Chapter 8

The pain came later, after the Witch had left him alone for all that time, raging, white-hot pain that was at the same time blistering and cold, and he wondered why she decided to do it now. It choked out everything else he knew, and left him panting and waiting for it all to end, praying that it would. Hoping that Peter would be there when he woke up...

Vaguely, a part of him knew that he was still in Jadis' castle. A part of him knew that this pain washing over him was of her devising, and a part of him remembered what 'the end' would entail. This was her revenge, and it would not be pleasant, and at the end of it, he was going to die.

Edmund opened his bleary brown eyes, glancing around and trying to remember where he was.

The White Witch had removed him from the dungeons, preferring to do this in her torture chambers. Edmund didn't know how she distinguished the two. The rooms looked much the same to him.

Ice surrounded him, on all sides, closing in on him, choking him. His hands were hanging from a chain above his head, shaking. His feet had been tied tightly together, the circulation in them almost gone. He was only wearing his trousers, his tunic a bloody mess of shreds around his feet. It was freezing.

His back, however, was stinging and on fire. He did not need to look to see the blood dripping off of it, by order of the Witch. She had watched while he was mercilessly whipped by a dwarf he certainly didn't recognize, until his back was raw from the lashes.

There was nothing to stop the blinding pain, and every few moments he blacked out, unable to think or breathe. Blood was pouring from his back, staining the ice floor below in an ever growing puddle.

Good. At least this time he was going to leave a mark of his victory for the Witch to remember him by. And he had no doubt Narnia would be victorious against her, just like last time.

Though he hoped she couldn't just bounce back from it again.

He had only eaten once since being brought here, and despite the lack of food his stomach rebelled at the thought of eating as he gazed at his own blood, dripping steadily onto the ice.

Maybe, he acquiesced, it had been rather foolish to throw the food back in the dwarf's face. Although it had been rather satisfying at the time.

Now, though, he was worried that if he didn't die from the Witch's tortures, it would be from starvation.

His punishment for his part in the Witch's defeat, he supposed.

If that was all it was to be, he was relieved. The whipping, though it hurt and begged to drag him into unconsciousness, was not as bad as the things she had done to him in his dreams.

The pain rushed down his spine again, much worse than a moment ago, and he knew he was just beginning to register how bad it really was. He was alone, so he allowed himself the small vulnerable noise that slipped past his lips.

The Witch had left hours ago, just when the pain was becoming unbearable, just before Edmund could plead that she simply get it over with. The dwarf who had carried out the whipping didn't seem to want to stop, but he wouldn't disobey the orders of the Witch.

He supposed that the dwarf whipping him rather than the Witch was important somehow, but he couldn't pinpoint the significance behind it. It simply hurt too much to think.

She was probably biding her time, waiting until it hurt the most and then return with some new, more creative way to punish him. She would bring that knife next time, and then-

Edmund took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. It was only a dream. Peter would wake him up soon, Peter had to wake him up soon...

He glanced around the room. It really wasn't different from his dungeon. The black spires sticking up in the air, the ice almost blue, it was so powerful. So like the room he had been thrust into almost every night when he dreamed. He didn't remember how he had gotten there. There were metal rungs sticking out at odd angles, and the door to the torture chambers was open wide, but no one came in to see him, and his chains were too heavy to contemplate escape.

Edmund half-expected to see Mr. Tumnus sitting chained and mutilated across from him, asking for food.

He had to remind himself that this wasn't a dream, that Mr. Tumnus was still safe in Cair Paravel with Lucy, Peter, and Susan.

Had they noticed he was missing yet? He doubted his siblings would not act soon. In fact, he was beginning to wonder what was taking them so long. They would come for him, free him from the evil source of his nightmares, and then Aslan would defeat her, and everything would be as it should have been.

Besides, if it was a dream, his head wouldn't ache with the dull feeling of a concussion. People didn't get concussions in dreams. They didn't feel the pain of lashes from a dwarf's whip, either.

The object of his nightmares arrived a moment later, and Edmund stiffened. A thousand images that not even five years had been able to suppress washed through him, and he cringed. Aslan had told him it was done. There was nothing to be afraid of anymore.

The figure of the White Witch suddenly appeared in the doorway, filling it almost completely with her tall frame and long white gown. The wand, never absent from her hands now, rested almost lazily against her pale skin, and for a moment, Edmund had no doubt she would use it on him, use it to run him through like she had done during the Battle.

The wound at his stomach that shouldn't have hurt throbbed as one with the thought, and he glanced down, half-expecting it to be pouring out his blood just at the sight of the wand.

But she didn't move, just stood in the doorway, staring at him. For a moment, he wondered if she had frozen herself somehow.

Edmund tried not to sink back into the chains at the very sight of her, straining against them. His back screamed in protest, but he sat tall and proud, chin lifted with defiance, like a real king would. Tried not to admit to himself that he was terrified, perhaps even more so than he had ever been in his dreams, or when she had been living before.

He remembered a time when he had thought her beautiful, more so than any living being. How had he ever seen anything resembling beauty in the cold creature before him?

How was she alive now? It was impossible. Aslan had killed her; Peter had seen him do it.

Unless she had somehow survived, never died in the first place, but that wasn't possible.

Edmund shook his head, hair clumpy from blood and sweat hitting his forehead lightly at the movement. It was all too confusing to think about. All he wanted to do right now was lie down and sleep...

No, no sleeping. There was something about sleeping that was bad, though he couldn't remember what it was. He couldn't fall asleep. Couldn't give the Witch the satisfaction.

Why not?

The White Witch finally moved, stepping lightly, silently, into the room. She twirled the wand around in her hands, eyes boring into Edmund.

"Edmund," she said, her voice sickeningly sweet, and, despite himself, Edmund shrank back at the sound of it. "Until then..."

Edmund glared up at her. "Don't try your tricks on me again, Witch," he snapped. "They won't work this time. I've seen you for what you truly are."

The Witch laughed, a musical, lovely sound that made him cringe. "And I have seen you, Just King. Traitor to your people. Sitting on a throne of Narnia as though you deserve it." The last words came out icy and harsh, accusing. And she had every right to be-

Edmund shook his head, trying to clear it of those thoughts. It was the effect of the whipping, he told himself, and Aslan, did it hurt, but he supposed he was too feverish to know how badly.

He had changed since then. He wasn't the same little boy that she could manipulate with her words, or bribe with sweets. He wasn't a traitor any more; Aslan had paid the price for him. "I don't deserve it," he admitted finally, unsure if that was him talking or the fever.

The Witch smiled coyly. "Oh?"

"But Aslan knows you don't," Edmund retorted drily, and the smile on the Witch's face froze in anger. She bent forward until she was nose to nose with her prisoner.

"I made a mistake when I didn't kill you before, little king." She glanced at his butchered back and made a sound like a content moan. "But don't worry, I won't leave you in agony for much longer. Rest assured; you will die this time."

Another flare of pain rushed through him as the streaks across his back pained him once more, and the Witch straightened. Edmund squeezed his eyes shut tightly, fists clenching around the chains holding them. For a moment, after he opened his eyes, he still could see nothing but blackness, and he panicked, lurching forward against the bonds holding him.

His eyesight returned a moment later, startlingly clear, causing him to flinch. He was staring at the folds of the White Witch's too white gown, sweeping over his feet. The tip of her wand was right in front of him. He suddenly wished he was blind.

Edmund forced himself to think, to try and figure out what she had just said to him. He honestly couldn't remember; his back hurt so badly...Oh, right. She was going to kill him. Briefly, he wondered if she planned to do it by starvation, but that didn't sound like her.

Then why didn't she just kill him and be done with it? Why did she feel the need to kill him now, when she could just wage war? From what he had seen of her troops as he was dragged down here, she certainly had nothing to lose.

He wanted to say all that and more, but the only word to make it past his bleeding lips, cracked from too long without water despite all the ice around him was, "Why?"

He felt like he was going to pass out any second now.

Then there was movement, and her lips were brushing against his stinging ears. He flinched away from her closeness, causing his bloody back to sting again.

"Because you, Edmund, condemned me to a fate worse than death. Spending five years in a realm beyond the world of the dead? I did not go to Aslan's country, nor did I go to Tash. If it hadn't been for that foolish little Calormene boy, I would have been condemned to suffer that fate forever. And if it hadn't been for you, I would have never had to suffer through the agony of it to begin with. So this time I am going to return the favor, little traitor."

Edmund blinked, trying to figure out how it had all been his fault.

For a moment, only a moment, mind, a wave of pity ran through him as he stared at this creature, pity for what she must have gone through, pity as he wondered what twisted life she had lived to turn her into the White Witch. Pity that she had returned from the dead and the only thing she wanted was revenge, that she was not capable of love.

It was gone when his back began to throb a second later, agony shooting up his spine. He forced himself not to cry out, not to give the Witch the upper hand.

Daringly, Edmund pointed out the flaw in her logic, struggling to keep his voice calm as his back ached. "Aslan already paid the price for me."

The Witch's eyes twitched, but quickly hardened with contempt. "The first time, yes. But he isn't here to repeat that."

Edmund's eyes widened as the implication sunk in. Did that even make sense? The Stone Table had been broken, its magic gone. Could the Witch undo the Deep Magic if he betrayed again?

No, it wasn't possible. The Lion had paid for his betrayal, had destroyed the Magic of the Stone Table once and for all. Edmund would never be forced to die for his treachery again.

Belatedly, and he blamed it on his sluggish senses ever since waking up after his whipping, he realized that it didn't really matter whether the Deep Magic could be returned to the Stone Table. It didn't matter whether she would succeed in her twisted attempt to make him betray all that he loved again. The Witch would kill him anyway, dump his body on the Table, and have her revenge, whether his death was appeasing the Deep Magic or not.

Her attempt to kill him as a traitor the first time had merely been an excuse to be rid of him, a last-ditch effort, to keep the prophecy of the four that would be her undoing from coming true.

"You will turn traitor by the time I am done with you, so eager will you be to," she glanced over his wounds and he winced, "escape. And then I will kill you." She leaned down to face him. "And when I have killed you for the traitor's death that should have been yours, I will kill your siblings and take back Narnia." She smiled coldly, and it froze him to the core.

"Do you plan to kill me by deprieving me of food and water?" Edmund snapped at her, realizing too late that it was probably not the best thing to say at that moment. But he had never been good with words. That had always been Susan, who could manipulate with her gentle suggestions. Edmund preferred to use a sword to get his point across.

A small grin twisted Jadis' cold white features into something even more terrifying. Edmund had to resist the urge to close his eyes again. "Guards!" she shouted, her face unchanging, her eyes never leaving Edmund. Those eyes, so dead looking. They appeared to be looking inside his very soul, rooting out all his fears and laughing at them, though her lips soon returned to their firm line.

A moment later, a guard, rather ogreish in nature, lumbered into the room and gave the Witch an awkward bow.

"I ordered that our little guest be fed," she snapped coldly, turning those icy pale eyes on the ogre and away from Edmund. He could not suppress his sigh of relief.

The ogre, if possible, seemed nervous. "Yes, Your Majesty." He eyed Edmund in contempt.

The Witch dismissed the ogre and turned back to Edmund. "But only enough to be kept alive. After all, it is not as if you will be alive much longer and there is no need to waste good food."

Edmund glared at her stubbornly, refusing to be scared by the woman who had haunted his nightmares, ignoring the quaking in his voice, the trembling in his lips as those nightmares flashed before him, when he finally spoke. "Aslan will come before then."

He wasn't sure to which he was referring, his death or her overtaking Narnia. Oh, he just wanted to sleep!

The Witch lifted her wand so that the tip of it was leaning against Edmund's chest, enjoying the fear that flashed across his features, a fear he tried so desperately to hide again. She forced down her fury at the mention of that lion's name. "Don't be so sure, little king."

Edmund lifted his chin defiantly, and they locked eyes for a moment, dark brown meeting crystalline blue. Then the Witch turned with a huff, and strode out of the room, the door slamming behind her of its own accord, leaving Edmund in silence.

He forced himself to push through the pain, to stay awake this time. He could not fall asleep, no matter how much his back ached. This pain was better than his dreams.

He focused on the wounds marring his shredded back, focused on the pain rather than the intense desire for unconsciousness that had hit him full force.

Before he passed out from the pain, some small part of him realized that he no longer felt ill with that strange sickness he had acquired ever since seeing that hag in the throne room during Court...In fact, he just felt warm from a fever totally unrelated. His mind dimly registered it as infection. But at least the cold was gone.

ǁ

Susan was horrified by what he had done. No, she hadn't say anything to this effect, but she wouldn't even look into his eyes as she bandaged his arm, and that was how he knew. Peter didn't even remember how his arm had become wounded in the first place, only knew that the hag's claws cut deeply.

Rhindon was back in its place at his waist, cleaned after its latest use, and every time Peter looked at it, he felt sick, remembering that Aslan had blessed this sword, to be used honorably in battle, not to kill in cold murder. And Peter had done just that.

There were only a few healers in the wing today, as most of them had left with Lucy on her little quest, not yet returned, and most of them were dealing with creatures wounded during their sparring. Susan had been forced to bandage Peter's arm herself, all gentleness gone from her touch as she wrapped the white cloth coldly around his bare skin.

She was wearing a dark brown, tight dress with long sleeves, Peter noticed absently as she rubbed some sort of ointment on his arm.

The healing wing was not Peter's favorite part of the palace, but it seemed to be the place he inhabited the most. The cordial that Lucy always kept with her was mostly used for emergencies and life or death situations, so a healing wing was necessary. A broken arm or an injured leg, his usual calamity, did not warrant the cordial's use, and so sometimes he was down here for days on end, recovering.

Most of the time, Edmund was in the bed beside him. Peter didn't bother to hide how badly he wished that was the case now. But he was gone, kidnapped by the White Witch, and who knew what she was doing to him now, even as Peter lay here doing nothing.

All Peter could think about, the only thing that swept away the guilt of killing in cold blood was that it wasn't cold anymore.

But that didn't make sense. Surely the cold had something to do with the Witch, not some hag. However, he couldn't deny the fact that he had stopped freezing the moment he killed the creature. Even Susan had remarked on it as she dragged him away from the dungeons.

Susan finished applying ointment to his arm and wrapped the rest of the cloth around it. "There," she spoke finally, all tones of gentleness gone from her voice. She stood and stepped back, still eying him as if she expected him to raise his sword against her any second now.

Peter slid off the bed and raised his arm in circles. "It feels much better," he assured his sister, wishing she would stop worrying about him and start worrying about Ed. They had much more important things to be doing than wrapping a little cut on his arm.

Susan shook her head. She had been unable to trust herself to speak until now, but when she opened her mouth, the words came spilling out, along with one, solitary tear.

"Did you find out anything about Ed?" she demanded, voice colder than Peter would have thought possible. He had the grace not to mention the tear.

He looked at her more closely now. Susan was still glaring at him, arms crossed, and he couldn't shake the feeling that any second now she would yank out an arrow and throw it at him, angered by his stupidity.

One of the naiads came into the room to check on the High King. She glanced between the two of them, noticing the tension, and hurried back out, leaving him alone with the Gentle Queen, who seemed to him anything but gentle at this moment.

They stood in awkward silence for a full minute, Peter staring out the large window overlooking one of Cair's gardens. The dryads believed that, if long-term patients were allowed to tend to plants, it could help them heal. It made for a very pretty view, at least, though the sun was already setting and soon that view would be gone.

Where was Lucy? She should have been back by now. Unbidden, panic rose up in his throat, but he forced it back down.

"Killing her didn't help Edmund," Susan stated flatly, her lips the only thing moving. She couldn't shake the horror that she had been feeling ever since she had found Peter, standing over the dead hag, not looking the least bit remorseful, mercilessly stabbing Rhindon through the hag's heart, not once but again and again.

His eyes looked mad, and Susan never wanted to see that look again.

She shouted for him to stop, but he ignored her, or didn't hear her. Susan the Gentle had been sick at what she saw.

She didn't even know if he realized what he had done. He had looked far away even as he stared at her, finally collapsing in her arms. She understood his fury at what had happened to Edmund, but killing the hag, if anything, had only made matters worse.

The hag had been their only way of knowing what was happening to their little brother. And Peter had killed it, not like he killed in war, swift yet mercifully, but because whatever the hag said-she hardn't heard-made him angry.

Part of her was angry with him, too, though she was doing her best to set it aside. Her little brother was somewhere, maybe even dying, and the hag may have been their last chance to find him. The hag knew things. Peter had killed it. Edmund was out there, alone and afraid, and they were wasting their time not helping him!

She forced herself to calm, taking a deep breath. They would find Edmund. They had to. She glanced at Peter again, this time with pity.

She didn't know if she recognized the High King anymore. Peter from five years ago would never have done anything like that. She wanted Edmund back as much as he did, but to do something like this...

Peter turned around to face her, and she saw the conflict in his eyes. "I know," he said softly. "And I...I wasn't going to."

Susan's arms lowered to her eyes and she let out a sound that was halfway between a sigh and a snort. Sometimes she couldn't handle this, playing mother to her siblings. Usually, she enjoyed it, but it was moments like these when she felt like she was doing everything horribly wrong and felt that distinct yearning for their real mother all too heavily.

"What happened?"

It was the first time she had asked, and Peter had been wanting her to speak before now, to ask, but now that she did his stomach twisted and he couldn't bear to answer. "She told me that Ed had been taken by the Witch. And then she said something about him and I... It was wrong of me; I know that. I didn't even realize what I was doing. One second I was just angry, and the next she was lying there dead, and you were there, and-" he cut himself off.

Susan stared up at him sadly. She wanted to know what the hag had said that made Peter so angry he killed her. The Gentle Queen felt terror rise up inside her at the thought of unspeakable things being done to Edmund the Just. She opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Oreius, banging open the door with the flat of his sword and charging into the room.

Oreius did not even seem to notice Peter's bandaged arm, nor the look of horror plastered on the Queen's face. He was panting, still wearing full battle armor, when he came in. "Your Majesties, we've found the Witch."

Peter felt like an idiot when Orieus told him where she was. It was so obvious, it was frightening. But they had searched there already; why hadn't they seen her before?

"It seems she has been at her old castle for a while, your Majesties," Oreius said in response to the unspoken question, although that wasn't really an answer. "She came down from somewhere up North, and...she has an army. A substantial army."

Susan interrupted, "Have you found out anything about Edmund?"

Oreius shook his long mane, a deep look of regret flitting over his features. "I am afraid not, Your Majesties, but I fear that the Witch has him in her power. she would not be so bold if she did not know she had the upper hand."

Peter sighed. He didn't need to hear it; he knew Edmund had been taken the Witch, somewhere deep inside. What good were their spies if they couldn't even figure all this out before now?

"Prepare for battle, Oreius," he ordered, hoping it would not be a long one, hoping Edmund would be all right when it was over and they found him. If they won. "We're going to get Edmund back, and we're going to defeat her."

Susan touched his arm silently. Defeating the resurrected White Witch was not going to be an easy task. They had only defeated her before because Aslan had been there. He was painfully aware of his own failure to protect his little brother then, his failure to defeat the Witch by himself. How were they going to do that now, with Aslan nowhere of help?

Peter sighed. "Susan, now might be a good time to blow your horn." Maybe Aslan would come if she blew it. He didn't know exactly what he was expecting, didn't know if Aslan could even be called by the horn wherever he was, only that whatever happened had to help them somehow.

"What about Archenland, Your Majesty?" Oreius asked, looking concerned. "We sent a delegation to them, but they never responded."

Peter thought for a moment. He couldn't with a clear conscience ask Archenland for help against the Witch. He was rather annoyed that Susan had already done so, not wanting them to get involved. The Witch was powerful, and if...if she somehow won, she would win Archenland as well, and it would be Peter's fault. "This is our fight," he said at last, feeling Susan stiffen beside him. "We will stand against her whether Archenland chooses to help fight or not."

"Yes, Your Majesty," Oreius said, bowing before he took his leave. "I will have more troops prepared by tonight. We march at dawn tomorrow. I pray it will be enough."

Susan swallowed hard. An image of Edmund, smiling at her as he snuck out for another sword fight during a feast with Archenland, flashed through her mind. She was not quite as optimistic about their success as Peter. The Witch was cunning, and if she had an army, Susan didn't know how they would defeat her. And what if by then Edmund- She cut that thought off. No. She could not think about that. Edmund would be fine. They would find him. Figure out some way to get him from the Witch.

If it came down to it, could Susan choose between Narnia and her brother?

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