later that evening, skeptically looking over my bloody shoulder and muttering to herself, it was then that I felt my heart shatter under the weight of my depression.

And I left it there, bleeding alone in the cold darkness of my soul, as there was no Peter to heal and bring warmth to it ever again.

I hated The Lion.

He was the one who had caused this, He was the one who had taken me and my siblings from Narnia in the first place, then thrown us back in so that one of us could die in the attempt to bring our sweet country back to the way she had been long ago. He was the one who had abandoned it, anyways. He had caused us a few sleepless nights, and tears enough to fill a river.

I held Lucy as she cried herself into a light, fitful sleep every night, and watched Susan as she went down to the innermost chamber of the How and laid herself on the broken remains of The Stone Table, just lying there and sobbing her heart out, dark locks spilling over her dark eyes.

I had no choice but to just let her be as she mourned for her baby brother.

Edmund had always hated it when she called him that, but really, she felt like she had to, as she was the older sister and he was the younger brother she had been wanting since she was two. It had always been amusing to see the look that passed his face as she gently teased him, to watch as she came at him with a hairbrush and the hilarity that later ensued, and heartwarming to veiw how tenderly she watched over him as he slept, refusing to leave his side.

Now he was gone, and she was left with one older and one younger.

The Narnians mourned in their own way - none of them had really known him very long, but they had certainly heard the old tales, and passed the painted images on the walls of stone sadly whenever they walked by. Trumpkin had seemed to be the fondest of him, though, as Edmund himself had bested the dwarf in a sword match. The dwarf would sometimes sit for hours and just gaze aimlessly off into the distance, thinking.

I myself just kept away from everything that reminded me of him, shedding tears in the dark of the night, never crying out in the open. I had to be strong for my sisters. I had to be strong for my soldiers.

I had to be strong for my lost brother who would never be returned to me.

I was constantly angry with Aslan for allowing it to happen, angry with my brother for leaving, angry with myself for not forcing him to stay back at the How with Lucy.

He was always like night to Lucy's day, or winter to Susan's gentle autumn. He and Susan had always been darker than Lucy and I in appearance - So we had always teasingly called them "Children of the night" for as long as I could remember. Now there was only one night left to keep the family cycle going, and no sunshine ever appeared when daylight came.

Lucy trudged in to where I was sitting, red-eyed and wet-faced, as she had been doubtlessly crying moments before. She sat next to me, sniffing slightly.

"I miss Him," She mumbled quietly after awhile, wiping her bright green eyes that were now clouded over with pain and loss.

But she had said it while looking at the huge image of Aslan on the wall, torches flickering and casting shadows over the cracks in the stone. I steeled my expression, and she noticed, too, because her own eyes became hard and cold.

"Why do you have to be like this every time someone mentions Him?" She snapped, glaring. I glared back.

"Because He's the one who killed..." I trailed off, willing myself not to tear up. She didn't seem phased, though new tears were beginning to pool in her own eyes.

"He did not kill Edmund, Peter Michael-George," She said with all the defiance she could muster, angry tears beginning to track down her freckled cheeks. "You know that."

"Yeah, well He didn't save him, either!" I retorted, looking away from the image on the wall. Lucy looked beside herself with anger.

"Peter, did you ever wonder to yourself about the things that were going on around you, back in England?" She asked surprisingly calmly, but her tone took on the biting edge of steel. I looked at her, not fully understanding.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you realize how good you actually really had it?"

"What, being thrown from a Wardrobe and shrinking back into a fifteen-year-old and then being shipped off to see the mum we were supposed to have not seen for only six months when in reality it was fifteen years and feeling awkward because I felt like I really didn't know her when she was my mum?" Anger flared up inside of me. "And then there was school and the awkwardness of mastering my step because only a month before I had been over six and a half feet tall and now I'm about five foot eight? And then there was the problem of beating all the girls away with a stick, and trying so hard to find a place where Magnificence took a role in everyday life..."

"Ed didn't have it much better than you did, either, but you are so bloody focused on you and your own problems that you can't see anything around you!" Lucy fumed, and I blanched. Lucy never cursed. Ever. She was really angry.

"What do you mean...?"

"I mean that Edmund was always behind you in case you fell, always next to you in case you needed a shoulder to lean on, always near enough to help you through the mess while he was dealing with his own problems and yours in the midst of it." She whispered, tears still running freely down her face. I continued to stare, wide-eyed.

"But you just didn't see. You chose to ignore. You pushed and shoved him away, completely oblivious to the fact that he was the one helping you stand! You aren't the only one who was ever a King, Peter."

I hung my head as she continued to soundly berate me, drinking it all in and tasting how very bitter it was. I was so wrong...

"He was almost taller than you when we were last here, remember?" She changed the subject slightly, mercifully letting me process everything she had said as leaned against my arm, stroking it as she watched the torches flicker. I nodded, not daring to speak. I was afraid I'd break down.

"I think he missed being a King as much as you did, Peter, but I don't think it was for the power. It was for The Lion."

She tore me right open and left me bleeding with that single statement, getting up and walking away, leaving me alone with the stone mural of Aslan, who somehow looked fierce and terrible and reproving as I stared back into its stony eyes.

Sweet Lion, what had I done to my brother...?

=D
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