Epilogue

(Rose POV)

Five years later

The years passed quicker than I thought they would. I didn't keep track of every day, but Bashar guesses it's been about five years since the quest. On my good days, it feels like barely a year. On my bad days, even one day seems to stretch into eternity. Bashar is always the one to remind me when it's a new day, whenever the grief rumbles over my heart like a rockslide. She's the closest one to me now. She knows me even better than Darin did.

In part, I think that's thanks to the peculiar skill we've picked up over the years. Much more than my heart, Bashar sees into my soul. Sometimes, when neither one of us has any distractions, I get a tickle deep in my chest, deeper than my body itself. We've guessed that's our souls brushing. In any case, it goes deeper than the heart.

In the first few years, we got in the habit of keeping vigil together at night and resting during the day. I couldn't quite let Darin out of my sight then, and I never took his cloak off except to wash it when it truly got too dirty to stand. Now, it's easier to be up with the moon and sleep soon after the stars come up. There's comfort in knowing Darin is up there, watching over me as I sleep.

But tonight, something other than missing Darin is keeping me awake. It's been slowly growing over the past few months. I've refused to speak of it to anyone, but I know Bashar senses it. The others do too, though they don't seem to know what it is. Bashar, though… Bashar knows.

"Perhaps it's time." Bashar breaks the comfortable silence that always falls between us after a good long twilight dance.

Laying on my back, it's easy to find Darin's star. He blinks back at me, steady and unchanging. Ageless, now.

"I've never intended to go back to Narnia," I finally answer. "This is my home now."

One of Bashar's silver ribbons wraps around my hand. "Your heart doesn't lie, Rose." A weighted silence falls, but Bashar isn't done. "Sometimes, it is good to see old friends."

Words I said to Caspian, so very long ago. That was the night I agreed to show this world to Lilli.

I chew on my lower lip for long minutes. "Maybe."

Three months later, I'm walking past the two centaur guards at Cair Paravel's gate. Strangely, once I gave my name they let me pass with no other questions.

Before I'm quite ready, I find myself striding into the throne room with the hood of my cloak pulled low over my face. But all the same, Caspian rushes from the throne as if he's a young man of twenty rather than a man of nearly fifty. The crow's feet around his eyes are deeper now, and his beard is sprinkled more evenly with grey.

When Caspian grasps my shoulders and looks me up and down, the new wrinkles of his hands draw my gaze. "You're getting old," I say by way of greeting. "Your hands are turning wrinkled."

"Rose," he says, voice soft as if I hadn't spoken so rudely. "It's good to see you." He hesitates a moment, but when I lift my arms, he engulfs me in a tight hug that could have cracked my back in my younger years. He shakes ever so slightly as he holds me.

"How have you been?" I mumble with my chin mushed against his shoulder. "How is Rilian?"

Caspian loosens his arms, but his hands stay at her upper arms. As he smiles, the crow's feet deepen around his eyes. "He shall be king soon. As you said, I'm getting old."

I smile in return. "He has much to live up to."

Warmth floods Caspian's eyes, still as rich a brown as in his youth. Something foreign stirs in my heart. Perhaps Bashar was right; perhaps, even after everything, it's still good to see old friends. To remember.

"Come," he says. "I'll show you to your room." Looping my arm through his, Caspian begins to walk. I follow along mutely at first, before I quite understand what he said. But when I do, I dig in my heels.

"Caspian, it's a terrible bother to prepare a room without notice." My heart thuds unsteadily. It's been years since I slept indoors. Since I slept without seeing the stars. Traveling through Narnia on foot was alright; even the sky here is better than no sky at all. It wasn't so hard to imagine Darin traveling worlds across the skies to flicker down at me. I could almost feel him, even if he wasn't there.

Caspian's warm hand encloses over mine where it rests in the crook of his elbow. "It's not so much a bother as you think," he murmurs. He only looks ahead, but there's something warm flickering in his heart. I don't have a name for it, but it's the same thing Bashar sensed in mine.

My calm lasts as long as our walk from the throne room to the east corridor. Then I remember the particular detail of roofs and tense anew.

"Caspian, the stars – "

Caspian stops in front of a plain wooden door and palms it open. Before me is a room with a freshly made bed, wildflowers on the bedside table, and a polished glass roof. And the walls are covered in murals of pine trees. He's brought Tanssi Kuun here, to the Cair. With a glass roof to show me the stars.

"I wanted to be ready, in the event of your return."

I press my lips together to try and hide how they tremble. In my determination not to face him, my hand tightens around Caspian's arm. "You couldn't have known I would," I choke out.

Carefully, Caspian laces his fingers with mine and squeezes until I can feel the faint thrum of his pulse in the veins of his hand. "I hoped."

Over the next few days, we settle into an easy pattern. I take all my meals with him and Rilian, and soon the three of us are as comfortable together as if we've been supping every day for years.

Rilian's ordeal did very little to dim the youthful glow about him. He's much like his father was in his twenties – measured, wise, too responsible for his own good. But he has a boyishness about him beyond what Caspian ever had. Even his time with the witch didn't dim the light in his smile nor the mirth always twinkling in his eyes – blue, like his mother's. He laughs often, and I find that sadness is nigh impossible in his presence. Rilian lights up any room, and Caspian is never happier or more alight with youth than in his son's presence.

But after our dinners, Rilian excuses himself to his study, giving Caspian and I much-needed time alone although we never asked him to. He simply understood.

Every night since my arrival, Caspian and I have spent hours in my room on ladders. Caspian holds the paint while I map Tanssi Kuun's stars onto the glass in brilliant color. I asked Caspian for the paint on my second evening here, and ever since we've settled into a comfortable, silent ritual.

Now, on this seventh night, the mural is complete with every star I've memorized but one.

I pause on her ladder, pushing the paintbrush handle behind my ear and resting my elbows on the ladder's tip. Beside me, Caspian fights a yawn. He always tries to hide it when he gets tired, and I always wait a few minutes before faking my own yawn and descending back to the floor. Tonight, I glance over and smile ever so slightly.

"It's all but done. Perhaps we should get some sleep." No matter that this is nearly an hour earlier than usual. I need to put up that final star alone.

Caspian meets my gaze. Though his eyes are as gentle and warm as ever, I've never felt so exposed in front of him. The beginning of a tickle starts in my chest, but it's gone almost as soon as I notice it. Silently, Caspian descends the ladder and sets the golden paint on the floor. I'm moments behind him. I can't quite come up with our usual goodnight.

But Caspian plucks the dirty brush from my ear the moment my toes touch the floor and drops it into the small pail of water on the dresser nearby. He picks up a clean brush, the same size, returns to me, and wordlessly places it in my hand. For a moment, our hands clasp together with the brush between our palms, then Caspian's hand is gone and so is he.

The warmth in my heart is a whisper and yet as loud as a thunderstorm. "Thank you," I whisper to the empty room.

After adjusting my ladder a bit, I ascend to the ceiling once more, a cup of green paint in my hand and the clean brush held between my teeth. I set the paint on top of Caspian's ladder, dip my brush, and fill in the final star.

I don't sleep until dawn, but my heart is somehow lighter. I clasp the two pendants around my neck to my heart all night, and my eyes never leave Darin's star.

When at last I awaken the sun is glaring through the ceiling, announcing midday mercilessly against my eyelids. Though my stomach complains, I don't join Caspian and Rilian for lunch. Instead, I drink in the warmth of the sun and stare at the dark emerald star, the last piece of Tanssi Kuun's sky to finish the map. I've never seen him during daylight before, much less under Narnia's sun.

I always loved the moonlight, but Darin longed for the sun. Summer sun was his favorite, though his smithing was most miserable in the muggy heat. Darin didn't care; his most treasured moments were stolen afternoons with me in the plains outside Telmara, soaking up the summer heat and snacking on fruit and bread beneath a cloudless sky.

I slip between daydreamed memories and naps until the sun sinks to the horizon, emblazoning the Narnian sky in brilliant reds and oranges and purples. Only then do I rise at last from bed, stretching under the brilliant skyscape. This is one thing Narnia has over Tanssi Kuun – sunsets. Moonsets are stunning, but Narnian sunsets are richly colored in the way only sunlit worlds can be.

When the sky above darkens to more blues and purples than rusts and reds, I change and make my way to the small dining room where Caspian and Rilian await.

I find father and son buried deep in discussion – something about Ettinsmoor by the sounds of it. Rilian glances up with a smile as I enter, but he finishes his conversation with Caspian as I close the door and take her usual seat at Caspian's left. By then, they've agreed to send a well-armed diplomatic team to the Giants and greet me with reserved hellos.

I return their greetings, but my stomach chooses that moment to announce itself far too loudly and the uncertainty in the room breaks into mirth. For all the complicated workings of my heart, I can't help but laugh with them.

"Perhaps the next time you skip a meal, I shall deliver it to you and appease your poor stomach," Rilian laughs, his shoulders shaking as his rich blue eyes dance.

I chuckle gratefully. "Perhaps you shall," I agree. There would be far worse things.

We pass a gentle evening together. But for all the lightness Rilian brings, tonight a fragility hangs in the air, something all of us seem to sense. Rilian's laugh is a few moments shorter than usual, and Caspian doesn't smile as easily. And I chuckle and smile and nod and hum when I should, but something winds tighter in my chest with every tender bite of pheasant that passes my lips. The knot tugs tighter whenever I meet Caspian's soft eyes across the table. The same restlessness that drew me out of Tanssi Kuun prickles just under my skin.

When the meal is done and we lick the last of the honey from our sticky bread dessert off our fingers, Rilian lingers.

"I believe I should draft the diplomatic points for our team," Caspian says through the napkin patting the stickiness from his lips. "I won't be long." Caspian hugs his son and squeezes my shoulder on his way out. I watch him leave, careful to school my face into vague curiosity.

When I turn back to Rilian, the blue-eyed prince is offering me his arm and smiling those six inches down at me. "A turn in the gardens, my lady? I believe the poppies have just begun to bloom."

I accept with a smile that I wish came easier than it does. Now that my painting is finished, even with this strangeness in the air I welcome the variation in routine. But as I chatter with Rilian about the state of the royal gardens and debate the merits of red versus yellow poppies, that brittle thing in the air starts to fade.

"Yellow most certainly catches the sunlight best," I insist with a grin that pulls at my chapped lips. "And the sunsets too."

"Ah, but red mirrors the sky at sunrise!" Rilian tosses back. "What better color than one to match the sky's most brilliant hours?" He smiles toothily, as if he's won the debate.

I shoulder open the doors to the garden, comforted at once by the babble of water fountains. "Perhaps both are best," I compromise. "Red at the edges and radiating into the center, and yellow everywhere in between."

Rilian taps his index finger against his chin as he follows me into the castle's corner of paradise. He suddenly beams, clasping my hand where it rests on his arm. "A brilliant plan, my lady! I shall ensure the gardeners do just that next season."

"Rilian, how many times must I remind you," I ask with a playful shoulder nudge. "It's just Rose."

Rilian chuckles and says nothing as he guides us to a simple stone bench amid a smattering of flowering ivy. I sit after he does, and something somber settles between us.

"Rose," Rilian begins, wetting his lips as he stares into the setting sun. He hesitates, his knuckles white on his right knee as he clutches at his pants.

I slip my hand from his arm to rub soothing circles into his back. "Some things don't need to be said," I offer gently. I know too well what it is to say things before you're ready; I wish Rilian did not have to know.

But Rilian shakes his head vigorously, his blond curls dancing across his broad forehead. "No, but this does." He shakes out the hand grasping his knee and clears his throat. "I never got to thank you, for questing to find me. My father was seeking his child and heir, Jill and Eustace were here by Aslan's command. You didn't have to seek me with them. But you did." Rilian's voice trembles, skittering into the air on fragile wings. "My father told me, what it cost you. I…I'm so sorry."

At once, the guilt in Rilian's young face is too much to bear. My heart trips over painful beats of grief, but I turn Rilian to face me and speak firmly past the bubble in my throat. "Finding you cost me nothing," I tell him firmly. "I did not lose my husband because I was seeking you." And as I say the words, I find that at last, after so many years, I mean them.

Rilian opens his mouth, but I stop him with a firm shake of my head. "I didn't, Rilian. He was lost to me for other reasons entirely." I soften in spite of the ferocity with which I would purge him of this sorrow for me. He had his own losses too; he should not mourn mine.

"You have nothing to feel guilty for," I murmur with wet eyes.

Rilian breathes shakily once, twice. But at last the weight behind his eyes lightens, and he swoops forward to hug me. "I thank you."

My tears spill over, but I smile as the iron cage of grief slowly weakens more around my heart.

When I return to my room, I find Caspian waiting by the door. To most anyone, he hides his nerves well; but I see his too-straight shoulders and lightly puckered brow straightaway.

"I told him he has nothing to feel guilty for," I say the moment I'm within earshot. "And he doesn't."

Caspian's shoulders visibly relax as relief slackens the tight lines in his face. "Thank you. He needed to hear as much." With quicker steps than I expect, Caspian strides forward and sweeps me into a tight hug, squishing me almost to the point of pain. Regardless, I squeeze him back just as tightly.

When he releases me, both our eyes are swimming, and the tickle against my heart turns searing. Silently, I take his hand and lead him into the finished room. I stop right beneath that final green star, the brightest of them all and dare to look at him.

"I finished, last night," I whisper. "Thank you."

Caspian's hand is warm and steady in mine, but his cheeks are wet when he tears his eyes from the painted replica of my Darin.

His fingers are warm where they curl with mine. A warm shiver rushes up my spine as her heart reaches for the peace I thought I would find in isolation. But it's here, with forgiveness and relief and the love only years of friendship can bring.

We spend the evening lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling, tracing constellations with our fingers in midair and naming the ones we know. Caspian knows the ones from Tanssi Kuun, too.

In the deep hours of the night when Caspian snores beside me, I decide on something important.

Lilli and Caspian knew Tanssi Kuun, and never betrayed that secret. Lilli seemed more like the faeries than like us human Narnians. She loved my world in a familiar way I never could quite understand.

When the sun rises, I wake Caspian with my idea.

"Do you think you and Rilian can be spared a few days? There's some place I think he'd love to explore." I hold out the spare pendant, smiling as my heart brightens into something burning and golden.

Caspian's joy bursts off of him in waves, until his heart could easily be a star all its own. "Yes," he says. "I think he'd like that."

Rilian is more than happy to set out on another adventure before his coronation. When he gets to Tanssi Kuun, he loves it just like his mother did. And after I see him dancing with the faeries under the moonlight as if he's danced with them a thousand times before, I give him the second pendant.

The faeries dance on, and I join them. I dance with Darin twinkling above me, Caspian's hand in mine, and Rilian spinning as if his heart is perfectly in tune with the faeries.

And at last, I think mine is too.

THE END

Well, that's a wrap! This one took so so long to finish, but I'm so happy to have it done. Rose has been one of the toughest characters for me to write. I'm sad this is the end of her story, but all good things have to end sometime, right? And for the record, no, I never considered killing off Caspian in this. I mean, I bawled like a baby when I read that in TSC! I couldn't go through that again...hopefully y'all agree with me there.

Thank you to everyone who read and supported this series over the years. I couldn't have finished this without you!

Well, until next time. My next story is still a ways off, but it's coming sometime... I gotta try out writing some M stuff at some point!