A/N: Well, well, well, if it isn't me back on my bs with another day-late update. This thing clocked in just at 6k so I think we're entering the long chapter era again. Onward ho!
Oh and, I indulged in a sappy Caslina Lover edit on YouTube. Look under "Ceara Einin" and my channel should pop up.
Chapter 53 Content Warnings: brief mention of alcohol, mention of marriage/proposal. Also, Addie has family issues.
Chapter 53: not the first time
Addie
The wind leads her to a meadow half the size of the castle courtyard. The full moon is high enough to bathe the clearing in white-silver light, but another source casts a faint golden glow.
Aslan lies in the middle of a moonbeam, his fur ruffling in the breeze.
"Welcome, Adelina."
"I'm not pregnant, if that's what this is about." Addie cringes at her crassness, how easily she blurts it, but it's better to just say so. Aslan must be here about Caspian.
Aslan's tail flicks, the golden-tufted tip rustling the grass as his eyes glitter. A moth flutters upwards, its perch disturbed, and lands on Aslan's hip.
Don't cats eat moths? The castle mousers - fluffy orange and grey tabbies - venture from the stable most summer evenings to catch them if the mice and rats are scarce.
Aslan doesn't move. The effort probably isn't worth it; the moth is barely wider than the tip of a single lion-tooth.
"Caspian, too, felt he was not ready."
It must be the mead that makes her speak before she can think.
"Of course he's ready. You've seen what he's done so far. No Telmarine noble would've stood in the same room with a Narnian last week."
Aslan's whiskers twitch, a smile softening his imposing features. "He is, as I assured him he was. But I would speak with you of a different matter tonight." His burnished-gold eyes flick to the grass in front of him.
He's not a tame lion, but he'll do you no harm.
Harm or not, Aslan isn't her god. Who is he to command her?
Yet, part of her - a hidden place, a kernel lodged behind her ribs and beating heart - wants to oblige.
Addie breathes in courage and cinnamon and eases to her knees in front of Aslan. Her breath huffs shallowly, her heart galloping in her chest.
If Aslan wanted to talk to her specifically - gods only know about what - why would he interrupt her at the summer dance? Why not pad into the castle on his giant paws and interrupt one of Nadni's lessons?
Aslan is part of Narnia, according to Queen Lucy. Maybe the summer dance summoned him.
A gentle wind wraps around her like a cloak, and perhaps… perhaps this isn't so bad.
"This isn't about Caspian?"
Aslan flicks his tail at her rudeness, but he doesn't growl or pounce or censure. He almost seems… amused?
The mead must've been stronger than she thought.
"We must speak of your family."
A forgotten pain snags in her chest. "My family's dancing."
"So they are," Aslan hums. "But I speak of your parents."
Something inside her tugs, stitches straining the edges of an old, old wound.
"I don't have any," Addie says. "They're gone or dead. I told you, my only family's here."
Aslan blinks languidly and the air behind her warms, heavy like a stranger's embrace. Addie's heart slows.
"Your parents are alive," says Aslan. "In England."
The air sucks from her lungs.
She's hearing things.
High King Peter mentioned an England. Queen Susan, too.
Back in Engl- well, Spare Oom…
"You're mistaken. You're… that's impossible." Addie hides her fists in the grass, tries to breathe. "That's impossible. Lola found me in the city years ago."
Aslan rumbles a warning - not quite a growl, but goosebumps race up her arms.
She is not apologising, not when none of this makes sense. If her parents have been alive all this time…
No, they aren't. She'd remember them, she would. This is a trick, a lie, too convenient to be true. Why would Aslan wait until this long to tell her? He could've said this at that chance midnight meeting by the river. He could have said it any time, any place, if he's so all-powerful.
"Tomorrow, I will open a door to other worlds beyond Narnia. If you step through, you will return home with my blessing."
Aslan will provide another home for anyone who doesn't wish to bend the knee.
But she has bent the knee; she helped Caspian escape, for Tash's sake! Hasn't she stood by him - or tried to - long before Aslan ever showed his face?
"You want me to leave with the others?" Addie tears up a fistful of grass and shivers, the warmth of Aslan's breath an itch she can't shake off. "This is home; I am home! Why would you ask that of me?"
All he requires of you is to stay out of the way.
Aslan's maw opens, and she shouldn't interrupt a god, shouldn't, but he's talking nonsense, lies, trying to… to get rid of her, isn't he?
"I'm in the way, is that it?" Addie scrambles to her feet and barrels on. "I know I'm not good at this, I'm trying -"
"Peace, Adelina!"
Her traitorous knees falter and fold, and Addie sinks to the grass, the scent of wildflowers and spice a haze in her nose.
"I have seen how you long for them."
It's like a slap, that tone. She braced for violence and anger, but it's almost… gentle.
"I don't. I want for nothing." Even to her own ears, the denial sounds feeble.
Aslan stretches a paw closer, claws undrawn, and stops before touching her knee. "You seek their love everywhere."
"Stop it."
"In Perla -"
"Stop it!"
"In Rainroot -"
"Stop!" She jumps up and paces, trampling weeds and moonlight.
"Even in Nadni," Aslan finishes, undisturbed. "There is no shame in missing your parents."
She can't miss someone she doesn't have! Addie's legs pump faster. She trips on her skirt - stupid, useless thing - and keeps going, can't stop, can't stop.
"No shame?" With a fist holding her hem up, Addie laughs - bitterly, no humour in it. "Tell me this, then. If my parents are alive in England, then how am I here? How did I get here?"
The Kings and Queens entered through a wardrobe, but there was a prophecy foretelling their arrival, their rule. They were important.
She's a maid; she's no one - or, she used to be.
A stiff wind stirs Aslan's mane, gold fur dancing, scattering moonlight like water drops. Though he's laying down, his eyes are level with hers.
Addie shakes off the temptation of awe, of sitting down and listening to these crazy, senseless claims. Aslan's beauty is a kiss, and his words are the knife.
Aslan continues. "There are doors between Narnia and your world - rare places of connection unknown even to me. You fell through one such place."
Fell through, like an accident? If she was a child, if she was as young as… eight, nine, either her parents knew there was a door, or they weren't paying attention, or… or they weren't there to stop her. If they didn't look after her, what use are they?
"Where were my parents? If I fell through, where were they?" Addie trips again, curses, keeps going. "If I was alone and stumbling through magic doors, where were they?"
Perla has always been there. Lola was there. Claudia was there. Anna was there. When she cut her hand washing Perla's knives, Perla took her outside, dried her tears, and washed and bound the wound. Perla scolded her carelessness the whole time, but then she showed her how to hold a knife properly. Perla taught her to chop vegetables, season stews, mix dough and knead bread and feed the hearth.
During the day, Perla made sure she was never out of sight. At night, Claudia and Anna kept her from wandering, and when dreams woke her, Lola held her.
And Aslan expects her to believe her parents couldn't manage a fraction of the same?
Even if he's speaking true, why should it matter? Her parents may not be here, but her family is.
Narnia is their home. So, make it not home anymore.
Addie forces herself to stop and face him, this lion-god so eager to chase her away.
"If you want me out of the way, just say that."
This time Aslan growls, a dangerous rumble like a rockslide and summer thunder.
Addie shivers, but no, she will not fear him.
"No, you don't get to do this. You don't get to decide this for us!" Addie dries her cheeks, harsh breaths lashing inside her chest. "Caspian and I, we decide this. Not you, us."
She looks into Aslan's golden eyes, and there is something there like truth, sharp as a blade, gentle as the touch of Caspian's hand, something like pity.
Addie turns her back on the god of the Narnians, and she runs.
Branches lash her cheeks. Twigs and pebbles dig into her bare feet and leave a brief sting in their wake. Clumsy, she's clumsy, and she doesn't know these woods, and these trees are strangers, and she's following the dance drums but she can't see, and she's sobbing, sobbing.
She has to get to Caspian. Or Lucy, Lucy would understand Aslan's intent, wouldn't she?
Addie trips on a root and sprawls, tastes dirt and loam in her mouth.
She doesn't want Queen Lucy. She wants Caspian.
Gods, she wants everything with him.
Her fingers curl, nails carving into the forest floor. She knew she loved him, knew it as instinctively as her heart knows how to beat, but these long days of Nadni's disapproval, the encroaching loss of Perla, Lola, and Claudia, her only family - it felt like too much. Too much change, too much risk, too much loss just to love one person.
But that person is Caspian, and he kissed her in front of his entire court without a hint of shame, and he said they're your family, I won't come between you, and she loves him, she loves him.
Do you feel yourself ready to be a queen of Narnia?
She's not, of course she's not, but she…
She can try. She wants to try, for Caspian. She wants him to look at her every night like he has tonight, and she wants her home to be the same as his - shared bed, nights of reading, kisses by candlelight, propriety by daylight. Courtly manners border on ridiculous, all those overlapping rules, but she'll learn every rule and curtsy and noble's name if that means she can keep him.
Addie chokes on it, this new desperation. She will try and try and try until her posture is always perfect, until she sounds like one of them, until even Nadni lifts an eyebrow and says, I suppose we made a royal of you after all.
It will be enough, won't it? It means something, doesn't it, that she'll contort herself into the shape of nobility until Lady Adelina is all that remains?
The shoe will pinch her toes, but her heart will be safe.
Aslan can spout nonsense about parents and England all he likes; he can't stop her from trying. She just has to keep going, keep pushing, be better, be noble enough, good enough.
By Aslan's standards, she'll never be quite ready. But she can fold herself into good enough, can't she?
Can't she?
The joyous stomp-clap of the summer's dance crests closer, flutes piping and drums booming through the night. Fireflies dart by, yellow flashes against the velvety darkness, and the scent of sun and spice is fading into the distance like a dream.
A stitch lances through her ribs - her body's sharp protest at too much running. Addie slows and kneads her side as she searches for Caspian. He's not dancing, not with Lola - she's talking with a centaur, Alfonso hovering by her side.
Ah, there, royals with royals. Caspian is leaving the circle arm in arm with Queen Lucy, his dark hair stuck to his brow like his white shirt to his shoulders, gilded overcoat abandoned. Lucy tosses her head back and laughs at something he said, girlish and wild in that distinctly Narnian way. Ahead of them, King Edmund waves with an indulgent smile. The raven-haired king looks at ease, like he didn't send her into Aslan's paws.
Her body is fine - tired, but fine, whole. But she isn't. If these sobs she's swallowing aren't harm, if the headache of old ghosts pressing behind her eyes isn't harm, if every step feeling like crumbling stone and inevitability isn't harm, then what is?
Even if Aslan meant well, Caspian taught her that not all harm comes from malice.
Caspian also taught her how to love through betrayal and how to forge pain into hope.
Caspian's name flies from Addie's lips like a prayer, her voice cracking as she runs to him, runs toward something for maybe the first time in her life.
The best thing about Caspian is that he runs to meet her. Always has.
Hold me, she begs silently. Hold me until I forget everything. Hold me until nothing but you exists.
Caspian bounds through the rippling grasses and sweeps her into his arms, giving her something to hold, a body, his, him, whose touch she knows better than her own.
This, he, is home. This is where she's meant to be.
Addie tangles unsteady hands in his hair as Caspian spins and spins, smiling into her neck. He stumbles, rights himself, and keeps going - slower but still dizzying. Dancing Narnians and moonlit tables and the starlit midnight flashing by, images of Narnia's rejoicing bleeding into a haze. Caspian's voice floats to her ear, a lover's whisper.
"I looked for you," he says, more tenderness than accusation. "You know I don't like when you disappear."
Oh, if only he knew the knife now at her neck.
Addie mumbles an apology, chokes on it. Her chest caves in, air crushed from her lungs by Caspian's arms and Your parents are alive and I have seen how you long for them.
Lies, all of it! What does Aslan know of her longings? If he'd been paying attention all these years, he would've seen her stop missing parents she didn't have - didn't think she had - by the time her head reached Perla's shoulder.
Caspian slows, slows, stops, and he's setting her on her feet and no, don't let go, please don't let go, nothing will make sense if you let go.
Addie traps the plea behind clenched teeth and clings to him, nails breaking in his shirt, the snag of fabric on a hangnail. Sometimes, if he holds her fiercely enough, it's like she could disappear into him.
But Caspian is straightening, his body slipping from her grasp, and it's not enough, the way he cups her cheeks and picks a twig from her hair. His coal-dark eyes pin her in place, and his brow creases.
"Addie?"
"Hold me." Rude, that - more command than request, as raw and bloody as freshly butchered meat. "Please," she adds, begging as she falls into him.
Trusting him to catch her.
Addie curls into him, makes a home for herself in his arms. The forest and meadow and Aslan crowned in moonlight fade away, unimportant, only a bad dream. She kisses Caspian's neck, tastes the salt of his skin and her own tears.
"I love you," she blurts, blinking frantically. "You have to know I love you."
Confusion taints his response, a low "I love you too." Caspian shifts as she presses closer, closer, closer, because any part of her he's not touching burns. There's something in his pocket, round and hard, so she adjusts, burrows against his side instead of his chest.
"Addie?" Caspian asks. "What's wrong?"
Nothing, she wants to say. Nothing important, nothing, it's nothing, because this, here, is everything.
As her silence stretches, Caspian's arms loosen - unacceptable - and he pries her by the chin from his arms, roots her in place with his frown and the dawning shadows in his eyes.
Addie tries to speak. Her throat constricts, her face twisting, crumpling, and the forest is behind her and Aslan is still in there; she knows he is. Waiting, disapproving, probably stalking here to destroy everything.
"I… Aslan… he said…" Addie's voice cracks into silence, her mind ringing.
Your parents are alive. Your parents are in England. Peace, Adelina.
"It doesn't matter," she tries. "It's nothing, doesn't mean anything. I'm home, that's all, I -" Stupid, silly girl, she can't even speak properly, stumbling over half-answers like a child. "Nothing, it's… only thing that matters, it - never mind, never mind."
It doesn't matter. What Aslan said, it does not matter. Truth or not, this is her home now. This is her family, and this man, this sweet-eyed and sweeter-tongued prince-turned-king, is her home. This, here, this Narnia, this love, this cradle of Caspian's hands, this is her life. This is enough. This is the whole of her heart.
Caspian wipes her cheeks, thumbs sweeping over her lips, and she wishes he'd kiss her, erase everything. When she leans in to kiss him herself, he holds her fast.
"Breathe," he says. "Talk to me."
Addie's chest expands, air seeping in, but she has to exhale and it hurts, makes her tremble with the force of how much she has to lose.
She won't. She won't.
For so long, Caspian has wanted her honesty. She held it back, gave him pieces, let herself drown in feeling so she… so she could have the comfort, the relief of his lips and nearness, and nothing else.
She made him into a haven from herself.
Addie hears herself answering before she decides she should, because perhaps she shouldn't - Aslan's claims don't matter - but she…
She wants to. Caspian is who she wants; this life with him - even as Lady Adelina - is what she wants.
She has to trust him. If someday Caspian intends to ask her to be his… to marry him, how can she say yes if she can't tell him everything? What is a life together if she only shares pieces of it?
How can she ask Caspian to let her in, stop shuttering her out of politics and war and every danger and responsibility on his shoulders if she can't be honest, too?
Caspian needs to know, because she isn't sure what Aslan's plan is. Aslan could try to force her to leave, and she wouldn't allow it, would never, but Caspian needs a warning, so he can… so he's ready. So if Aslan tries to drag her out of Narnia, Caspian can fight with her. If he wants to.
"My parents," she says, her arms around Caspian's waist. That thing in his pocket digs into her again, interrupting an embrace she wants to melt into, disappear into. "It's my parents."
The very word feels foreign on her tongue. For years, she's never spoken of them. Because they were gone - still are - and family is supposed to be there, and they aren't, haven't been, so why should she even think about them?
Until this evening, she didn't.
Caspian frowns, his eyes flitting between hers, oblivious to the flutes and drums and endless dancing behind him. It would be lovely, so lovely, to join in and forget everything else.
"What about them?"
The familiar temptation to run itches up her legs, curling up her calves like a thorny vine. Addie forces it down, and yes, it hurts, hurts like soured milk on an empty stomach, but she has to trust that Caspian will know what to do. That he will stand between her and Aslan's magic door if she begs.
"Aslan said they're alive," she whispers, because truths are best said like a secret. "He said they're in England."
Caspian tilts his head, leans closer, not comprehending. "England? What do you mean?"
A tremble wracks her from her stomach to her knees. Traitor, her body is a traitor.
"Spare Oom," Addie says. "Like… like in the stories."
England, the place Queen Susan mentioned as she explained afternoon tea. Spare Oom, where the Kings and Queens originated - a storybook place, not solid and tangible like the ground beneath her feet. England, a place that doesn't have to be real to her.
Caspian's grip loosens, his palms sticky with salt as his hands fall away from her.
"You spoke with Aslan," he says, too firm to be a question, too soft to be understanding. "Tonight, you spoke with Aslan?"
Impatience rears its ugly head, writhing in her stomach like a worm.
"Yes," Addie says. Then more words, the acrid burn of unfiltered revelations. "He said they're not from Narnia and I'm not either."
She's about to say I don't care and Why should I listen to him, anyway? but something twists in her heart, and she can't make her mouth obey, and Caspian is -
Caspian is retreating and only air is touching her.
"What is this? What are you doing?"
"Nothing, I'm not… what?"
When she reaches out, Caspian backs up and hovers out of reach. Something else is creeping over the confusion - a new coldness, tenderness and concern shuttered behind it.
His name drips off her tongue, bitter like burnt crust, like begging. Caspian shakes his head.
"Of all nights," Caspian mutters, words almost lost to the distant drums. Then, louder, budding harshness, "Why are you saying this?"
Like an idiot, she doesn't really answer.
"Because I…" Because I want you to tell me it doesn't matter. Because I want you to hold me and swear no one will ever take me from you. Because I love you, you idiot, because I need you to be my family now.
The words stall, soured on the bile surging up her throat. What if Caspian doesn't want -
And then she realises.
Addie stares, watches a flash of alarm shrink into pain before Caspian exhales and that blank, royal mask she hates papers over his features.
It's not graceful, the way she stutters through it. "You were… is that why… but…"
The appropriate thing to do is… is…
She doesn't know.
Maybe that's why she says it, so panicked for something, anything, to say that she blurts, "It's so soon. It's soon, why would you…"
Caspian recoils, his face twisting.
Panic rises in her stomach, a poisonous wave of dread and fear. Tash, why can't she ever say the right thing?
Caspian's patience, that well so much deeper than hers, runs dry.
"You're afraid," he says, quietly sharp, and he is right. "I know it's…" Caspian squares his shoulders, stands tall as a statue. "I had thought… and now, you say this? Have I not proven I can bear the truth if you just tell me?"
Caspian's voice is soft like heartbreak, hard like anger, and he's never looked at her like this before. Not even when she betrayed him, or when she tried to explain why.
She should be patient, should swallow her tears and the acid in her mouth and try to explain, be calmer, be better at… at telling him things.
Instead, her frayed heart snaps back.
"This is the truth!" Addie only realises she's shouted when the words shred her throat. "You want my honesty, so stop looking at me like that and listen!"
Caspian's eyes blur, his visage fuzzy, and she can't tell if she's crying or he is.
"I am listening," he says, a hand over his pocket. "I have listened. How can I… How am I to believe this, Addie?" Again, that damned headshake, like he's disappointed. "I can't."
Her world stops. This isn't the first time Caspian's said that to her, but on the hillside as he commanded her to stop working herself to death, she knew there was more honesty inside her. She just couldn't say it, couldn't even acknowledge it to herself until Caspian pulled it from her like a weed, inspected all her ugly self-loathing under the sunlight, and held her through it.
Caspian isn't holding her now. The hurt, the… the distance in his eyes feels like he wouldn't hold her no matter how she asked.
"You still don't trust me." That is truth - she sees it land like a fist to his ribs.
Caspian rallies, and there's no doubting it - his eyes are watery, overflowing like hers.
"And you still believe I am better off without you."
A blow for a blow; he's hit her weakest spot. Addie reels back, the breath struck from her chest, and the air between them tastes like something broken.
A question she shouldn't ask bubbles up and seeps out, a quiet devastation, with an answer she knows already.
"Are you?"
That is disgust, pure and plain, writ in Caspian's tight lips so close to baring his teeth and the dark, hollow eyes that looked at her like she was the sun barely an hour ago.
And Caspian, he -
He walks away.
Caspian turns his back on her and he walks away.
Worse, she lets him.
Caspian
It's cold to leave her.
Caspian does it anyway, because it's the kindest thing he can manage. If he stays with her one moment more, he will spout too much cruelty.
Cruelties like: This is just like you, and Do you respect me so little, and Is that the best lie you could conjure? I expected better.
The ring in his trouser pocket weighs heavy. He should have known it was too soon. He should have known he's asking too much of her.
Lion's teeth, why couldn't she have said so? If he cannot have her hand, if she wants her life to be as it was before, filled with cooking and kitchen duties instead of royal politics, was it so impossible for her to tell him honestly?
It's insulting, this pattern of lies. As if he wouldn't know better. As if he wouldn't see that once again, Addie is running away out of fear.
Caspian clenches his fists and plods into the dark embrace of the trees, the summer dance a distant, aching echo carrying on without him.
Addie's lie was so clumsy, an easily identifiable farce. She never speaks of her parents, and he knew not to ask. Many months ago, when he arranged her reassignment and she met his attempted favour with fury, she said, They're the only family I have. He heard the faded, thorny pit of grief she carried, and that was all he needed to know. He has known the same grief all his life.
Addie could have chosen anything else. Anything but the wound they both carry, a shared desperation for belonging after years of loneliness.
This is the truth, Addie cried, but her eyes were wide and frantic, and he's seen her thus before. She looked the same on that sun-dappled hillside as she denied disobeying his orders on a semantic technicality, as she claimed working herself to an early grave was the same as trying to help.
Caspian ducks under a low branch, leaves smacking his cheek. Aslan will not lie - he can't. He will serenely refute everything Addie said, and then Caspian will have all the proof he needs to pry the truth from her lips.
He understands if she does not want to marry him. It hurts, Lion, it hurts, but he can't truly blame her.
But he must know the true reason - whether Addie dislikes royal life, if she misses her family too much, or if he, if his love for her, is not enough.
If she gives him the truth, he will make his peace with it.
Did he not promise not to come between her and the maids? Did he not stay beside her every step of the night, so she wouldn't be alone? Has he not tried to be accommodating, to be patient?
Did he push her too far?
Caspian wanders the forest all night, calls for Aslan until dawn hides the constellations and the sky is more grey-blue than black.
Aslan is nowhere to be found.
Addie lied.
He shouldn't be surprised, but he expected more craftiness. She couldn't even manage a creative lie, something difficult to disprove.
Addie's clumsy when she's desperate.
She must think him a fool.
Perhaps he is.
Addie
The rest of the night is a blur. Addie stares at the spot where Caspian stood until her face is dry and Queen Susan finds her.
"Are you alright?" she asks, and Addie almost laughs. Instead, she lies, because she's good at that. Says she's fine, thanks, a bit tired, should turn in early.
Susan touches her shoulder, an offer of comfort and company, and it's all Addie can do not to collapse.
Tuck it away. Swallow it. Don't feel it, not now. Don't fall apart where everyone can see.
She thinks it's Susan who guides her back to the castle, past the sleeping city and the windy bridge, into the courtyard, through torch-lit halls, brighter than they used to be, and into her bed. There's an attempted conversation, an invitation she doesn't hear over her ringing ears and bruised heart.
Soon enough, the chill of being alone - feeling alone - settles around her like shackles.
The room is quiet.
Addie's in her finery still, sapphire blue and pearls and gold thread stained brown and green from the forest, and she can't move.
Addie stares at the ceiling. The temptation of a sob rattles under her collarbone, itches in her gut, but it's distant, an echo trapped behind a labyrinth of closed doors.
He didn't believe her. She went to him to erase everything Aslan said, and Caspian, he -
He looked at her like he didn't want her anymore. Like the very sight of her was an insult.
You still believe I am better off without you.
Are you?
And he just… walked away. Caspian turned his back on her and walked away.
That's an answer. That's the most obvious answer he could give.
Yes, that's what he didn't say aloud. Yes, I am, because you cannot even give me the truth.
But she did! She didn't dream up Aslan and his insistence that her family - no, her parents, there is a difference - that her parents are in England and he wants her to return to them. Aslan wants her to leave Narnia, and Caspian, he -
He thinks she's lying.
Make it not home anymore.
Caspian was going to ask her to marry him.
The careful, fragile shell Addie's spent hours of the night crafting crumbles in an instant.
He was, but then she went to Aslan trusting like a fool, and she let that lion-god rattle her down to her bones, and then Caspian thought she didn't -
Why wouldn't he listen?
Caspian would understand if he'd listened.
No, that's not right.
Caspian would understand if she'd pulled herself together, if she'd kept her head and not said a thing or said it like it didn't truly matter. She could have shrugged it off.
Again, that pain in her chest. Phantom fire from years-old nightmares burns the corners of memory, and for a moment, the bed seems to shake.
Nothing more than dreams.
Nothing.
She can make it nothing.
I have seen how you long for them.
Addie digs her fists into her coverlet. She learned not to miss people who weren't there; what's a lifetime more? She's already forgotten them. They'd be strangers to her.
She'd be stupid to miss them.
Addie stands on unsteady legs and leaves her dirty, scraped dress pooled on the floor. It was beautiful. She felt beautiful.
The dress is tainted now, and it's filthy. Salvageable, maybe, but it needs a good wash and mending and new pearls to replace what her clumsiness ripped off.
She's made a mess of a beautiful thing.
She's good at that.
Never think I am better off without you.
You once chose differently. You were right.
Addie exchanges her silk shift for her coarse one, borrowed but almost hers. If she keeps wearing it, it's as good as hers.
Addie scoops up her blue dress and tries not to look too long at it.
Was her pain, her frantic need to disappear into him not honest enough? Should she have taken Caspian aside and scraped together cool detachment, explained what Aslan said and why it doesn't matter?
So what if her… if her parents are…
Why should she care if they're alive? They abandoned her, or they didn't care, so she fell in here and… and…
They do not have to mean anything to her. Why should strangers she doesn't remember mean a single thing to her?
Anyway, Aslan might've been lying.
The dress tumbles from her arms, a sparkling blue lump crowning the rest of her dirty clothes.
Do they miss her? Do they ever wonder where she went?
Did they notice she was gone?
The floor rises to her knees, a hard landing that scrapes.
Why have they not come? If they're alive, if they cared about her at all, why have they not come to find her?
Maybe that's unfair; Caspian didn't come for her either. She had to return to him herself, fight to find him on her own.
A sharp knock breaks the quiet. That's Nadni's pattern, three quick and one slow. Addie's "good morning" dies on her tongue, because it's not.
Nadni bustles in with the energy of someone who didn't spend all night dancing or moping.
"Good, you're up. We've a busy day; Sasne has more dresses for you, and then there's the assembly at noon. Terribly inconvenient, right at luncheon, but what the king wants, the king gets." Nadni's gaze sweeps her up and down. "Tash's sake, the mess you've made of yourself. No decorum."
Addie grimaces. She's terrible at playing noble.
It was arrogant to think she could make herself a royal.
Nadni claps. "Come on, chin up. The common populace may wallow in their libations until noon, but you must be presentable."
Does she? Caspian walked away.
Addie shrugs. "Actually, I don't."
"Adelina, I am in no mood for your games."
Addie barely bites back a retort that she's in no mood, either.
"I'm going to the kitchen," she says instead, steadier than she feels. "For today, I'm just a maid."
"The devil you are." Nadni throws open the wardrobe, imperious as ever. "Blue again; the king will be in -"
"I don't care!" Addie's eyes burn as she forces them open, refusing to blink lest Nadni see how truly pathetic she's become. "I'm a maid today," she repeats. "Nothing more."
Nadni's hawk-sharp eyes focus, staring right through her. Her veiny hands abandon the wardrobe and embroidered dresses, and is that… no, it can't be understanding. Nadni's too harsh for that.
Addie grabs the maid's dress she stashed in the far wardrobe corner, the coarse fabric as comforting as Lola's hugs.
Nadni clears her throat and helps.
Addie's fingers falter as Nadni pushes her hands away and tightens the laces herself.
It's a return to her proper place, and Nadni is helping her.
Nadni finishes cinching, ties the laces, and touches her shoulder, gentler than Addie thought her capable of.
"This is not an uncommon end," says Nadni. "Young kings dally; it is what they do. In time, you will be relieved."
Relieved that Caspian thinks her a liar? There's no relief in that - especially when he's mostly right.
Not last night. Caspian wasn't right last night.
"It's not like that," Addie says, "It wasn't like that."
Nadni squeezes her shoulder. "I was once as you are. It will pass, Adelina. And you will be happier for it."
"I'm not you. I'm nothing like you."
Nadni hums, her hand falling away.
"Not yet. But I am… sorry for this end."
A scoff escapes. "No, you're not," Addie says. "And it's not an end."
Nadni's lapse into mistaken fellowship evaporates as quickly as it sprouted.
"We'll see."
A/N: So uh yeah, Aslan did want to talk about Addie's origins! One chapter left in Part 2: Monachopsis... Also a great time to remind y'all that Monachopsis is only Part 2 of 5 😚
Chapter 54 Preview:
"It's important."
Sellea hesitates. Caspian's pride evaporates.
"Please, I... I need to see her."