Edmund hears her breath whoosh out as her shoulder blades connect with his leather breastplate. She recovers quickly, though. Before she fully regains her balance she spins and attempts to swerve around him to get back outside. Unfortunately for her, Orieus has trained him far too well for that. He slings an arm around her waist, lifts her off her feet, and takes a step into the cave in one quick movement. But as soon as she's on solid ground she twists out of his grip and stumbles a few steps further into the cave.
"Princess!" he says sharply, not wanting to waste any more energy fighting. (After the long day of slogging through slush and hiking up and down mountain trails, Edmund is more tired than he'd like to admit.) The girl winces at his tone and whips around to face him, backing up until she remembers the Talking Horse. Her head swivels back and forth, assessing which is the greater threat.
With the fire behind, Edmund can't make out her face, still shrouded in the darkness of her cloak. When her attention shifts suddenly to his right, Edmund knows Adan must have arrived. The Wolf brushes his shoulder against the side of Edmund's knee as he steps up to the threshold, and the girl shifts to put the wall of the cave at her back.
"We're not here to harm you," Edmund tells her, holding his hands out placatingly. Her head swivels slowly from Edmund to Adan, and then to Phillip across the fire from her.
"You're Narnians," she gasps, sounding out of breath. It's not a question, but Edmund nods anyway. She backs up against the wall then, letting her head fall back and her eyes closed. Edmund holds out a hand toward Adan, warning him to stay by the entrance, and then takes a careful step forward.
"You are Princess Serena?" Adan huffs at Edmund's question, and the girl looks at the Wolf warily before nodding. Thank you, Aslan, Edmund thinks. There was some small part of him that needed the confirmation, but Adan was right. No other humans would be this far into the Northern Giants' territory. By the terms of Narnia's treaty with the giants, Edmund shouldn't even be on this side of the border.
"Good," Edmund mutters to himself. He steps further into the cave and the princess tenses slightly. Edmund ignores this as he takes in her appearance— fine clothes unsuited for anything but a carriage ride, the velvet cloak not nearly thick enough for this weather— and then crosses the rest of the distance from the entrance to Phillip. The roughly circular cave is big enough for the Horse to fit comfortably inside with a bit of room to spare, but even with the small fire it's nowhere near as warm as Edmund would prefer. The sooner we get back to Narnia the better, Edmund thinks.
He snatches up the pack he'd left with Phillip earlier. The princess is sitting now, knees pulled tightly to her chest as she stares anxiously toward the exit. Edmund glances there too. Adan has stretched himself across the narrow opening, leaving his head and shoulders inside the cave as he studies the girl. Adan would probably stay there all night, Edmund knew, ignoring the cold and slush. The Wolf was utterly loyal but still seemed to feel the need to prove himself after all his time in service to Jadis.
Edmund mentally shakes himself, pushing all thoughts of that time aside as he crosses the cavern. He kneels before the girl and sifts through the supplies in his bag.
"Here," he says, dropping a blanket, a water skin, and some dried meat into a pile beside the girl. She glances at the supplies, then looks up at him for a moment, studying him. He feels his impatience rising by the time she finally shifts the pile into her lap with a quiet thank you.
"You must be half frozen shod like that," Phillip says suddenly. Edmund is confused at first by this statement. After so many years with the Horse as one of his closest companions, he was still occasionally caught off guard by the odd, Horse-ish way he phrased things. When the princess tucks her slippered feet under her skirt, though, he understands.
"Wait," Edmund says, unease suddenly replacing impatience. Though the temperatures were warm enough earlier, it's well past dark and frigid cold again. The Corsecans weren't clear on the details of her disappearance, but the tracks they'd followed earlier had been just hers, and she'd been on foot the entire time.
Edmund prods at the hem of the girl's half-frozen cloak. She must be at least in the first stages of frostbite already. Or trench foot, he thinks, wondering for a moment why that particular phrase gives him a sense of deja vu. The princess tucks her feet further under her damp clothing, drawing his attention back, and he's close enough that he can see the color in her cheeks grow bright. A frustrated sigh escapes Edmund.
"I'm trying to help you," he nearly growls as he pulls his hand back and runs it through his hair. He's never had Peter's patience for the opposite sex, and — with the exception of his sisters— prefers to avoid them altogether. The coy smiles, the batting of eyelashes, the vying for favor and attention— it was all desperately frustrating and Edmund had no time for it. And now, after traipsing through the freezing mountain passes all day, he just wants to get this over with and start back for Narnia.
"How did you manage all this time?" Phillip asks quietly, voicing one of the concerns all three had discussed, especially since crossing her lone trail this morning. Edmund glances over at Phillip. The Horse, his head lowered, stares at the girl with concern and shakes out his mane. Phillip had objected to staying in the cave while Adan and Edmund had circled around behind the girl– at times carefully herding her with broken branches and low growls from Adan– toward the cave, but Edmund knew it was mostly posturing. Even ten years after the White Witch's defeat, he knew the cold brought back dark memories for those that lived through Jadis's ruthless winter reign. Edmund's hand strays to the old scar on his abdomen absently.
"'All this time'?" the princess questions, interrupting Edmund's thoughts.
"You were supposed to arrive at Cair Paravel four days ago," he grumbles, wondering if she's also addled her head somehow. The princess turns her face away toward the cave entrance, looking puzzled with her scrunched forehead and pursed lips.
Returning his attention to the pack in front of him, Edmund pulls out the extra trousers and a woolen shirt and socks. He had been prepared for his trek to take several days. However, he hadn't planned on finding the princess so ill-prepared herself. Where were her guards, anyway?
"Have you hit your head?" Edmund asks instead, focusing on the more immediate issue. Perhaps she fell somewhere along the rocky mountain trails, he thinks, but with the hood of her cloak still up he can't tell.
"What?" she responds ineloquently. Her gaze snaps back to Edmund.
"Dizziness, confusion, blurry vision?" he lists. The girl searches Edmund's face, her dark eyes narrowed.
"No," she says slowly, shaking her head. Edmund nods once. Perhaps she's just bad at keeping track of such things. Girls never are reliable about distances and time. Can't keep a map in their heads, Edmund thinks. He shifts his focus back to the slightly frozen hem of her skirt.
"And your feet?" he inquires. She looks down, following his gaze.
"Cold," she answers flatly. Edmund, poised before her still, sighs and mutters a may I before gesturing at the skirt covering her slippered feet. She slowly shifts and pulls her skirt slightly to expose the wet and muddied slippers. Silk, Edmund thinks derisively, holding back any comments on her choice of footwear for a freezing mountain trek. He focuses instead on the skin of her ankles and lower legs. It's red, but not overly mottled or waxy as he'd expect with frostbite, and not peeling or deteriorated from the damp. After pulling off his gloves, Edmund carefully removes one of her slippers and cups her foot in his hands.
"Any numbness?" he asks, prodding the cool skin of her foot. He probes it with no small amount of his own confusion now, having expected much worse.
"No," the princess snaps. She pulls her foot out of his grasp, and Edmund looks up to see her glaring at him now.
"I'm not an invalid," she adds icily. "One afternoon in the woods isn't—"
"One afternoon?" Edmund interrupts. Her mouth snaps shut, her eyes glaring at him still in annoyance, but then he sees her expression shift to something closer to anxiety as she turns her head to look at the cave entrance. He follows her gaze again, still seeing nothing but Adan and the dark night beyond. Adan peers at the girl, and Edmund sees him scent the air.
"How long have you been alone?" the Wolf asks slowly. The princess drops her gaze to the Wolf, then glances at Edmund. He simply raises an eyebrow and gestures for her to answer Adan's question.
"Late this morning, I think," the girl tells Adan. Edmund is glad for her direct answer – that she didn't defer to him and ignore the Talking Animal as those of Calormen were wont to do – but the answer is not quite what he'd expected. He shares a confused look with Adan. If she had been with her guards up until this morning, why had hers been the only footprints they'd found? And why we're they so far to the northeast of Corsecant that she'd been to get half a day's journey through the twisting mountains passes beyond the border of her own country?
"And where are your men now?" Edmund questions. Something about this entire scenario doesn't add up, and Edmund's gut is telling him that there's more to the story than what the king of Corsecant had revealed in his letters to Peter.