Edmund

'You have a traitor there, Aslan,' said the Witch. Of course everyone present knew that she meant Edmund. But Edmund had got past thinking about himself after all he’d been through and after the talk he’d had that morning. He just went on looking at Aslan. It didn’t seem to matter what the Witch said." ~C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

There are many quotes in the world of literature that speak to me.

It's part of being a writer, I think. The words composed by others just seem to leap out from between their home in the world of paper and ink, and launch like arrows straight into your heart.

But the quote above?

This one rends me in two.

For I am Edmund...

...and oh, what a traitor I was.

Gazing back upon the pages of my own life, the barest of recollections are enough to cause my stomach to clench into a painful coil.

The destruction. The degradation. The shame. The unearthly horror of the road I once walked is enough to make me cringe with despair.

I was deceived...

...lured with the sweetest of poisons until I was drowning in my addiction to myself. It was as though I could hear the slam of dungeon doors, the laughter of my captors, and the broken-hearted cries of those innocents that I had wounded in my foolishness.

But that is my past.

And as the Lion has said, "there is no need to talk...of what has passed."

No finger pointed can condemn me any longer.

No whispered cries of "traitor," "broken," "soiled," or "worthless" can touch me.

These things are in the past...faded, making them lies of the darkest witchcraft.

For there is another magic which my enemy knew not of...deeper than the seas, older than the dawning of time, and written with the ink of love.

A willing One has already taken my place.

Death is working backwards. The Stone Table is broken.

I am Edmund. Forgiven traitor, forever the ruler of the Western Woods...I cannot lose my crown.

So, as my accusers cry out my treachery, I will simply sit at the foot of the cross...

...and gaze at Aslan.

"This is my password...the light is dawning, the lie broken." ~C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle