༄ 𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝑃𝐻𝑂𝐸𝑁𝐼𝑋 𝐴𝑅𝐶𝐻𝐸𝑅（𝐿𝑊𝑊）༄

Chapter 8- Edmund's Betrayal

The others immediately looked to Lucy who fearfully shook her head "yes." Not a second afterwards, Peter grabbed his coat and took off after him, allowing no explanation. The two girls repeated his actions and followed him in search of Edmund. Sharing a look, Mr. Beaver and I chased after them, already having a sense of where he was going. It wasn't until Lucy confirmed that he had visited Narnia once before that I put the pieces together. I could guess who he had met for the first time. It wasn't a Narnian but rather the Witch.

Shortly after leaving the dam, we noticed Edmund's tracks. Luckily it wasn't snowing quite yet to cover them. We followed them in a direction the Narnians and I would normally refuse to go: the White Witch's castle. They led up a steep hill and the Pevensies didn't hesitate to follow them. It was quite hard to run in the cold snow, especially since it was growing colder out each moment that passed. Running up a steep hill was hard enough on its own and adding cold temperatures didn't help our situation.

"Hurry!" Peter shouted to his siblings once he was close to the top. I don't think he cared too much that Mr. Beaver and I were following.

Peter's command only made Susan and Lucy want to speed up. Susan made it to the top only tripping once, but she manage to keep her balance and prevented herself from falling down the hill. Lucy tripped once as well, but didn't have her sister's luck and she fell. The more she tried to get uo, the more she began to slide down the hill. I managed to reach her just in time to help her to her feet and catch up to her siblings.

At the top of the hill, I saw the Witch's castle still a good distance away. I made no attempt to go further and noticed that Peter had also stopped. Lucy and Susan both came to a halt just behind him with Mr. Beaver moving til he was beside them. I stayed further away from them. Everyone just looked at the castle, barely making out a figure heading inside the castle gates. We believed it was Edmund and knew that there was no way we could make it to him in time. He had too much of a head start.

"Edmund!" Lucy shouted.
I faced her and reprimanded her. "Shh! They'll hear you!" Peter started running towards the castle, but he didn't get very far.
"No!" Mr. Beaver shouted, jumping forward and grabbing Peter's arm to stop him. I was surprised that a beaver could hold a boy back but found it irrelevant at the time.
"Get off me!" Peter shouted at him.
"We can't just let him go!" Susan argued.
"He's our brother!" Lucy seemed to finish for Susan.
"He's the bait!" I explained.
"The witch wants all five of ya!" Mr. Beaver explained.
"Why?" Peter said.
"To stop the prophecies from coming true! To kill ya!" Mr. Beaver responded honestly.

Peter looked shocked at the news and Lucy's face fell, like she had given up hope. Susan just looked angry, very unlike her other two siblings.
"This is all your fault!" she said, taking a few steps toward her brother.
Peter whirled around. "My fault?!"
"None of this would've happened if you had just listened to me in the first place!"
"Oh, so you knew this would happen!"
"I didn't know what would happen. Which is why we should've left while we still could!" They were almost in each others faces, angry. Clearly they thought blaming each other was a good idea at the moment.
Peter looked like he was about to say something else to Susan's statement when Lucy interjected with a shout: "Stop it!" Much quieter she elaborated, "This isn't going to help Edmund."
"She's right," I said.
"Only Aslan can help your brother now," Mr. Beaver finished for me.
"Then take us to him," Peter told Mr. Beaver, sadly.

We started our way back to the Beavers' house, slowly. Walking and not talking because, honestly, no one knew what to say anymore. Or if they did they didn't know how to say it. There was really nothing any of us could say. I knew the walk back to the dam would take much more time as we walked dejectedly, but figured that was what they needed. That was until I heard it and knew we had to move faster.