A/N: I liiiive! After that move, I wasn't sure. I may still be playing box tetris, but the important thing is we're back on the Caslina pain train! Also, we're not even halfway through this whole story yet, so this is the part where I say trust the process; when I tag Angst with a Happy Ending, I truly do mean it 😇
Chapter 45 Content Warnings: brief mention of birth control and sedative, brief reference to prior assault
Chapter 45: fragile and composed
Addie
Addie takes to the dishes with a vengeance, scrubbing so hard it's a wonder she doesn't flay off all her skin.
She's tempted, if only to give this sharp pain in her chest somewhere else to go - into her hands, where it will heal faster.
"Addie -"
"Don't," she whispers. "Not tonight. I don't want to hear it."
Caspian hesitates, the river trickling over his hands.
"You shouldn't act as a maid," Caspian says. "You aren't. Not anymore."
Addie sloshes a bowl through the water, splashing loudly.
"I'll do as I wish," she says.
"Yes," says Caspian, with the heat of… frustration? Almost authority, but he stops just shy of it. "I suppose you will."
Yes, she will.
By now, she thought Caspian learned she isn't a subject to be commanded, gods damn the technicalities of their stations, lines they both blurred.
She will make her choices, and Caspian must live with them. Hasn't she stomached all his choices every time he dismissed her in favour of duty?
Caspian clears his throat. "Before the battle -"
"Stop." Addie stacks the clean bowl and grabs another.
Her knuckles are raw, reddened.
The sight soothes her. There's a reason to feel pain now, to fight a grimace when the soap irritates torn skin.
Caspian takes her bowl before she starts washing, blocking her when she tries to take it back.
"Your hands," he says.
Scowling, Addie snatches the last dirty bowl. Can't Caspian understand she needs this distraction?
Scraped knuckles will heal in a few days. Maybe if she washes and cleans and acts as a maid until her hands are beaten bloody, she will learn the rhythm of healing, too.
"My hands are fine."
Caspian washes his own dish carefully, with patience her old self would've teased.
She has no words to tease him now.
"We need to talk, Addie," says Caspian, his voice too steady for what he's asking of her.
Addie grabs the soap and scours the bowl, bubbles overflowing the rim.
"No, we don't."
Doesn't Caspian know she can't speak of this and stomach forgiving him? Fragile, shaky silence is the most she can offer. Can't he understand, when he tortured her with silence and stifling worry the second she set foot in the How?
Can't Caspian give her the time he once needed from her?
"I sent you away to protect you," Caspian begins, resting wet hands on his knees, water darkening his trousers. "It was not so different from the escape."
"It couldn't be more diff-"
Addie's current bowl - the last of the dishes - cracks onto a river stone and falls into the current and Addie soaks her sleeves diving after it. Caspian grabs her waist to steady her, but Addie shoves him off.
"Don't touch me!"
A strangled sound erupts from her throat - quickly stifled behind a clenched jaw and a furrowed brow, only to be chased by a whimper, because even now, Caspian's touch makes her want to be still, be quiet, be honest.
Addie tosses the bowl to the shore and throws anger in front of her pain like a shield, defending the only fortress she has left.
Herself.
Addie pushes at him, a hand splayed on his chest, leather vest rough and cracked beneath her palm.
Caspian lets go.
Addie breathes raggedly, hands braced before her, river mud seeping under her fingernails.
"It's different," she says - a traitorous admission, baiting a fight she knows better than to start - "because you had no right to send me with him."
Caspian's jaw clenches, his dark eyes flashing between a plea and a warning.
"I did so for your own good," Caspian says.
Addie whirls to face him. For her good? No, for his. Marcos was the obvious choice because he was the only other human in the How who didn't walk out of storybooks and legends. Marcos was the only other Telmarine.
"Nothing good could ever come of trusting a man like him," Addie says, voice like ice in her throat - sharp, cold.
Fractured.
Worse, ice melts. Better to choose stone, to shutter these brittle pieces trembling in her hands behind walls of rock.
Unbreakable. She can choose to be unbreakable.
Then why is her breath like a dagger in her chest?
"You escaped with him," Caspian says, looking at her like she's missing something.
"Not by choice," Addie tosses back. "Did you ever think to ask me how that happened?"
Caspian shifts, hands fisted at his side. "Marcos said -"
"So you trusted his word instead of asking me?" Addie says.
Caspian's eyes snap to hers, glinting as a vein throbs on his brow. "Would you have told me the truth? You've lied to me before."
Addie flinches before she can stop herself. Yes, she's lied, because Caspian decided to order her around like an invalid, to treat her like she couldn't take care of herself.
She's lied to him because how should she expect him to understand what she barely realised herself - that she left him in the escape not to save his life, but because she thought he was better off without her?
Caspian didn't understand when she confessed that with sun-dappled trees as their witnesses. He looked stricken, like she'd taken a knife and carved into his chest.
And days later, not half an hour after she tasted death on her own lips, Caspian threw her at Marcos and said she was right.
"I said I was sorry," Addie manages. "I said I was wrong."
Perhaps she only wants Caspian to say that this time, he was wrong.
She wants him to be better than she has been.
Instead, Caspian's nostrils flare, royal temperance whittled to scraps.
"You proved I cannot trust you, Addie!" he says, sharp, an accusation. "Not even with your own life."
The truth of it - her own inadequacy, her recklessness, all the ways she's made Caspian's life harder - hammers in her lungs, her skull, drives like a stake between ribs.
Caspian is right, but how can she bear to hear him say it? Caspian's truth is insidious, passing his lips and filling the air between them with poison. And still, still, his eyes are brimming not with anger, not betrayal, but concern and frustration and care, and she is -
She is nothing but a burden.
Addie sinks further into the cold, welcoming numbness of being angry, indignant, of thinking how dare he and he's wrong and it wouldn't matter if he didn't care so much so in a way it's his fault, isn't it?
"This is my life!" Addie cries, because fury is easier and she's a coward. "Mine, not yours! I decide what to do with it!"
Caspian's face twists and he strays closer.
Do you not realise your choices affect more than just you?
Then stops himself, but his eyes are dark steel.
"I won't let you throw it away! You do not get to -" Caspian sighs sharply, more frustrated than pained.
No, that's not right. Caspian's voice fluctuates when he's frustrated, a constant push and pull of emotion and composure.
This storm in his eyes, this promise as Caspian says "I couldn't let you die for me" and "It was not your place" and "I needed you live, try to understand" - this is pain, sharp, like a knife to a throat, blade rending tender skin, the taste of blood, the smell of iron.
Addie forces her shoulders straight, lifts her chin and makes herself stand tall and don't cry, don't sniffle, don't be stupid.
Caspian's pain tastes familiar, a bitterness coating her throat.
How can he care about her?
How can he care and have sent her with Marcos, practically gift-wrapped?
Reckless or not, likely death or not, Addie would've chosen that reeking, bloodied, death-soaked battlefield over what Marcos tried… what Marcos intended.
Addie hears herself shouting back, "You can't stop me!" And then more yelling, turning disgust at herself outward, accusing him. "Not at the castle, not here, not even with Marcos doing your dirty work!"
Her mouth opens again, ugliness spreading over her tongue. It would be so easy, so easy to taunt him. To say do you know he pinned me on the forest floor? Do you know he fed me my own tears? Do you know he once forced his cock down my throat?
Caspian would be shocked into silence. He would stare, gaping, and answer he had no idea, he is sorry, he didn't know. He would treat her like a glass sculpture, ask stupidly if she's alright.
Wouldn't he?
Or would Caspian look into her eyes and say but you survived? Would he say yes, Marcos told him and that's terrible and wrong, but Marcos taking advantage is still better than letting her die?
Addie sucks in a breath, bile rising as she tries to hold herself together, to stop trembling.
Caspian's made it clear he prizes her survival above all else.
Perhaps even above her safety, beyond the sanctity of her body belonging to her alone.
If that's true, if that is what he'd say…
She can't let him say it. Can't bear to hear it, because that, she couldn't forgive.
If she can't forgive him, she'll lose him.
Addie wraps herself in her own arms. She's not ready to lose him.
"You have no idea," Addie finally says, brittle, "what kind of man he is."
In the breath of silence, the only sound is the river frothing over itself, the steady rush of water wearing rough rocks smooth.
Shore pebbles grind together, trampled under Caspian's hesitant approach. He doesn't reach for her.
Addie straightens her spine. That's fine; that's better. She'd pull away if he tried.
"Then tell me what happened in the forest," Caspian says. "Tell me what kind of man he is to you."
A shiver cracks through her like a lightning strike - too sudden to stop, to hide from prying eyes.
You could at least be grateful.
Intimate, like you wanted, right?
It's just you and me now. Stop fighting it.
No, no! Addie digs her fingers into her sides until she feels bone, presses hard, a distraction.
She doesn't have to feel this. Her mind is her own, her body is her own. Hers, no one else's. These hands squeezing bruises over her ribs are hers. The tickle on her ear is her own hair, stirred by a summer breeze. The air rasping up her throat is air she breathed in, air she breathes out.
She's strong enough to keep these crumbling pieces to herself.
She is untouchable.
Addie forces steady, deep breaths until her vision clears and Caspian's worried face, almost close enough to touch, is all she sees.
Caspian reaches, a momentary mistake he retracts immediately, but Addie's feet back up of their own volition.
Caspian's hand hovers in the air - an offer refused - before dropping to his side. He clears his throat and steps back.
"How did you break free?" he asks.
Addie scratches her cheek and an itch on her lips as mint blooms on her dry tongue, thick as poison. She will offer the truth, but only so much.
"I let him think he won," Addie says. "Easy enough, since you drugged me before handing me over. What the hells were you thinking?"
"That you had to survive!" Caspian exhales roughly and half turns away, hands running through his hair. "That I wanted to trust you'd look after yourself, but I couldn't!"
When he faces her again, his eyes are wet.
"I was thinking," Caspian rasps, "that I've put you in danger since the day I met you." A rough swallow. "How could I claim to love you if I didn't protect you with everything I had?"
Addie scoffs. "Everything Marcos had, you mean."
Caspian cringes, guilt creeping over conviction. "Twice you nearly died, and I…" Caspian breaks off, gathers himself. "I held you as you lay dying, and there was nothing I could do."
"So you got rid of me so you wouldn't have to deal with me anymore?"
Caspian shakes his head, a paltry denial because what else is she supposed to think? Yes, she almost died, and all she wanted, all she needed, was Caspian to be there. And instead, she woke up alone while he was off plotting.
"I did it for you!" Caspian protests, and that is a lie; she smells it on him like smoke. "I sent you away so you would never be in danger for my sake again."
Addie wipes her cheeks, shaking her throbbing head. In Caspian's gravelled half-explanations, she hears an echo of what she once told him.
I was trying to protect you from me!
Better off without me!
You, of all people, should understand.
"I never cared about danger," Addie says, too close to pleading when she should wield words and partial truths like a blade. "I just cared about you."
Tash, it's humiliating how easily she almost runs to him. It's dangerous how much she still cares, because she needs righteous anger to protect herself, because Caspian's deal with Marcos borders on unforgivable - if he knows everything, it is - and if she forgives him, isn't that the same as daring him to do it again?
Caspian's fists clench, tanned skin stretched pale. "If that's true, why could you not care for yourself as I did? You must care for the danger, Addie!"
"There's less of it now," Addie says, arms crossed tightly. "And you worried enough for the both of us."
It felt like all Caspian did at the castle, this entire war, was worry about danger - more for everyone else than to himself. That's his way of loving: to fret and protect and try to have all the answers. To lead because he must and take on too much to spare others.
Caspian didn't need her worrying too; it seemed like he just needed her… there. Present, calm, reassuring when he faltered. She tried to be that certainty for him when it was obvious she couldn't help him any other way.
It was her penance, to do nothing but be present instead of being useful.
And Caspian decided he'd rather throw her into Marcos' arms than have what little she can offer.
Is her love worth anything to him?
Addie swipes at her runny nose. If Caspian is so willing to throw her away, maybe she shouldn't offer herself anymore.
Caspian has strayed closer again, his very presence a temptation. How can she deny him these pieces of her heart when he stands so close she can smell him - leather and salt and the musk of sweat, these familiar scents of the home she found in him?
The home she lost in him.
Addie squares her shoulders. She's strong enough to deny them both. She is free to hold her broken shards out of reach until she stitches herself back together.
"You must care," Caspian says, a lover's whisper undercut by gravel, "because I have failed you before. You must, because I cannot imagine my life without you in it."
Pretty words, almost enough to melt the ice she's thrown around her heart.
Her heart is cruel for wanting to abandon safety for love, to smooth this twist in Caspian's face.
Addie bites her cheek until she tastes iron and wills herself to stay in place. Caspian did a fine job imagining life without her when he gave her to Marcos and marched off to challenge his uncle.
"Clearly you could," Addie snaps, trying to put enough bite behind it. "You were telling me goodbye in that cave, weren't you?"
Caspian flinches, but he doesn't deny it.
"I did it for your sake," he says.
How many more times must she hear that?
Addie's breath shudders out. Caspian let her crawl over him like a needy little weed, used their bodies and the comfort of being bare together as a distraction at the very moment she only needed him.
A consolation prize, before betrayal.
It's a cruel assumption and maybe it's unfair, but she must stay angry. She can't lay herself raw before him anymore, Caspian doesn't get to see her weak anymore.
Yet, as Addie watches Caspian wrestle tears and lean forward only to pull back again, she knows the cave, the tea, Marcos, all of it was his grief as much as hers. She can't look at him and think otherwise, because Caspian looks like a man pleading with an executioner.
But Caspian can't know that. He isn't allowed to know she knows that.
So, instead of admitting outright that if he'd sent her with anyone but Marcos she would've forgiven him already, Addie shakes her head as Caspian insists, again, he did this for her.
"For me?" Addie repeats. If her voice trembles, it's only the tremble of a rockslide down a mountain, of thunder in a lightning storm. "You got rid of me, and then you challenged Miraz to a fight to the death." She grits her teeth and presses on, unforgiving, because what else can she be? "I was a distraction you needed out of the way."
She's expecting him to deny it again.
Caspian surprises her.
"Yes," he says hoarsely, face screwed up in disgust - at himself? At her? "No," he corrects, "not like… Addie, I couldn't think straight with you there. All I could focus on, all I could think of, was you! I couldn't be a prince, a king, I couldn't lead anyone into battle until I knew you were safe."
"But I wasn't!" Addie shouts back, reckless when she shouldn't say things like that, what if Caspian asks again what happened -
Caspian rushes the distance between them and cups her face, thumbs wiping her cheeks and it's not fair how easy it would be to give in and let his touch soothe these glass shards cutting inside her.
"Safe enough," he says. "As safe as I could make you. You were never safe with me."
Foolish man! Doesn't he know how much she…
No.
No, of course he doesn't.
Addie holds his wrists. She should pull him off, but instead she holds him there, leans into the warmth of Caspian's hands and waters his palms with salt.
"For me, there was no safer place in the world than with you," she whispers.
It's a stupid admission - useless - because why say it when it's no longer true?
Caspian was the safest person she knew because never, never, did he force her into anything. At his most frustrated, he ordered and raged and shouted, even shook her by the shoulders, but he never forced her, bodily or otherwise, into anything.
Until now.
Before she can stop herself, Addie continues. "But that didn't matter, did it? Because for you it was me or Narnia, and we both know what you chose."
Again.
Caspian's grip tightens, his fingertips branding her skin. "I sent you away so I would not have to choose."
"You chose your crown," Addie insists. How can Caspian argue otherwise? He got her out of the way to tend his kingdom in battles and bloodshed.
Caspian shakes his head firmly. "No. I nearly brought back the White Witch when Nikabrik threatened you. If you were on that battlefield, if anything happened to you…" Caspian trails a finger under her jaw and Addie shivers as he traces the deadly cut she tries not to remember.
"It would've been you," Caspian murmurs. "If that choice were before me again, my kingdom or you, I would have chosen you."
But he didn't, he -
"I couldn't risk that," Caspian continues. "Do you understand? I had to ensure that choice would never be before me. I've made oaths, I had a duty -"
Gods damn duty!
"So you fought Miraz," Addie says. "Was that duty too, or a death wish?"
Caspian's hands loosen, abandoning her skin to comb her hair from her face. She ought to push him away.
Addie grimaces, because for some reason, she can't.
"It was past time I faced my uncle," Caspian says. "Too many had died under my command already."
"And if you'd died? What then?" Addie clutches his arms like they're the only tether she has - perhaps they are - and presses her fingers to his pulse.
Thu-thump, thump, thu-thump. Staccato and too fast.
Caspian's eyes soften, dark depths yielding. "I didn't. But Narnia would've had the Kings and Queens, and you were safely gone."
"With Marcos," Addie snaps. Caspian doesn't know how dearly she almost paid for her so-called bodyguard. "You fucking asshole."
If the worst had happened, if Caspian had died and she hadn't fought free, Caspian would've left his kingdom in kinder hands than he'd left her.
Caspian purses his lips, frustration creeping back over his face. "He promised to protect you."
The audacity he has to speak of Marcos and protection in the same breath! Caspian would rather pawn her off on someone like Marcos - pleasant until denied something - instead of letting her face the world and all its dangers at his side. Isn't that what love is supposed to be? Sacrificing everything to stay with someone, because you need them and they need you and the most important thing is being together.
She failed in that when she abandoned him in the escape. She was wrong, too busy being afraid to remember how to trust. And Addie thought, she thought Caspian would never make that same mistake.
"At what price?" Addie barrels on, pulling free and shit she shouldn't bait him like that, can't hear Caspian admit he would've done it anyway, can't can't can't -
"Coin?" Addie guesses, a deflection. She already knows the answer.
A vicious part of her wants to see Caspian admit it.
"A general's salary," Caspian confirms as he looks away.
Addie's breath shivers. It's worse to hear it from Caspian's mouth. Marcos might've been lying, but Caspian only ever tells her the truth.
In that, he's both kinder and crueller than her.
"Only if he returned you to me entirely unharmed," Caspian says, as if that's a worthy excuse.
Addie tries to force a barbed smile, only for it to die on her lips.
"You sold me off and paid for the privilege," she says, more exhaustion than bite. "How chivalrous."
Caspian's face contorts, and she is… she's not sorry.
She told him she didn't want this tonight.
Caspian wears the same exhaustion and regret. It lies on him like a wet cloak, weighing down his shoulders and dulling his gaze.
She misses the days she brought the sparkle back to his eyes, stars twinkling in those midnight depths instead of shadows.
She misses when he made her feel like that, too.
Addie wraps loose, tired arms around her middle. Her hands are a paltry imitation, a disappointing substitute for the touch she really wants.
Caspian got what he wanted; she hopes this discussion was enough for him. They needn't speak of this again.
She cannot bear to speak of this again.
Caspian strays closer, his watery gaze soft, pleading.
"I am sorry, Addie."
Addie shivers.
For a moment, she hates him for apologising.
Standing here, looking into Caspian's eyes, she could almost forgive him. Sorry could be enough someday if she tells him the rest, so Caspian's apology would be for everything.
The truth might destroy her - them.
She's a coward.
She is allowed to be a coward for a little longer. Surely, after all they've been through, she can be allowed this?
Just a little while longer.
Just a little.
"Tell me what you need," says Caspian.
Addie regards him - rounded shoulders, hands loose, arms hovering by his sides but ready to hold her if she accepts this offered contrition.
It will be enough. It must be enough.
The full truth is a tiny price if it means she can keep him a little longer.
Caspian looks like she could ask him for anything and he'd give it to her - his heart, his body, any answers she wanted. Justice, perhaps, if she tells him everything.
Trouble is, right now she just wants him.
So instead of asking for things he might not give, Addie silently tucks herself under his chin.
Immediately, Caspian's arms encircle her like a promise she'd be a fool not to accept.
Addie clutches him close and breathes him in. Caspian's pulse flutters under his jaw, tickling her nose.
She tries to tell him I love you with her body, with a tight grip and lips brushing his skin without quite kissing.
For a little while more, she will have him like this. In body, if not in words.
Addie wakes in the middle of the night. No dreams, no nightmares; she simply wakes. One moment she's asleep, the next she's sitting up clear-eyed and alert.
She might as well get up. Caspian's snoring anyway, and in her sleep, Addie rolled close enough to touch him.
She indulged herself plenty earlier, curling into his arms like a needy girl.
The world is quiet and oblivious save for her, the occasional minotaur guard, and the hum of crickets. Addie wanders toward the river, tiptoeing through ferns and around fallen twigs. The rushing water is a pleasanter sound than the camp's snoring and tossing, and there's something private about the river. The shore feels tucked away this deep in the forest, secluded and secretive.
It'll be a good place to bury aches she doesn't want to feel. The sound of the river will carry this thorn in her chest off into the unknown. Why bother to forgive if she can banish the hurt instead?
Let the river have it. The water doesn't feel, doesn't hurt. It just runs.
Ahead, there's a flash of gold through the trees. Addie squints, hesitating. Only Aslan has fur like that, and he's supposedly a god. Better to go upriver and leave his holy self undisturbed.
Addie's feet disagree.
Without quite knowing why, she approaches the lion, fur shining white-gold in the moonlight. Even sitting down, he's almost as tall as a horse.
"Adelina."
Addie startles. It's silly; she knows very well that Narnian animals are talking animals; of course their god can talk too.
"Sorry," she says, twigs snapping underfoot as she edges to the shoreline, giving the lion a wide berth. "Have we met?"
Aslan's tail flicks, disturbing a fern.
"We are meeting now," the lion says in a rumble almost akin to a laugh.
"You're Aslan," Addie says. "The Narnian god."
She has half a mind to ask Aslan where the devil he's been all this time, if he's hard of hearing or extraordinarily busy with other places, because why else would he have ignored Caspian's prayers? But Addie's tongue won't cooperate, lying sticky and thick in her mouth like undercooked bread.
"Do you feel yourself ready to be a queen of Narnia?"
Addie's questions screech to a halt.
She must've misheard. She's sleepwalking, or the river muddled her hearing, and she must've misheard.
"Excuse me?"
Aslan swings his huge head and looks at her with golden eyes bright as flames, and Addie's spluttering dies in her throat.
"No," Addie blurts. "Of course not. What kind of question is that?"
She's seeing things, hearing nonsense. The venison stew was too rich and she's dreaming. Who even asks something like that?
Aslan blinks and says nothing. The sweet earthiness of pudding mint blooms across Addie's tongue.
Addie clears her throat. "Is this about…"
Her hand strays to her stomach.
The herb pouch in her pocket weighs heavy, a reminder of necessity and practicality.
"I have a tea," Addie says. "I take it every morning, so don't worry about that."
Her throat works around a sticky swallow.
Surely that's what Aslan means. He wants to make sure she won't complicate things, won't disrupt Caspian's kingship by getting pregnant and forcing either a marriage or a scandal.
Addie spins on her heel and runs through the trees and ferns and the dark shadows of midnight until she reaches her bedroll and Caspian lies before her. He turned onto his side, reaching across her empty bedroll.
Addie's stomach lifts, dinner threatening to reappear.
Is that why Caspian wanted her gone? Why he all but insisted on the tea, made sure she'd have no trace left of him? Were there other reasons behind his misguided attempt to protect her?
Addie sinks onto her bedroll and stares at Caspian's hand, splayed by her shoulder.
To Tash with Aslan. If she wants to love Caspian, then she will. She'll find a way to forgive and forget in her own time. She still wants Caspian underneath this bitterness, so she'll have him until Caspian himself tells her otherwise.
Perhaps he already tried.
Addie scoots her bedroll up to his, and she sleeps with Caspian's breath warm on her brow.
After breakfast – another meal with Caspian, Doctor Cornelius, and the Kings and Queens – Addie lingers with the Queens. Queen Lucy is recounting summer days playing in the river, and she doesn't seem to mind Addie tagging along as she sings through breakfast cleanup. Queen Susan hums along sporadically, more focused on the washing than reminiscing.
Addie cleans her last bowl, the cool water a welcome reprieve. Summer's peak is fast approaching, and even mornings are sticky with heat.
When Queen Lucy finishes her song, Addie swallows irrational nerves (they're only people, for Tash's sake, why should her stomach flop so?) and asks them both about the early Golden Age.
"When you were crowned," Addie begins, "what was it like? Immediately after, I mean."
Queen Lucy's smile is wide and unencumbered, a child's smile. "It was lovely! I'd never danced so much in one night. It was terribly sad when Aslan left, of course, but the ball was such fun."
Queen Lucy rinses a bowl, her hair dangling in the water. Queen Susan tucks it over her shoulder.
"I think she meant how we adjusted, Lu," Queen Susan says. "Isn't that right?"
Addie washes one of Lucy's bowls to keep her hands busy. "Yes. Not that the ball wasn't lovely; I'm sure it was, it's just…"
Queen Lucy recalling Golden Age balls and banquets doesn't explain why Caspian suddenly wants her with him at meals in front of everyone, or why Aslan thinks he's considering making her queen - surely Caspian isn't, but he'll have many new duties and how can she figure out what's going on - what he's thinking - if she doesn't know anything?
She's preparing. Gathering information. It's perfectly sensible.
Queen Susan looks at her like she hears what she's thinking. Addie stacks her bowl with the others and wills herself still.
"It was a challenge," Queen Susan says. "We grew up in Finchley, and suddenly we were here, the Witch defeated, and we had crowns on our heads."
"Oh Su, you make it sound like a chore," Queen Lucy huffs, her half-clean bowl forgotten on a nearby rock. "Once the remnants of the Witch's army were gone, we were forever going on adventures."
"Yes," says Queen Susan, arching an eyebrow. "Ed and I kept Cair Paravel running while you went adventuring and Peter led the army."
"Adventuring?" Addie takes over Queen Lucy's abandoned bowl. There must've been more to Lucy's queendom than adventuring.
"Oh yes," Lucy says. "I wouldn't be a very good queen if I didn't get to know everyone, now could I?"
That's… sensible.
"Wasn't that dangerous?" Addie asks. "At least, at first?"
Lucy shrugs and dunks another bowl in the river. "Not really. I had a few run-ins here and there, but -"
"Too many," Queen Susan says, grimacing. "How many times did you give poor Peter a fright? Ed had to accompany you for months!"
"Oh, bother that," says Queen Lucy. "I never came back with a scratch, even without Ed."
Addie stifles a smile as Queen Susan scolds her sister. Queen Lucy's cheery confidence is contagious.
She'll have to keep training so she can venture from the castle if she wants without Caspian stopping her.
If she keeps training, maybe he won't be able to force her to go anywhere, either.
In a lull before one of Lucy's rebuttals, Addie asks about their castle duties.
"Other than getting to know your people," Addie says. "What needed doing?"
"The everyday duties, you mean?" asks Queen Susan. At Addie's nod, she continues.
"Lots of things. Councils, writing laws, answering petitions, resolving disputes. We had a fine time meeting ambassadors after the first year. King Lune - the king of Archenland, back then - was a dear ally, and his ambassador was forever adventuring with Lu."
"Good old Galin," Queen Lucy sighs. "He was great friends with Mr and Mrs Beaver. Anyway, that's why I went exploring so often. There was always something more to find, and it was ever so much nicer to see for myself."
"I see," says Addie. All the bowls are clean - nothing else to do but sit and listen. "What about battle?"
Queen Susan frowns. "Ugly affairs, as Father Christmas put it. I stayed out of them as much as possible. Ed and Peter…"
"Su's right," says Queen Lucy. "Very ugly affairs. But when I was older, Ed and I led armies together when Peter was busy in Ettinsmoor."
"The Ettinsmoor War?" She remembers Caspian mentioning it at the castle.
"That's right," says Queen Susan. "And then there were the courtiers, the knights, diplomacy with the island duchies and the other kingdoms. I suppose the biggest challenge was staying informed."
"For you, perhaps," says Queen Lucy. "The Narnians - everyone but the Witch's supporters, that is - were happy to tell us anything."
"Not every ambassador or ruler," Susan insists. "Calormen and Telmar proved difficult." She turns to Addie, brown eyes sympathetic. "What I'm trying to say is you'll need information networks. Lu was a natural - everyone wanted to talk to her - and she went out to them."
"Met them where they were?" Addie plucks at the grass tickling her fingertips. She had networks through Sal and the maids, but that's probably not what Queen Susan means.
"In a way," says Queen Susan. "Lucy cares, and she doesn't know how to hide it. She didn't hole up in a castle; she sought them out, asked what they needed."
"We all did," Queen Lucy adds. "It was the natural thing to do. We would've been rubbish rulers if we didn't get out there and listen."
"Right," Addie says. She tries to sound casual, but it'd be easier if her hands were busy. She takes a clean bowl and washes it again.
Queen Susan sighs sympathetically. "I know it sounds like a lot, but it's easier when the responsibilities are shared. I'm sure Caspian won't rush you into anything."
The bowl slips, clattering onto a rock. Addie barely grabs it before the current takes it. She wasn't exactly subtle, but up to now the Queens seemed content to ignore her obvious questions.
"Rush what?"
The queens trade a look. Addie pretends not to notice. She was only trying to figure out what Caspian's up against. That's all.
That's all.
"Well," says Queen Lucy, "it's obvious, isn't it?"
Addie rinses the bowl once, twice, thrice in the sparkling river.
"I don't know what you mean," she says, because she doesn't. "I was gauging what Caspian's got to do."
"Right," says Queen Susan.
"I'll help however I can," Addie continues, stacking the bowl with the others. "But he keeps me out of everything. Nothing a mistress needs to know, I guess."
"Mistress?" Queen Susan looks aghast, which is ridiculous. It's just a word.
Addie shrugs. "Isn't that what you call a king's lover?"
"Only if he's already married," Queen Lucy says. "That arrangement's definitely not what Caspian has in mind."
The very word makes Addie flinch. Caspian isn't thinking of that, either.
Surely not.
"Anyway, thanks," Addie says, willing calm into her voice. "I understand better now."
She washes her hands free of the ghost of seeds pricking her palm, a dark courtyard, the taste of forest soil in her mouth.
Married, mistress, lover. Words, that's all. They don't have to mean anything.
She was the prince's lover, content enough to be a secret. There's no reason being the king's lover will be any different.
A/N: We'll be at the castle very soon! Got a coronation to attend, celebrations, maybe a surprise or two...
Chapter 46 Preview:
Nadni sniffs, lips pursed. "Then you'll be the king's lover in a few hours. Has he made an offer to you?"
"Offer of what?" Addie asks.
Quick as a viper, Nadni takes one hand, then the other, scrutinising her bare fingers. "Marriage, child. Has he asked for your hand?"