26 - The Fox's Brush

Edmund watched the Dreadken move toward him—float, almost—with a wary eye. He expected her to raise her hands the same as the first one had, the one he'd faced when he was younger. But this one had barely stopped at his feet before the onslaught began.

An image of Asha, covered in greenish blood, filled his head. Edmund sucked in a breath of surprise and half recoiled, before gathering himself and staring down the violet witch.

The Dreadken smiled in delight. "He fights it," she said with wonder in her voice. "You have experience with us, don't you? How marvelous."

Jadis's hands jerked. "I don't want him fighting it. I want him on his knees begging me to stop it," she snapped. "What do you see?"

"A woman," the Dreadken said with a touch of disappointment. "No more than they always see at first. Their wives, husbands, mates. But not a human one, this. It is a dryad."

Jadis beamed and approached Edmund. She stroked his cheek with bitter-cold fingers, and he jerked his head away with a sneer of disgust. She ignored the motion. "I'd heard of your leafy mate. And a son, too, I'm told."

No sooner did she say it than an image of Silas burning alive flashed through Edmund's thoughts. The apparition cried out, his skin black and peeling. Ed ground his teeth. It's not real, it's not real. Remember it's not real.

Jorena clasped her hands together. "Interesting." She took a deep breath, and the horrifying images hurtled faster through his brain. Peter, Susan, Lucy, Cori—all of them dying in various ghastly ways, their eyes milky and faded, their bodies rotting away. Ed grunted with effort and jammed his will hard against the intruder in his mind.

The Dreadken took a step back, now positively glowing with feverish excitement. She threw vision after vision at him, so fast that they barely paused for him to absorb her current tactic before passing on to the next.

Then everything went white. Ice filled his veins. The cold smothered him. In his mind, he saw a grave, recently unearthed from the snow. He just made out the slush-smudged name on the headstone—Helen Faywater Pevensie—before he caught sight of Jadis standing nearby, with her hand laid possessively on the shoulder of a wispy, translucent, pale-haired little girl.

"Papa?" the girl called.

The sound of her voice shot down inside him and ripped back outward, a hook that dragged his buried heartaches out and spilled them, blood-red, into the snow.

"She's mine now," Jadis said with a sweet smile.

Rage roared through him, and as if he'd willed it, the dream-Edmund found his sword in his hand. He raised it and charged toward the White Witch with a furious howl.

But the Witch thrust his daughter between them, and the point of his sword drove through Helen instead.

Her shriek of pain rended his heart in two. He screamed in the vision, and in real life as well. Edmund dropped to his knees, shivering and gasping, no longer sure what was real and what was vision. His whole world became a flood of oily black remorse. He didn't even see the witches conversing in urgent whispers.

Guilt exploded through him now. His every misdeed, every failure, burst forth and laid itself bare in front of him. Pain crushed at his lungs. He wasn't worthy of his crown, wasn't worthy to be here, breathing the same air as Susan and Peter and Lucy. He'd only been fooling himself. Everything he touched went so wrong, and he desperately wanted someone else, someone better, to put it right ...

The Dreadken gave a little gasp and clapped her hands like a giddy child, but Edmund couldn't respond, couldn't get past the screaming in his head.

The very real Jadis in the cabin knelt before him, her eyes full of pity. "You keep doing that, don't you, darling?" Jadis murmured. "You keep taking on this blame, this heartache. It isn't yours, Edmund. Let go ... let go ..." Her coaxing eyes began to weave through his senses, unraveling him. He struggled, struggled, began to lose his grasp on everything ...

Hold on, Son of Adam. I am here.

Edmund closed his eyes, cutting off his sight of Jadis. He sucked in a breath of spring-sweet air and focused all his being on the voice of Aslan in his head. "You came," he whispered gratefully.

Before him, Jadis made a sound of sympathy. "Of course I came," she murmured. Edmund felt her hand petting his hair, smoothing down the fabric of his tunic. "Edmund, darling, darling. Open your eyes. Let go of your pain, let go of this burden on your shoulders. It will be so easy once you let go."

Face her, Edmund. It is time, said Aslan. You will do this on your own strength.

I can't, he thought in panic.

You can, Aslan insisted, his voice a growl. Your family needs you. They believe in you. I believe in you. I gave you this task not to punish you, Edmund. I gave it because I knew from the beginning that you had the strength for it.

Edmund's throat clenched. Aslan had known. He had known Edmund would start his life in Narnia with betrayal. He had known Edmund would spend years trying to atone for that. He had known, even then, that Edmund would be sitting here now, facing the very worst of himself and begging for someone to take it all away.

And he had known Edmund would have the strength to do it himself.

Ed summoned all his nerve and opened his eyes to the beautiful, perfect, cold face in front of him. The roaring of all the fears the Dreadken had planted in his head faded to nothing more than whispers. Ed let his eyes unfocus, seeing not Jadis, but forcing himself to envision Asha. Her long, pale hair. Her bottomless green eyes. Her skin, so pale he could see the greenish veins underneath in places. The way she smelled, like a forest in summer, when the air was hot and still outside, but cool and caressing under the leaves ...

Bit by bit, he felt his face relax, felt it lose that mask of agony and effort.

"That's it, sweetheart," Jadis crooned, and he pushed himself to think of Asha's voice. The point of light inside him that was Asha's soulbound connection warmed with pride and love, and he let it wash through him. All the feeling he had inside him was for Asha alone, and when Jadis touched her icy lips to his, it was Asha that filled his thoughts.

The White Witch sat back, looking thoroughly satisfied. "That's better, isn't it?" she murmured, brushing a finger along his cheek.

Ed remained unmoving, his gaze out of focus, lingering on the daylight spilling into the cabin through the windows behind the witches' skirts.

Jadis stood. Ed saw it from the corner of his eye, but his gaze stayed on the windows. Outside, a ship lifted anchor and passed out of sight.

"He's broken," the Dreadken said with a note of frustration.

Jadis went rigid. "Yes. Too quickly." She snatched out her wand, and before the Dreadken even had a chance, Jadis turned her to a splash of water that soaked the carpet. The wet soaked into Ed's knees, but still he stayed there, staring out the window.

Jadis charged out of the room and slammed the door.

Ed blinked. The Phoenix had left. And with it, if his soulbound connection could be relied upon—and it could—Asha's ship, and probably the other as well.

He remembered his old friend, Broadear the Fox. Always trust a mission of cunning to a fox, Broadear had said once. The two had often discussed such things.

When a fox fought battles, he feinted with his brush, that bushy red-and-white tail that was so tantalizing, so distracting to an enemy. A fox knew how to use the most tempting part of himself to lure the enemy into a terrible miscalculation.

Ed stared out the windows at empty sea, picturing the racing, wind-blessed Phoenix steering its companions to Narnia leagues, hours, days ahead of the White Witch.

And he grinned, all teeth, like a fox. "Thanks for the lesson, Broadear."