Disclaimer: I own everybody you don't recognize.

Chapter 5

They were waiting at the camp, just like Edmund said. As soon as we reached the camp, with all its brightly colored tents and red pennants, they hurried out. Laerana pretty much jumped on Peter.

"Avert your eyes!" said Edmund, giggling. Lucy and I joined in. I tried to make myself scarce, before Laerana finally stopped her incessant kissing and hugging of Peter. He looked pretty uncomfortable, and I sympathized with him. This was obviously some scheme to get back into power.

Alas, my sister stopped much earlier than I expected. She saw me, and her mouth fell open with astonishment. Then she gathered herself and plastered on a fake smile I knew all too well.

"Isala! We've missed you!" She ran over to me, ready for a hug. I tried to protest, but it was no use. As she hugged me, however, she whipped out a dagger and sliced a shallow cut in my arm.

"Never do that again. We will always be watching." She whispered in a voice quite different than the other one. Then she pulled away. I tried to hide my arm behind my back so that nobody would see it. My sisters' cruelty was something that I would only share with my best friends, and at that moment I didn't have anybody.

And then Sabina came forward. She did practically the same thing as Laerana, except she slashed my shoulder. Cassia was hurried away by Laerana. They probably didn't want me making any contact with her.

"Isala? Come on! I want to show you around the camp." Edmund, calling to me. I hadn't realized that everybody else had left. I put my arm behind my back again.

I joined Edmund up on a hill. We looked out at the camp's brightly colored tents for a while before he spoke. "I brought you up here so we could talk alone." I didn't say anything.

He continued. "It's the look in your eyes. You've endured something nobody should have to endure."

I glanced at him. "Why do you say that?"

"Because the same thing happened to me." he replied. "I betrayed my family to the White Witch. But they've forgiven me."

Suddenly the realization struck me. He was slightly outcast from the rest of his closely bonded family. At least he was forgiven…

"You're right." I was startled by my own voice. "I was held captive by Jadis since she took over."

"A hundred years. That was how long the winter lasted." A hundred years! Had I really lived for 250 years?

"You're lucky." I said.

"Why?"

"You've been forgiven."

"What?" He looked at me in a new light.

"My sisters hate me."

"They don't hate you, Isala. Who could?"

"You don't know. All they want is power. They're no better than the White Witch."

I drew my arm from behind my back. "Look. This is what they did to me." As I was pulling my arm out, I saw the slashes for the first time. They were deeper than I thought.

"What?" Edmund took my arm in his hands. At first, I flinched and suppressed an urge to pull away. But his hands were so soothing, so tender and soft.

"Are you sure they did this to you?" he asked.

"Do you think that I would hold still long enough for an enemy to slice that deep and neat a cut?"

"True…" He inspected it some more.

"But what about Cassia? Surely SHE doesn't hate you."

"Cassia is a pawn. She's totally out of it. My sisters don't want her even seeing me."

"So, in other words, there's nobody who likes you."

I sighed. "Yes."

"But that's not true."

"Yes, it is."

"Isala, you're not understanding. Lucy absolutely loves you. And I think you're the most courageous girl I've ever met."