A/N: We're back, folks! I'm finally happy with this chapter, and 49. I apologize for skipping a week, but this chapter would not be what it is without the extra time, so I really appreciate y'all's patience. Now sit back and enjoy the angst and maybe the beginnings of catharsis 😇
Chapter 48 Content Warnings: brief lewd joking, portrayal of PTSD (Caspian), mention of suspicious death, mention of attempted sexual assault
Chapter 48: bare your teeth
Addie
She wakes before dawn in a bed - her own bed, a strange thought - tucked under the covers. Last night's book sits on the nightstand, closed with the bookmark she thought she lost marking her place.
Is that Caspian's doing?
Strange, that she didn't wake.
Addie leaves the too-soft, empty bed behind and rummages in the wardrobe for a maid's dress.
She finds a long row of silks and satins and velvet, embroidered dresses too delicate for this morning's task. Did Nadni leave nothing for everyday wear?
Well, if there's nothing useful in the wardrobe, she'll find it herself.
Addie throws on the dressing robe - ridiculous thing, silk and frills and barely opaque - and takes the servant passages to the courtyard, where Sal's lantern casts a halo of flickering gold across the courtyard cobblestones.
Sal stands at the edge of the washing bin, face shiny in the dim light as she pushes the laundry through the cloudy water.
"So, you survived." Sal doesn't even look up, her paddle's rhythm steady. "Didn't think you would."
Addie picks up a basket of wet, tangled laundry by the door. If she wants normal clothes, it's only fair to help Sal in exchange. Give work, get clothes. It's a fair trade.
"Thanks. Clothespins in the basket?"
Sal snorts. "Sensible girls don't play servant. If they're as lucky as you, they shut their mouths and play along."
Addie rests the heavy basket on her hip. "I'm not sensible. Where are the clothespins?"
Sal's paddle swirls harsher and sloshes lye water and suds across the floor. "What do you want?"
No point in dancing around the truth with Sal.
"A spare maid's dress," Addie answers. "Mine didn't survive the war."
"You're damn lucky you only lost a dress," Sal snaps. Soapy water splashes, but then her rhythm slows, halts. Sal sighs and leans on her paddle, her sharp grey eyes snapping to Addie's.
"Outside," Sal says. "Hang those, and you'll get your servant's clothes."
Addie's breath rushes out before she catches herself and breathes slow and deep. When she straightens, Sal is already scowling.
"Thank you," Addie says.
Sal flaps a hand toward the door. "Just finish up."
Addie scuttles outside and finds the clothespins by the laundry line's end. No pockets on this dressing robe - all these frills and they couldn't add something useful - so she clips the pins to her robe in lines.
It's not even an hour's work to hang everything. Addie almost drops a shirt when the night patrol passes, but then she recognises the tap-tap of hooves and nods politely to the pair of satyrs.
Her hands aren't shaking, it's the chill. Wet laundry is cold, summer is bleeding into autumn, and the breeze passes through Addie's silk shift like she's wearing nothing.
She breathes steadier when Sal throws a maid's coarse brown dress and apron at her.
"Out, before I change my mind," says Sal. "Give me that robe, it's filthy."
Addie thanks her again as she trades the robe for familiarity, a maid's dress loose in the bust and a little short but familiar. The dress is coarse and scratchy, her flimsy silk shift the only barrier between Addie's skin and the rough fabric.
It's the best thing she's felt since returning to the castle.
Addie finds the kitchen quiet and dark, cast in the soft predawn shadows that always soothed her. This morning, as Addie lights the hearth and the fire throws sharper shadows onto the walls, it doesn't work as it used to. The hanging dried herbs - earthy sage, bright dill, greenish parsley - still freshen the air as Addie starts the bread and the hearth smoke still makes her eyes water when she strays too close, but…
It's too quiet. She's worked in this kitchen in the dead of night a thousand times and never realised how quiet it is when she's alone, how deep the shadows stretch. She wants the hustle, the bustle, the endless flurry of Perla's demands and scoldings. Hasn't she been apart from them long enough?
No, that's not fair. She left them behind the same way she put them in danger because she… what? Because she wanted Caspian, couldn't stomach stopping what they started together? Couldn't abandon him to his fate?
But then she did. So what was the point of it all, really?
"You ever sleep in?"
Addie spins to find Claudia leaning against the door, back-lit by the steady creep of dawn. "I'm surprised you're not."
Claudia makes for the pantry, her mouth turned up at one corner. "Someone had to step up when you disappeared. Cocket?"
Addie nods. "Noble bread's your specialty, not mine."
"You just hate milling." Claudia scoops the finest white flour into a clean bowl, unbothered by the stifling cloud.
Technically, Addie hates the wrist aches that come with the mortar and pestle. Improper grip, Perla always said with a cluck of her tongue. Addie could never manage the right angle, no matter how many times Perla or Anna or Claudia showed her.
Addie kneads the cocket dough roughly, driving the heel of her palm down again and again until her hand aches. She's out of practice, got too lazy at the How.
"I hate anything I'm not good at."
"That why you're back here? You're not good at being a lady?"
"I'm not a lady."
"Rumour is you'll be more than that soon." Claudia sets her bowls - a wide one full of sifted flour and a smaller empty one - beside Addie's floured workspace and stands close, their hips brushing, tortuously familiar. "Is it true?"
Addie turns the dough and throws it onto the countertop, squinting through the cloud of flour.
She wants to deny it. But Caspian's acting strange, inviting her to dinners and council meetings and insisting she has her own room and Nadni called her a concubine but Lucy said Caspian wasn't thinking of her like a mistress and -
Claudia isn't Lola, but Claudia is here and Addie's known her just as long.
Sometimes, she gets tired of lying.
"I don't know," Addie says. "I… I don't want to think about that right now."
Claudia's fingertips drum on the counter. "Do you want to be? I mean, the clothes would be nicer."
Addie grimaces. "Softer, but it's all too thin. Wouldn't last an hour in here."
"So you don't like it? Is it the company? Tash knows nobles are stuffy, but -"
"I don't know!" Addie braces against the counter, her breath ragged and her hands sticky with dough. "I don't know, it's all just… it's not…"
"Not fun?"
Addie's throat thickens. "Not home," she whispers. "It doesn't feel like home."
"But this does?" Claudia shifts, her stare heavy. "That's a little sad, Addie."
Pathetic is what she means. Addie curls her fingers, flour packing under her nails.
"I know."
Tash's sake, she came here to help, not mope.
Addie shakes off the sting of Claudia's glance and shapes the first cocket loaf in a hurry. "What other rumours are going around?"
Mercifully, Claudia obliges.
"Everyone thought the prince was dead. Then Miraz said he got kidnapped by the Narnians; I assumed you did too."
Kidnapped? People must've seen the escape, and soldiers talk. Who would buy that?
Addie shapes the second loaf and sets it aside to rise. "It was the opposite. I sort of ran into them."
Claudia slops a ladle of ale barm into her empty bowl and adds six precisely levelled tablespoons of sugar. After a furtive glance out to the courtyard, Claudia steps so close their shoulders bump. "What're they like? I mean, they're not like us, you know?"
"No," Addie says, dusting flour from her hands. "They're not. It's a good thing; should make for a kinder castle."
Claudia combines the wet ingredients into the flour and starts clawing it together - gently, so she won't toughen it. "If everyone goes along with it."
"It's better than Miraz." Addie sets the last cocket loaf aside and turns to milling the porridge. "After we all adjust, it'll be a better world."
Claudia shrugs. "For them, maybe."
"Us too," Addie insists.
Us too.
They lapse into silence, and Addie sinks into the rhythm of baking like the arms of an old friend. Claudia is easier company than she remembers - easy to talk to for brief conversations, focused when measuring and kneading, and she fills the quiet with whistled drinking songs. A few weeks ago, such tunes set Addie's teeth on edge. She still seeks the comforting noise of a knife on a cutting board, but her back doesn't tense as badly as it once did.
Until Claudia asks if Addie needs the morning tea again, and her stomach cramps.
"Not yet," Addie manages. "Next week." The knife trembles in her hand, narrowly missing her thumb.
Claudia is busy sliding two steaming, golden-brown loaves from the oven.
"Right, king's bed," she says. Claudia flips a loaf and taps the bottom. When she looks up, their eyes lock, too serious to glance away. "But if you want it anyway, I won't tell."
Addie's heart squeezes. She and Claudia spoke little after Anna, but on this, she never faltered. Never questioned or prodded, simply made the tea every morning without fail. Silent camaraderie, a shared, intimate understanding.
A choice.
Addie smiles. "Thank you."
"Is it worth it?"
Addie's knife stills, orange piths dangling from her fingertip. "What?"
"The king's prick. Worth that purple under your eyes?"
Leave it to Claudia to be crass. Once upon a time, Addie joked just as boldly. Memory curls her mouth into a foreign smile, directed more to the Galman orange in her hand than Claudia.
"Yes," Addie says. "He's worth everything."
Claudia snorts. "How romantic."
When dawn bleeds into the gold of true sunrise, Perla's wooden clogs clap across the courtyard and into the kitchen.
Addie startles away from the dishwater and wipes her sudsy hands on her apron, but Perla's towering form blocks the sunlight before she's done.
"I spoke with the steward last night," Addie hurries to explain. "Advertisements went up at dawn; you'll have a replacement and then some."
Perla's eyebrows twitch, the closest to pleased she ever looks. "Good."
Lola and Sellea rush past Perla, their faces flushed and caps askew as they mutter apologies. Addie stifles a smile.
Some things never change.
Perla retrieves her beloved spatula from the basket of utensils by the heart. "Off with you, you've delivered your message. Sellea, the water jugs!"
Instead, Addie fetches the good cheese from the pantry and finds two fresh wheels at eye level. Apparently, the war didn't stop trade with Galma.
Perla's spatula smacks the door. "Tend your other duties."
Addie takes the closest wheel to the counter, where Lola waits with a cheese wire.
"I said I'd be here," Addie says as Lola cuts a neat triangle. "And you need the help."
Perla sniffs, but her spatula doesn't strike. "We managed without you, and we will again."
The dismissal burns between Addie's ribs, but she steels against betraying it. Perla's never been gentle, especially when routine's disrupted.
"I'm sure," Addie says, wrapping the Galman cheese in cloth and taking it back to the pantry. "But for now, I'm here."
When she emerges, Perla is scowling at the naked hearth.
"Fine then. Start the porridge, and no lumps!"
Addie schools her face into neutrality and rushes to obey. Oddly, she's missed Perla's orders.
"Adelina? Where is Lady Adelina?"
Addie startles, the wooden spoon clattering against the pot. Nadni is more determined than she thought if she's come all the way to the kitchen.
"In here!" Sellea's high squeak of a voice is the traitor, bright with innocence and obliviousness.
Addie shushes her, but it's too late; Nadni's short, wiry figure flies into the doorway in a flurry of cream skirts and frustration. Lola brushes behind Addie, oven paddle in hand, called by the rich scent of a brown-gold crust.
"Adelina, for Tash's sake! What are you -" Nadni cuts herself off with a melodramatic sigh when Addie faces the porridge pot, her back to the door. "You'll be late for breakfast, my lady, to say nothing of your fitting."
Addie stirs the porridge and says nothing. It's nearly done, and it always tries to stick and clump when it's thickened this close to perfection. A fitting can wait.
"Almost finished," Addie calls to Perla. "Five minutes, maybe four."
Nadni's foot taps a frenetic rhythm. "You are needed elsewhere."
Addie regards the thick, bubbling porridge. "I'm needed here, too."
Lola appears at her elbow and grasps the spoon. "It's fine, Addie," she murmurs. "I'll take care of this, you can go."
Addie's throat tightens. Stupidly, she hoped Lola would make excuses with her - a pot ready to boil over, or bread almost burning, or… or anything other than dismissing her.
Lola's hand finds hers, delicate fingers she's known since childhood squeezing reassurance.
"Really," Lola whispers. "We'll be fine, go."
She doesn't want to go. But if Addie's learned one thing from Caspian, it's that royalty doesn't get to choose what they want. She's no royal, but she's tied to one.
Addie's grip loosens, the spoon sliding out of her grasp and into Lola's, the stirring rhythm unbroken.
She survived a war, ran through a castle with an arrow in her shoulder, swung a sword, and stitched torn skin and muscles back together. But leaving behind the kitchen and the only family she's ever had - again - with Nadni's nails digging into her arm as she hisses, "It's inappropriate, look at the state of you, have you no shame?"
It's the hardest thing she's ever done.
Caspian
It's a long, rewarding morning assessing the current duchies and helping his new council members settle in. For the first time in Caspian's life, the Council of Lords are overwhelmingly his allies. Where once the unspoken threat of a dagger in his sleep chafed like an open sore, today the council chambers ring with ideas - road improvements, regional alliances, easing Miraz's high taxes, educational initiatives to bring the Old Days out from the shadows. Arguments follow, as they always will, but hope for change is edging out the poison of fear.
The Telmarine lords who remain grow quieter and quieter, obedience warring with discontent. They won't give ground for long.
If his politicking succeeds, any who would start another war will leave in a matter of days. Caspian spent half his breakfast trying to thread defeat through Lord Donnon's resentment. Time will tell if he succeeded.
He's won in every way that matters. So why does his chest ache with loss?
Addie's not at breakfast, and she ought to be, but she's still adjusting. Her presence will be most critical after the assembly; until then, he won't drown her in courtly appearances.
Two days. In two days, just in time for the coronation ball, the ring will be finished. Then, he will wait for the right time.
He has loved her for over a year, through hiding and escaping and war. A few days, perhaps weeks, is nothing next to decades of life together.
Caspian clasps his hands behind him as he makes for Doctor Cornelius' study, servants and soldiers parting before him. Until Lady Prunaprismia vacates the king's chambers, the Doctor's study and former classroom has become Caspian's preferred meeting place with his closest advisers - Glenstorm, Trumpkin, the Kings and Queens, the Doctor, and Aslan when He deigns to join them. As Queen Lucy says, He's not a tame lion. Aslan goes where He wills.
When Caspian palms open his former professor's door, Doctor Cornelius jumps back, hand to his chest and a rolled missive crinkled in his fist.
"Impeccable timing," says the Doctor. "The squirrels returned with news from the east. Galma accepts your invitation for a diplomatic visit, but no word from the Lone Islands."
Caspian eases the door closed, shutting out the bustling castle. "And Lantern Waste?"
Yesterday, a sparrow brought news of a skirmish in the western region surrounding the lamppost, and they can barely spare soldiers as it is.
"Uneasy truce," says Doctor Cornelius. "Perhaps half the population has left for the castle. A two-day journey, if they make good time."
Caspian follows him to the semi-circle of armchairs by the room's only window. In half an hour, the rest of his advisers should be here.
"The Western March was King Edmund's domain. I'll ask his advice when the others arrive."
Doctor Cornelius hums assent. "Aslan's assembly should minimise any risk of rebellion."
Caspian sinks into the burgundy armchair in front of the window so he can sit facing the door. It's unnecessary, he knows, but he twitches at every footstep otherwise and the new king shouldn't constantly reach for the dagger at his hip.
Doctor Cornelius peers over his spectacles and gives Caspian the missive - as much to keep his hands busy as to let Caspian read the report himself.
"It will fade, my king. In time."
Caspian swallows and scans the wrinkled parchment without truly reading. Time, that's all he needs.
Time.
Doctor Cornelius clears his throat and sits a chair away. "Will Adelina be joining us?"
Paper wrinkles, threatening to tear in Caspian's hands.
"I hadn't planned on it," Caspian answers. This meeting will centre on the Telmarines expected to stay in Narnia and the likelihood of rebellion. There's no need to burden Addie with such concerns until she wears his ring.
"She's learning the political landscape," says the Doctor. "The Queens are rarely seen without her."
Caspian bounces his knee, heel tapping the thick rug. "This isn't her burden."
Doctor Cornelius leans back and rests both hands on his belly. "If your intentions are as I suspect, it soon will be. The more opportunities we give her to observe, the better prepared she'll be."
Or he will be giving her more worries to drown in. "It's dangerous," Caspian murmurs. "She'll be a target if she knows too much, like I was. Am."
If any lords attempt insurrection before Aslan's assembly, Addie's knowledge could paint a target on her back. Of the advisers who will fill these chairs, Addie would be the easiest prey.
The most effective one, as Caspian learned from Nikabrik's treachery.
Faster and faster, his leg bounces. He's supposed to keep her out of this mess, protect her from the politics that killed his father, mother, any friends or loyal -
Doctor Cornelius' puffy hand grasps his arm. "Those days are behind you, Caspian. The danger is past, the traitors will leave Narnia, and you are king now. If she is your future queen, you must prepare her to share this burden."
Caspian forces his boots flat to the floor. "And if her answer is no?"
"Then you will find another queen when the time is right." Doctor Cornelius pats his hand. "No matter her answer, would you not wish it to come from knowledge rather than ignorance?"
Caspian would rather Addie chooses only with her heart, but marriage of love alone is not a luxury kings or queens have. At least, so Doctor Cornelius says.
Caspian's thigh trembles with the effort of sitting still. He can't even think of another queen, the touch of someone else's hand, waking up to an unfamiliar face, a different woman in his bed. It should be Addie, it must be Addie. He loves her too much for it not to be her, how could he ever -
Can he claim to love her if he's willing to ask this much of her?
He'll be asking Addie to abandon the life she knows forever and tackle responsibilities she hasn't been trained to fulfill. Doctor Cornelius is right; she should know how much he's asking. He owes her that.
Surely it's not an imposition to ask her to join some of his meetings.
Slowly, Caspian nods.
"I'll send for her."
Addie arrives arm in arm with Queen Lucy, her face shining and the remnants of a fading smile on her lips.
"Really, it's easy," Lucy is saying. "Don't think, just follow the music."
Addie shakes her head, her cheeks pink. "Maybe I'll watch the first dance or two."
"Don't you dare!" Lucy jostles her shoulder, knocking Addie's smile free, and it's… it's so good to see her smiling again.
Caspian stands - it's polite to stand and bow - and their eyes lock.
Addie's smile freezes.
Don't stop, he nearly says. Please, let me see you happy.
He hears footsteps, sees the Kings and Queen Susan taking their seats in his periphery, but Addie is right before him and Caspian is helpless as her eyes soften, creeping toward tenderness.
Her mouth flickers, smile deepening.
Caspian offers his hand.
Addie takes it.
Caspian guides her to the chair at his left and doesn't let go. He's greedy for her touch, yes, but Addie hasn't pulled away and propriety means nothing when he has her hand in his.
"Thank you," Caspian murmurs.
Addie's gaze flicks down. "For what?"
"For being here," Caspian says. "I am… it's good. To have you here."
Addie shrugs and her hand slips free. Caspian stops himself from chasing it. Don't push, he can't push too much.
"Thank Lucy," Addie says. "She insisted."
Caspian glances around the room and finds Glenstorm and Trumpkin still missing and the Kings and Queens deep in discussing Narnian summer dances. As a boy, Caspian cared little for balls. The Narnian tradition may prove more engaging than the stiff, formal court dancing he abandoned the moment he could.
He turns back to Addie. "How are the maids?"
It's the wrong thing to say; Addie's gaze falls, her brow crinkling and her shoulders stiff.
"Alive," she answers, clipped and brusque. "Busy. Beyond that, I don't know."
Before Caspian can ask what's filled her schedule so much, Trumpkin and Glenstorm enter. King Edmund begins his report on the lords and duty settles around Caspian's shoulders like a cloak, heavy and inescapable.
It's mostly - dare he even think the word - good news. Lord Donnon's wife was heard arguing with her husband and later seen throwing her jewels into trunks, Lord Scythley confirmed the other two lords backing Donnon are expected to leave as well, and thanks to Queen Susan's efforts, two-thirds of the ladies of the court will likely depart. Of the common populace, Queen Lucy and High King Peter estimate perhaps half will go, assuming the numbers Glozelle estimated arrive.
By week's end, Narnia should be rid of most Telmarine discontents. It's better news than Caspian dared hope.
The Narnians are… settling, though disquieted to be in a Telmarine castle. Glenstorm assures him Aslan's presence, even as sporadic as it is, keeps the Narnians' understandable nerves in check.
Caspian doesn't blame them. Even during the war, he felt ten times safer in the How than he does here in this castle of his ancestors, shuttered away from Narnia and surrounded by walls his forefathers built from bloodshed.
Trumpkin is already assembling a team of Narnian architects to restore Cair Paravel, the ancient Narnian capital on the eastern coast. Caspian will probably be a father by the time the restoration is finished, but the project must begin somewhere.
Addie stays silent throughout the discussions, but she listens - rapt and focused, her eyes darting from speaker to speaker and her fingers curling as if for want of a quill. Caspian sends for a feather, ink, and scratch book, and Addie bends over them immediately. Peter twice repeats his question about the state of the guards - half Narnian, half Telmarine - before Caspian hears him. It's not that the meeting is boring or unimportant, but Addie's scribbling a web of names and symbols, and he's so rarely seen her write.
As a prince, his notes were messy lists, linear and punctuated by pinched scribbles in the margins for his own thoughts. Addie's notes are a spiderweb, disorganised at first glance yet orderly in their own way, a map of connections rather than a list of facts and thoughts.
For a former maid with a dubious history of respecting rank, Addie's surprisingly studious.
When this dark cloud is past, when time heals the war's wounds and Addie forgives him, perhaps their daytime hours will be thus - quiet, bookish afternoons made brighter with two quills and a shared inkwell.
During Queen Lucy's update on the summer dance - the fauns will play flutes, the dryads will demonstrate the proper steps - a knock disturbs the peace.
Queen Lucy trails off. Caspian's hand itches, fingers aching for the comfort of a hilt, but he stops himself from indulging the impulse. An attacker wouldn't knock.
Caspian bids the disturber enter, and a page boy with dimples and honey-brown ringlets slips inside.
"Begging your pardon for the intrusion, Your Majesty," says the boy. "A soldier is requesting an audience with you. Regarding…"
Caspian frowns. The guard captains handle common soldiers' complaints.
"Regarding what?" he asks.
The page boy shuffles. "Regarding his salary, Sire. He says he was one of your fighters in the war."
Caspian stills.
Marcos.
Addie's quill falls to the floor, ink bleeding a dark ring onto the rug. Her gaze snaps to him, stare burning.
Caspian sets his jaw. However distasteful Addie finds his bargain, he gave Marcos his word.
"Tell the soldier I will meet with him tomorrow afternoon," Caspian answers.
"Sire." The page bows and hurries out, the door's latch echoing.
Caspian avoids Addie's eyes as he retrieves her quill. There will be time later for Addie to tell him exactly what she thinks of Marcos' salary. But it is not now; there is still a kingdom to run.
Addie
At the meeting's end, the map of nobles, council members, and generals and their families lies unfinished on her lap. An hour of useful information about who's related to who, which family members have the most sway, and which Narnians are key figures in the kingdom, and she can't even hold a quill properly. Every time Addie tried to write, her arm shook and splattered her skirt with ink. Her fingertips will be stained black until she finds time to wash. Lye soap should do the trick; it can strip anything.
It's a shame; of the stifling dresses Nadni's stuffed her into, this bright blue is the best fit yet. And now she's ruined it.
"Addie?" Queen Lucy taps her shoulder, her auburn eyebrows drawn together. "Ready for more dancing? Or we could have an afternoon tea, if you're tired."
Manners, better to use her manners. Nothing about the page boy or Caspian's deal or Marcos' salary is Queen Lucy's fault.
"No, thank you," Addie manages. "I do want to learn more, but…" Her neck prickles; Caspian is watching.
Caspian is watching and if she doesn't get out of here, she'll scream.
"Tomorrow, perhaps," says Lucy.
"Yes," Addie says, tongue sticky and thick in her mouth. "Tomorrow."
Queen Lucy squeezes her shoulder and turns to go, following her siblings from the room. Glenstorm and Trumpkin are next, and even Doctor Cornelius exits quickly.
They're alone.
Addie's careful map of the new and old nobility crinkles in her hands, paper and ink holding important information she'll need later.
Caspian's silence stretches. An invitation? A dare? Or are resignation and defeat the only things left between them?
Her name floats on a sigh.
Addie runs.
It's a delay on the inevitable; Caspian thinks this is another disagreement to be discussed. But how can talking about Marcos bring anything but more resentment, drive more poison between them because she never quite learned how to forgive?
Addie ducks into the servant passages and weaves past ladies' attendants balancing laundry baskets, maids with mops, and manservants toting shoe polish. Unlike the main halls, these passages are filled with people too busy to stare.
Is it too much to hope that her room is empty, that Nadni is otherwise occupied?
A few minutes alone, that's all. She doesn't need anything else, just a little quiet to bury and silence and stop thinking, stop thinking about it. Soon she'll be in her room, the closest thing she has to home now.
But when Addie barges past a familiar door and blinks her vision clear, Caspian's bookshelves surround her. The scent of candle wax and polished wood, of old books and scrolls and fresh ink wraps around her like a blanket, like a voice crooning sweet greetings in her ear at midnight.
She hasn't set foot in here since the escape.
From the room beyond, a door clicks open and tap tap comes the sound of leather boots on stone.
Of course he followed her.
She has two choices. She can stand here and wait for Caspian to speak first, and let his excuses and her venom tangle them both in another net of dead ends and hollow pleas for understanding. Or she can run and postpone the inevitable until they can't dance around each other anymore.
His footfalls soften, pacing the rug at the foot of the bed. Addie stands stock still, listening. Does Caspian not realise she's here?
"Addie?"
There goes that.
Wait or run, two choices, neither one a solution. Only a delay.
There's a third option.
Addie marches to the doorway and faces him, her fisted hands hidden in her skirt.
"You're still going to pay him?"
Caspian glances away.
"I gave him my word, Addie."
"Tash damn your word!" Addie trembles, caught between the study and the bedroom, nails biting into her palms. Why should Caspian's word matter when she is the one Marcos shoved into the dirt? Marcos would have taken his payment from her body, and Caspian would never have known.
A vein ticks in Caspian's jaw, but he says nothing.
Addie's breaths scrape in her throat, acrid as torch smoke. Why should Caspian keep his pride by keeping his word when he conspired with Marcos to strip away all of hers?
Two days ago, Caspian didn't listen when she opened to him like a wound. Semantics, then? What will make him see without forcing her to spell out -
"Your bargain was only if he returned me unharmed, right?" She barrels on before Caspian can confirm what she already knows. "He didn't. I came back on my own, and he tried to stop me."
"As I ordered!" Caspian's shout cracks through the air, sudden as a slap, as the pop of a broken bone. "His task was to get you out of harm's way!" A grimace, head shaking. "I should have given you the full dose."
A chill lances down her spine. If Caspian can look at her and say he should've made her more helpless, then he's not sorry. He still doesn't understand.
Days she has tried to swallow her sharp-tongued pain. Days she's used Caspian's coronation and new responsibilities as a shield, put on a pleasant face in front of his court.
She's played her role, cowed to Nadni's scolding, left the maids behind yet again. She's been a proper concubine in every way but the bedchamber.
And in an instant, all her control and newly trained manners crack.
That's what frayed threads do. They snap.
Addie isn't sorry for screaming at him. What else can she do but give this scream echoing inside her a voice? What else can she call him but cruel and blind? These things are true of her, but now they're true of him, too.
"You think you had any right?" she yells. "To leave me at his mercy?"
"A greater mercy than my uncle would have shown!" Caspian shouts right back, tanned skin flushed red in anger.
"I would have taken your uncle's mercy," Addie says - a half-lie, contingent on Miraz deciding to kill her instead of torturing her. "If you knew what Marcos has done -"
"I do know!" Caspian's breath puffs in her face; somehow, amid this mess of fighting, he closed the distance between them and she let him. Then, softer, guilt creeping over the anger she's gotten so good at stirring in him: "I do know, Addie."
Anger, too, is a thread. Anger can snap. And when it does, all that's left is a void.
He knows? Caspian knows?
Caspian's face blurs. If he's speaking, she can't hear him; Addie only has the rasping, desperate sound of her own breathing, her thumping, bloody heart.
"You… know?"
Know what, she wants to scream. Know what, how? Say it!
Warm fingers brush her wrist. Addie jerks free.
A beat of silence.
"Yes." Caspian's voice is strained, gravelled. "He told me about Anna."
Anna?
The collapsing tower inside her screeches to a halt and morphs into a new shape.
"What about Anna?"
No answer.
Addie's breath quiets.
"Caspian? What about Anna?"
Again, Caspian reaches for her. She dodges and his hand meets air.
"Marcos…" A beat. Caspian's voice cuts through the quiet. "I thought you knew, you should have told me what -"
She remembers a dark courtyard, warnings given in the well's shadow. Stay away from the prince; it'll throw them off your trail.
Running to the barracks, dish soap dripping from her fingers. Marcos' hand like a vice around her arm, a jagged flash of something she couldn't identify at the time, too busy with grief.
Caspian's voice floats to her ears over the pounding of her heart. Excuses, more excuses.
"- ruthless, there was no better bodyguard, no one else… proved he'd kill anyone for you… had to survive… please, Addie, I couldn't…"
Her voice speaks on its own, her own tongue a stranger as the truth takes shape from Caspian's scattered confessions.
"Marcos killed Anna." Addie blinks, but Caspian's shape is still blurry, and her voice is still a disembodied croak she can't control. "And then you rewarded him by giving him me."
Sweet, soft-spoken Anna, whose steady presence she always took for granted until it wasn't there anymore. Anna, who was there when Addie careened into the room with the taste of sick and Marcos' cock sour in her mouth. Anna, a maid who did nothing wrong, a sister she didn't appreciate enough, an innocent friend who didn't deserve to die.
By what rights does Addie get to stand here while Anna is dead?
It should have been her. The risks she took to see Caspian should have only fallen on her own head.
"No," Caspian is saying. "Marcos only delivered her."
"It's the same thing!" Addie's knees wobble, threatening to give out. Not now, she can't break now. Because then Caspian will catch her and she'll let him and neither of them deserve that comfort, neither of them -
"He's a killer!"
"Yes!" Caspian's shout reverberates in her bones, confirmation she was right, that even Caspian is capable of making wicked choices.
"You needed a killer for a bodyguard," Caspian continues. "That very morning, you died -"
"Almost," Addie says, her own voice distant and hollow. "I was -"
"On my watch!" The weight of Caspian's presence retreats and his boots shush-step as he paces the rug by his bed. "You almost died because of me, but Marcos got you out of this castle alive. For two weeks, he took care of you." Caspian exhales sharply, a hand fisted in his hair. "But when there was a knife to your throat, I failed you."
"Nikabrik did that, not you," Addie snaps. Tash only knows why she's bothering to reassure him. "Not every brush with death is your fault!"
"But everything that happens to you is." Caspian paces faster, faster. "Every danger to you is because of me, Addie."
Not every danger, she almost says. Not the war, or the escape, or the months of careful sneaking. Just the one, singular danger he dragged her into with sedative herbs and lies.
Marcos.
Every danger with Miraz was a choice she made, too. And for what? For the luxury of Caspian's bed? The safety of his arms? The tentative curl of home in her heart, the niggling feeling that she had never belonged anywhere so thoroughly as she belonged with him?
She was greedy, and selfish, and thoughtless, and that, at least in part, is why Anna is dead and the maids narrowly survived interrogation.
Addie shivers. She chose Caspian over the closest thing to family she'd ever had. What kind of vile person is she?
Caspian's still talking - more excuses.
"- nearly got you killed. Queen Lucy and her cordial were gone! I couldn't let you set foot on that battlefield, for both our sakes -"
"I would've stayed inside," Addie blurts. "If you'd asked."
Caspian's footsteps slow, and then he's looming over her again. "The catapults destroyed the How. You would've been trapped, or dead in a cave-in." Caspian shakes his head, brown waves whipping across his eyes. "You had to leave, and no Narnian could take you. Marcos was the only one who…" Caspian swallows, guilty. "You were safest with him. Safer than you ever were with me."
She slaps him.
Her palm cracking across his cheek clears her head, pierces the mess of shock and grief and the new facet of betrayal in the half-moment before she realises she struck him.
She should apologise. That's wrong, what is she doing -
A sensible girl would say she's sorry, so sorry, and be silent.
Addie's never been a sensible girl.
So when the truth of what Marcos did in the forest - his dark promises, her face in the dirt, the bruise he left around her wrist - bubbles to her lips, all she can think is that truth is a weapon, and Caspian had no right, and it's high time he understood.
She's good at choking back the truth.
But this time, she doesn't.
A/N: Y'all know I love a good cliffy every now and then! Rest assured Ch. 49 will be here on time in one week. She's in the final proofread edit, and she's a DOOZY.
So, how do we think Caspian will react to Addie finally telling him what happened?
Chapter 49 Preview:
"I don't want to make love."
Caspian startles, the quill momentarily slipping in his fingers.
"I didn't expect you would," he says.