One, Two, Three, Four…

We breathed with Edmund, drawing in air in a sharp gasp and letting it out again in a long sigh. Peter brushed a lock of blood-crusted hair away from his brother's too-pale forehead as Lucy took Edmund's hand in her own. Jaerin was at my side and I leaned toward him so that our shoulders touched.

The boy took that inopportune moment to cough.

Peter stiffened. Gathering Rhindon in his fist, the High King rose majestically to his feet. Towering over the boy, he glared down at him.

"My brother has spared your life," he said. "For that reason alone, I will let you live. But if you come within my sword's reach again this night, I cannot vouch for my actions."

Peter turned away from the boy. For the first time since our battle began, I actually saw his face. I did not recognize him.

Some part of me had thought that finding Edmund would temper my king's wrath. It had not. If anything, it had stoked it.

Though Peter's eyes were blue again, they were the burning blue that was the heart of the flame. There was no compassion or mercy in their dangerous depths. The man I knew was gone, replaced by a vengeful, bloodthirsty Wildman who would not rest until his hunger for death had been satiated.

"Take care of him," Peter snarled, looking at Jaerin and I. Then he brushed past us and stalked toward the stairs like a wild beast.

Jaerin looked at me. "You staying here?"

I shrugged. "Best way to take care of Edmund right now is to take care of Peter. He'd never forgive us if something happened to him."

"So I think."

It was a gruesome path we trod, down the wake of our wrathful ascent, but I hardly noticed. We passed the two Panthers and sent them up to guard the door in case we had missed anyone on our way up. Peter's unnatural calm lasted until he set foot again in the courtyard where the battle still raged. Then, with what I can only describe as a bone-chilling howl, he attacked.

I had thought his battle-fury was as hot as possible before we found Edmund. I was wrong. Rhindon cut through men as easily as air. Peter stormed through burning wreckage, not even noticing when hungry flames licked at his clothing and singed his hair. Twice I had to leave off fighting to grab a bucket of water and toss it on my unheeding king. Even the abrupt drenching did not affect him.

When all the Telmarines in the courtyard were either dead or dying. Peter returned to the castle. Coldly, methodically, he marched through every room, killing every man he found. At Edmund's room, he stopped, stared at the doorway, then, without entering, turned back again. He saw Jaerin and I and Rhindon leaped upward to strike before he recognized us. He frowned.

"I told you to take care of Edmund," he snapped.

"We are," Jaerin replied. "By taking care of you."

Snarling his disapproval, Peter once more shoved past us and to the courtyard. This time I was aware of the disfigured bodies beneath our feet. Aware but heedless of them. My own anger still burned hot and I did not care that we dishonored the dead so. Later, I would care. For now, I followed Peter as I had since the day we met.

In the courtyard, we found the fires dying, burning low and red. The gate stood open; parts of the battlements were broken from the fury of the fight. Father and Orieus waited for us in front of the ranks of our warriors. The sky above was dark, but no longer black. Somehow, during our fighting, the night had passed and day was coming. For a moment, I saw Peter's shoulders relax the barest fraction then, with the suddenness of a mid-summer storm, his anger swept back in.

"What is that?" he growled, pointing with Rhindon at a group of four men clumped together behind a circle of guards.

Father glanced to the side as Orieus answered. "Prisoners. They surrendered near the beginning of the battle."

"Surrendered? You accepted their surrender?" Peter's voice rose in volume.

"Yes, my liege." Orieus bowed slightly.

Eyes black and jaw clenched , Peter shoved past the generals and guards and stood face-to-face with one of the prisoners. "You think you can take my brother captive, torture him for three weeks, and then you'll just surrender and be safe?"

The soldier trembled but managed a small nod. These were Narnians. He'd surrendered. Everyone knew that the justice of Narnia meant that a soldier who surrendered willingly would be granted a trial regardless of the crime.

Poor man. He really had no idea what they'd done when they captured Edmund.

Peter killed the man where he stood and before anyone could stop him, the other three fell beneath Rhindon's swift strokes. Father looked at him in horror and there was something like disappointment in Orieus' eyes. For my part, though startled, I was not altogether taken unawares.

There was a very good reason Peter was not called "The Just."

Peter wiped his sword clean on the tunic of one of the dead Telmarines. "Gather all the bodies in a pile outside the gates. We will burn this place and leave them as a testament to what happens when one attacks the Throne of Narnia." Sheathing Rhindon, he turned once more for the castle.

The silence that filled the courtyard was as heavy as an Elephant's tread. A hundred pairs of shocked eyes followed the High King as he strode to the keep. His dark armor melded with the shadows but his pale hair caught the light from the fires and made it seem as though he were crowned with golden flames. I looked back at the motionless soldiers.

"You heard the High King," I said. "Move!"

Though only Captains and thus outranked or equaled in rank by many here, my brother and I were also Kings' Keepers—not bodyguards precisely but shadows and counselors, always there when needed—and in such a situation, that counted for more than military rank. General Orieus stirred and summoned soldiers with a wave of his hand. A moment slower, my father followed suit and the clean-up began.

For my part, I too made my way back to the keep. Once more, Jaerin and I trod the ghastly path through the castle and to the top level. We did not enter the room where Edmund was but took the place of the Panthers guarding the door. A quick glance inside showed Lucy with Edmund's head pillowed on her lap while Peter knelt near them. The Telmarine boy was huddled in the corner, knees drawn up to his chest and head bowed. I frowned and stepped forward, ready to drag him into another room. Whatever happened in that room should not be seen by any foreign eyes. Least of all by him—one of the people who caused this sorrow.

Jaerin stayed me with a hand on my shoulder. "Let him be," he murmured. "Let him see what binds Narnia together." In the flickering light of the torches, I could see my brother's eyes. They were clear green again, free of the madness that had filled them for all the night. I yielded.

So we waited outside the door while Lucy murmured comforting words to her brothers and Peter wept over Edmund's unconscious form. The soldiers came and cleared away the bodies and poured water down the stairs to wash the blood from the stones. Light grew in the room behind us even as the torches guttered and died. An hour and more must have passed before Peter gathered Edmund up in his arms and stood. With a glare that could melt steel, he ordered the boy to follow him and marched past us, eyes bloodshot from weeping but set in a face of granite. Lucy swept after him, her face equally tearstained. The Telmarine boy followed, trembling and Jaerin and I fell in behind them.

Down to the courtyard we marched with unfaltering steps. Through what had been a den of death and was now merely echoing stone, Peter carried his precious burden. The bright light of the new day illuminated a grisly scene in the courtyard. Though some effort had been made to clean the battlefield (for Lucy's sake, not ours, I am certain) no amount of scrubbing would render those stones white again. Two great mounds of corpses stood to the left of the gate while to the right, more honorably treated and with cloaks covering their faces, lay three lines of Narnian dead. The red dawn gave the illusion that the courtyard was covered in blood. Charred beams from fallen outbuildings stuck up at sharp angles like the bones of a giant. Ash floated on the breeze or swirled in the corners like ghosts.

The Telmarine boy gasped and froze at the sight of the carnage. And it was with that sound that I realized what we had done. An entire castle—some five or six hundred men by the look of it—slaughtered in revenge. Not justice. Revenge. A proverb attributed to the first king of Narnia and speaking of Aslan sprang to mind. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay." In our rage, had we usurped Aslan's role?

I had not long to consider our actions—my actions—for Peter did not stop walking. Jaerin pushed the boy forward and we marched through the wreckage until we stood at the ruined gates. There, Peter paused and looked with grim satisfaction at the piled bodies outside the walls. He then pressed a light kiss to Edmund's pale forehead and murmured something that I could not hear. I heard his next words clearly though.

Turning around, Peter looked me directly in the eyes.

"Keep my brother safe."

And he handed Edmund to me.