A/N: Wow, it's finally time. The end of the Prince Caspian era! I've been working on this story nonstop for over 2 years now (I wrote a lot of drafts before I ever posted last year), and I'm just so grateful I get to share it with y'all and you're enjoying the ride as much as I am. To all you lovely readers and reviewers, much love always ❤ You keep me writing and rewriting and revising even when I think I'm burned out.
So, uh, this chapter. It's Long. Like, over 9,100 words long. And it's an ouchie; my beta reader and I both have cried working on this one. Know I'm mostly sorry for this, even though I'm also cackling like the fiendish writer I am, and I welcome your ire, your tears, and any other thoughts/feelings/reactions you want to share. Prepare the tissues, comfort food, and strap in!
Chapter 54 Content Warnings: mention of alcohol, mention of prior sexual assault, brief mention of pregnancy
Chapter 54: balancin' on breaking branches
Addie
Familiar rhythms, the habits of life - these things are meant to be comforts. Returning to the kitchen is a return to the ordinary, and Perla's exacting standards and gruff greetings are love she can accept.
This is a home. Perla's booming, "Good morning, girls!" - never mind her pause, her appraising eye that stares too long, like Addie didn't wash away all evidence of last night - is home. Lola's yawned greetings, Sellea's rosy recollections of dancing with a faun, Claudia's hungover grumbles - these things, these people, these faces and voices are home.
Addie finds a smile for them, grateful for the shield of etiquette that makes it seem more honest than it is.
She is pleased to see them - that much is true. She's glad to be here with them, to have the comfort of the morning routine she knew for years before… before she knew Caspian.
Inside an hour, the heels of her palms burn raw from kneading. Addie ignores the discomfort - trifling, not worth notice - and works until her out-of-practice arms tremble and the dough springs back perfectly.
It's a sticky dough, this nobles' bread, softer than she's used to.
After the first rise, she'll punch it down - carefully, mustn't knock out all the air. White bread is puffy and delicate, needs a gentle touch and careful hands.
Today is the first day she hasn't overworked the dough.
"I'll be damned," Claudia says, elbowing her unsteadily and with less force than usual. "Took you a decade, but it's perfect."
A tentative curl of pride lifts her lips.
"Thanks," Addie says. "Still not as good as yours."
Claudia groans. "Take the blasted compliment. I can't even see straight today."
"Your own fault," Lola calls over the pot bubbling over the hearth.
"Ugh." Claudia slumps against Addie's shoulder. "I don't know how you do it, Addie."
"Do what?"
"Work hungover. Look at you, making noble bread and evading royal duties, and it's barely sunrise."
Addie's hands itch for want of the next task. She has a slight headache, yes, but not from alcohol.
"I'm not hungover."
"Aren't you?" With a huff, Claudia lifts her head and rubs her eyes. "You're only this quiet when you're sick, and your eyes are as bloodshot as mine."
Addie's neck prickles as Lola's sharp stare snaps to her.
"Maybe a little," Addie shrugs - not entirely true, that. "I'll peel the oranges?"
Claudia's long, muscular arms wrap around her shoulders, a rare but comforting embrace.
"Bless you."
"Not a single pith string, you hear?" Perla wags her spatula. It seems less threatening than usual. "I like this king's court better than the last one."
It takes so little for home to shatter.
Fortunately, Perla's kitchen is always busy, and Addie has practice aplenty with distraction.
The orange slices are spotless, bitter pith piled in the scrap bucket, and it is good to have these familiar things.
The moment breakfast leaves the door, Lola corners her in the courtyard.
"Out with it."
Addie tries to shrug off Lola's hand, but she forgets Lola is as stubborn.
She could say she's just tired, that she missed the kitchen and Lola and everyone, and it would be half the truth.
Lola holds her still, hands on her shoulders. "Addie, I'm worried. Should I be?"
The danger of telling the truth is once you start, you can't stop. It all spills out, unstoppable, and honesty decimates everything in its path.
"I don't want you to be." There, that's no lie. Especially in Lola's delicate condition, it'd be selfish to trouble her.
"I looked for you," Lola says. "All over the field, I looked. You were gone." Then, cautious, in the whisper of secrets: "Did he ask?"
Addie's face contorts, too quick to hide. "He didn't get the chance."
A cluster of dwarfs pass, followed by laundry maids balancing overflowing baskets. There's no privacy here.
"The room," Addie mumbles.
Lola's already walking, pulling her by the wrist through the courtyard and inside. A narrow hallway, a few stairs, then they're there and the castle's bustling is a low hum.
She should salvage her blank face; she's being a bother.
It's just… she's so tired of hiding.
Addie sinks onto the cot that was hers - maybe it is again - and slouches onto the square-folded blanket, untouched by anyone else. Nadni's not here to scold.
Lola sits beside her and cradles their hands in her lap. "So?"
No point in dancing around it now.
"I might be from England. Spare Oom. Sorry, you don't… not Narnia. Somewhere else."
Lola tilts her head.
Addie rushes through explaining the lamp-post, Spare Oom, and the wardrobe. "And my parents might be there too. Alive. Apparently - well, Aslan said that, I still don't know if it's… He said I fell through, and today I can go back."
Lola touches her knee, stilling the frantic bouncing she didn't even notice.
"Addie, are you sure? It was a wild night for a lot of us."
"I know what I heard!" Guilt blooms like blood in a cut; she shouldn't take her frustration out on Lola. Addie clasps her hands and apologises. "I'm sorry. Caspian didn't believe me either. What… what do you think?"
Addie's knee itches to move again, and the bounce returns. She used to tell Lola all about her nightmares until Lola started agreeing with Claudia. Just dreams, nothing important, go back to sleep. It never worked; kitchen chores - and later, Caspian - were the only way to forget.
Lola purses her lips. "It's quite a story." The hand on Addie's knee fidgets, Lola's thumb tracing her kneecap. "I thought you were dressed strangely, but your clothes were rags by then. Your dreams have always been odd, I suppose. I didn't think…" Lola looks up, her familiar brown eyes gentle. "Do you think it's true?"
Does she?
Aslan's timing is suspect, especially considering their first meeting. He asked if she was ready to be queen - if she thought herself ready - and of course she said no. Then, less than a week later, the very night Caspian planned to propose, Aslan says her family is through the door he's opening for uncooperative Telmarines to leave?
It could be a lie to tempt her out of Narnia. Maybe Aslan has a different queen in mind, a more politically advantageous marriage for Caspian, and she's in the way. Or it's a carefully timed revelation to accomplish the same end.
Why would Aslan lie? If he's all-powerful, if he knows everything, if he can open doors to other worlds, why would he bother lying? Why bother trying to trick her when he can probably toss her through that door anyway if he wants to?
If it's true…
Addie pulls her knees to her chest and buries her face in her hands, though she misses Lola's touch the moment she loses it.
"I don't know."
Lola scoots close and rubs her back. "Well, do you want to find out?"
She shouldn't. She shouldn't.
"My family is here," Addie says. "You're my family."
"And you're mine," Lola says, her hand slowing. "But your parents are out there - your blood is out there. You can have more than one kind of family."
If I was alone and stumbling through magic doors, where were they?
"I don't need them."
She's survived a decade without parents; what's a lifetime more?
Lola's hug comes softly, a tentative comfort like Anna when she fed scraps to the half-feral alley cats.
"I think you want them," Lola murmurs. "Even if you don't admit it, I think you do."
"I don't."
"You cried for them for months when I brought you here."
Addie blinks away the sting in her eyes and breathes through a stuffy nose. "I was a child. I'm not a child anymore."
"Addie…" Lola's forehead presses to her shoulder. "What if they miss you, too?"
What if they don't?
Addie bites her lip, tries to stop trembling. She can live with never knowing. But leaving Narnia, her family, Caspian, only to find out her parents didn't even notice she left? Or that they were glad she was gone?
She'd be throwing away everything in exchange for nothing.
"Aslan said I fell through a door. Where were they then?"
"Maybe they couldn't get to you in time," says Lola. "Or they turned their back for a moment, and you got curious." A kiss warms her shoulder. "What if the door closed and they've been looking for you all these years?"
That is…. That's too much to hope for.
"What if they didn't care?" Addie counters. Then, a worse accusation: "What if they were glad? What if it wasn't a mistake at all?"
What if they didn't want me?
"Then you come right back and say you told me so."
Addie almost laughs, impractical as it is. "I don't think magical doors work like that."
Lola's arms fall away, but her warmth remains.
"You fell in before. So, fall in again."
Lola makes it sound so easy - a happy accident, a trip here, a door there, and magically, she'd be back home and no time would have passed.
When the Kings and Queens disappeared, they returned centuries later. Aslan made no guarantees the magic wouldn't work the same for her.
He never said if she could ever come back.
Here or there. Stay or go. Gamble if her parents are truly alive, and if they really have missed her?
Or stay here, with family she's known more than half her years, and continue life as it is?
If nothing else, as a maid.
Addie swipes a wayward tear. No use crying, won't fix anything.
"What if the door closes behind me?"
"Find another one."
"What if there isn't another one?"
"Addie." Lola pulls her hands from their tangle and holds them fiercely, like a promise. "You can say 'what if' all morning, and you'll always find a reason not to go. I'm asking if you want to find them."
It doesn't matter if she wants to - the consequence of acting on her childish desire is risking she'll never come back to the family she has now. Taking Aslan's offer would be miserably ungrateful to Lola and Perla.
Even, in some ways, to Caspian. No matter how little he thinks of her, how little he trusts her, there is still something between them.
Tash only knows what.
"It's too much risk," Addie whispers. "Wanting them a little isn't worth losing you."
Lola, or Perla, or Claudia. Or…
Or Caspian.
If he even wants her anymore.
"Suppose you wouldn't lose us," Lola says. "What then?"
If such a guarantee existed… she might… she might…
Lola squeezes her hands, steady and sure where Addie falters.
"If you're curious at all about your parents, then I… I want you to go. Alright?" Lola's smile wavers, her eyes misting and her hand on her stomach, and oh, it's cruel that the sight warms Addie's heart. "If it were my child, I would want them to come back to me."
Addie's breath shudders, trapped behind wanting.
"Don't think about the risk, not right now," Lola continues. "I trust you to find your way back to us when you're ready."
I trust you to find your way back.
I trust you.
I trust you.
Addie falls into Lola's arms and sobs.
Caspian
After a long, sleepless night of searching for Aslan, he has found nothing. Rather than clarity, morning has brought nothing but frustration.
Caspian kneads his temples as he shoulders open the double doors to the courtyard. Addie isn't in her room, nor in his, nor with Nadni. The sharp-eyed lady-in-waiting hesitated a moment too long when he asked if she'd seen Addie.
"Not since this morning," Nadni said. "Shall I have her room cleaned out?"
The suggestion made his stomach lurch.
"No," he said. "She still has need of it."
Nadni's mouth pinched into a thin line, but she only curtsied and continued on her way.
That left the kitchen.
The courtyard is quieter than he expected. A few satyrs are comparing scimitars and scars, a badger is speaking with a young maid by the well, and a cluster of fauns and centaurs are clip-clopping across the drawbridge, as bright-eyed as fortunate souls accustomed to Narnia's all-night celebrations. Queen Susan and High King Peter are walking in the shade, half-hidden by the pillars supporting the king's balcony. Caspian calls a brief greeting and continues to the kitchen.
It, too, is unnaturally quiet. The hearth smoulders and the scent of fresh bread, herbs, and citrus fills the air. The kitchen's only occupant is Perla, whose stare halts him in the doorway as she fans herself with a bent spatula.
"Sire." Perla does not curtsy. "I raised that girl. Now Addie is grown, and I entrusted her to you. Perhaps you can explain why this morning, she returned to a maid's duties looking like a kicked mutt?"
Caspian's face flushes with shame. Perla's tone is disrespectful at best, but she is… she is not incorrect.
Does Perla know of Addie's habit for lies and half-truths? Did Addie learn it from her?
"Where is she?"
Perla scowls. "She isn't here, as you see."
"That much is obvious." Caspian fights a sigh and stands tall. He is a king, this is his castle, and Addie is here somewhere. "Do you know where she is now?"
"I do not," Perla answers. There is no deception in her ruddy face, only wariness. "Between meals, the girls' time is their own."
"I see." Caspian bows, perfunctory and shallow. "Good day."
Perla's voice lashes across the kitchen, all pretences of dutiful respect gone. "That girl's heart was broken the day she came here. Do not break it again."
Caspian says nothing as he leaves, fists at his sides.
As if Addie's is the only heart that can break.
The maid at the well wears the wooden shoes of a kitchen maid - it's Sellea, the youngest of Addie's friends. She startles at his approach, nearly knocking the bucket into the well in her haste to curtsy.
"Your Majesty," Sellea says.
A better man would ease the awkwardness with manners and a brief interlude of pleasantries.
With less than two hours until the assembly, he has no restraint to be a better man.
"Where is Addie?" Caspian demands.
Sellea hesitates, her doe eyes darting between him and the cobblestones.
"She's… perhaps she's not feeling well. From last night, I mean."
What has Addie said of last night?
If he had the luxury of time, he might appreciate how loyal Addie's family is to her. Yet, as ever, the day is passing and he never has enough time.
"Even so," Caspian says. "She is needed most urgently."
Again, Sellea hesitates, fidgeting with the well rope, then her apron, then the bucket.
Caspian's frayed patience evaporates.
"I must speak with her. Where is she?"
With a nervous nod, Sellea relents.
"Addie's with Lola," the young maid explains as she steps around the water jug half her height and leads him across the courtyard. "They went inside - our room, probably."
Caspian nods a greeting to the fauns as he passes. "Thank you."
He follows Sellea through a creaking wooden door hidden in shadow and into a cramped, dark hallway. It's narrower than the servant passages he knows, and the air is thick and damp like the How's deeper tunnels. The short stairs are even less hospitable - they're barely wide enough for one armoured soldier.
Tactically speaking, the servants' quarters are a less secure area of the castle - close to the courtyard, and close to the bridge. These narrow stairs and halls were designed to slow down intruders.
Caspian still hates it. He hates thinking how Addie could be upstairs, in the room she shares with no one, off a hall bright with torchlight, windows, and tapestries, and instead she chose to retreat here to these dark, tight warrens.
Sellea navigates the stairs and tight turns with ease; she's so used to these conditions that none of it seems to bother her. She stops in front of another wooden door and knocks softly.
"Addie?" Sellea murmurs.
A voice that isn't Addie's answers. "Yes, we're here."
Sellea glances over her shoulder, eyes not quite meeting his, before she eases the door open.
Lion, is this normal?
Their shared bedroom is small, the ceiling low, and lit by only one small window. Four cots take up most of the space, two on each side. No pillows, nothing but a thin blanket on each. Addie and Lola sit side by side on the furthest left cot.
How in the name of the Lion do they keep warm in winter?
There's a wrongness to it - knowing he can easily return to his daily comforts, and Addie's family cannot.
For servants, this state of living is normal, packed in like rabbits.
Perhaps it shouldn't be.
"He said it was urgent." Sellea says that like an apology, like she's brought an intruder onto hallowed ground.
Lola's gaze snaps to him, and Caspian only nods in greeting, a brief bow of his head.
Addie's eyes stay fixed downward.
Her name escapes before Caspian realises he's spoken, and then, then, she looks up, and a rising wave of regret threatens to pull him out to sea.
It's a blow to break ribs, that look on her face.
Lola turns to Addie and steals her attention. "I'll stay if you want me to."
Addie shakes her head, her usual stubbornness poking through the surface. "I'll be alright."
Though she frowns, Lola makes no protest. She hugs Addie before she leaves and drops into a rushed curtsy on her way out. The door creaks shut, and all at once, they are alone.
Addie does not look up again, even when Caspian clears his throat and stands in front of her. Unbidden, a memory of one of their earliest awkward meetings floods his mind.
Any objection to sitting on the floor?
None.
On a whim, more because it would be rude to sit on a stranger's bed than to remind Addie of the long-gone past, Caspian sits cross-legged before her. The cobblestones are cool beneath his legs.
Still, Addie doesn't look at him.
Any polite inquiries die on his tongue, filling his mouth with ash and coals.
He has nothing for her but raw, unpolished heartache.
"If you don't want this," Caspian begins, gesturing at the space between them, "simply tell me. You don't need to hide behind -"
"I'm not lying!" Addie turns away and wipes her cheeks. Her voice is rough, hoarse with defensiveness and hurt. "I told you everything Aslan told me. Ask him."
Caspian tastes her bitterness in his throat and swallows it. Lets it fester in his gut like a sickness.
"I searched all night," he says, insistent. "He wasn't there."
Addie shrugs, and there is something helpless about it, about her. "He was there earlier."
Her words waver.
Last night, when Addie claimed her parents yet live in Spare Oom, and that Aslan told her such things, she shook. Like a sapling in a gale, Addie shook.
Slowly, Caspian shakes his head. "You don't even believe this yourself, do you? How can you expect me to?"
Addie's whisper breaks into sharp edges that cut instead of the tenderness he knew knew from her.
"I don't know."
He hates when she says that. She never really means it.
How many times must he coax her?
"I would understand if all this - being a… a king's lover - if it was too much." Caspian bolsters his blank expression, forces himself to say the words. "I wouldn't blame you."
Addie's denial surges, and he is tired of it.
"It's not! I know I wasn't much good at it, I know, but…" Addie's voice cracks, and the shards of love and care and wanting are at his feet, a priceless artifact thrown from its pedestal. "I was trying."
When did she stop trying? When did royal life - when did he - stop being enough for her?
Was he ever?
"Then what?" Caspian demands. "Are you so afraid of being happy?" He gestures at the surrounding room, crammed with empty cots. "Is this what you want?"
Addie swipes at her cheeks again, her face twisting, and he can't discern if guilt or pride or pain wracks her so.
"You still think I'm lying?"
"What else am I to think?" Caspian pushes his hair back, fingers snagging in windswept tangles made worse by a night searching the forest in vain, fruitlessly searching for a reason to believe her, desperately hunting for proof that wasn't there. And to think, how happy they were mere hours ago. "You spent all evening smiling and dancing with me, but the moment I…"
Addie stiffens. The ring box he abandoned in his nightstand drawer is a phantom weight in his hands.
To stoke his fire, Caspian swallows bitterness - his own, this time - and continues.
"The alternative is that you knew and you kept it from me. I can't… I cannot make sense of that."
Yet, he ought to. This wouldn't be the first time Addie's kept things from him.
Serious things. Crucial things.
Addie glares, and the sight of her familiar spark is no comfort at all as she insists she didn't know.
"How could you not?" Caspian has to strangle the roar in his throat, and his voice quivers with it.
Unless Addie was only a babe, how could she forget? Is he to believe this convenient revelation she spouted the very night he intended to -
"I was a child!" Addie says. Then, softer, closer to honesty: "Over time, I probably had to. Forget, I mean."
She couldn't have forgotten completely - she must have known. Somewhere, some part of her must have known.
Caspian clenches his jaw in a half-failed bid for stoicism. Why keep this secret all these years? Last year, Addie spoke of strange dreams. She hasn't spoken of them since, but surely raining fire and cloud-breathing birds gave her pause?
Perhaps not; he thought Addie was dreaming of dragons.
Perhaps Addie buried the part of her that knew on purpose, made it one memory she hid from everyone, including herself.
Addie is good at that.
"It's hazy," Addie continues, talking more to her knees than to him. "Everything before the… the city, this city, it's…" Addie's hands twitch, and he aches to hold them. "When I think back, I only see Lola. Later, Perla, the kitchen, Claudia, and…. Nothing else."
Caspian's stomach churns. He hears the name she doesn't say.
"Your dreams?"
Addie shrugs shallowly, every line of her body tense. "Everyone knows dreams aren't real."
"Dreams have elements of truth," Caspian says. Nightmares of Miraz killing his father turned out to be true. "Perhaps you knew as much, and you dismissed them rather than face them."
Denial is another of Addie's skills. She runs from her pain, hides it, stifles it, pushes it down until it poisons her from the inside.
Poisons him, too.
Addie sniffles. Her jaw is tight, set in stubbornness, but at first, she doesn't deny it.
Until she does.
"It wasn't real," Addie insists. "I didn't know it was real, and I don't remember my… I thought they were dead."
Caspian scrubs a hand down his face. Addie sounds hollow, exhausted, as he would expect after a life-altering revelation. But he's heard her lie like this too - on a sunny hillside, by a river shore, in his bed those last days before the escape.
He can't discern when she's telling the truth anymore.
He thought - hoped - they were past this. Last night, Addie seemed so happy, so free. It was supposed to be the beginning of the rest of their lives.
His skin heats with awareness. When Caspian glances up, Addie's eyes lock on him, her brow furrowed as if she's searching for something.
"I would have told you," she murmurs. "If I'd known, I would've told you."
Would she?
Caspian inhales the chilled air, elbows resting on his stiff knees. "You've kept secrets from me before. You have lied, snuck behind my back. Why would this have been different?"
Addie's breath comes sharp with pain, and her lips part on denial.
He doesn't give her the chance.
"You expect me to believe you would have told me the truth, if this even is true?" Caspian shakes his head. "You aren't in the habit of honesty, Adelina, not even with yourself. And you harm us both for it."
A spark flares in her eyes, bright and daring and fragile.
Lion, he wants to hold her, wants to crush her to his chest and coax free her confession. If Addie just gives him the truth then he will, but not before. He'll be too distracted by touching her otherwise.
"You've lied to me, too," she begins, a quiet accusation. "Left me out, pushed me away - ever since Anna died."
"This week, I have -"
"A little," Addie says. "But how many times have you lied because you were trying to protect me?"
Anger flares to life, overtaking the calm he scraped together. Addie asked that as an assassin wields a blade - quiet, deadly, precise.
"Once!" Caspian snaps. Not sharing all the intricacies of war and ruling with her isn't the same as lying.
There was only the once.
Addie tucks her knees closer to her chest, a hand over her middle. "Your once is worth a dozen of mine."
Caspian flinches, though he expected the accusation in her words. "Have I not apologised? Have I not made amends? I've owned up to my failings, and -"
"Haven't I?" Addie's knuckles whiten as she grips her own arm. "Yet you still hold the escape and everything after it against me. That's why you don't believe me."
What? He doesn't believe her because she's given him no proof he can.
Caspian clasps his hands until a knuckle pops, a welcome sting. "You lied to me and you almost died because of it, as much by your own stubbornness as your wound. I will never forget that. I can't."
Forgive, yes; he forgave Addie as he cradled her atop a sun-warmed boulder and she promised to take care of herself. He forgave her all over again with every meal she ate without complaint, every time she listened to Rainroot, every night she rested when she needed.
But he will never forget that Addie does not care about her safety unless he forces her to see how it harms him when she doesn't. She'll never do anything for her own sake.
And so, in the war, it fell to him to ensure Addie could never put herself in danger again.
It still does. He made peace with knowing Addie would never put herself first, so he had to anticipate her needs for her. He was ready to do so for the rest of their lives.
Addie can't be trusted with her life, nor her words. What can he trust her with?
Addie's voice is rising, creeping closer to frustration. "I tried to talk to you before, and you wouldn't listen."
"You were suggesting gambling with your life - and you did! Of course I didn't listen." Caspian grits his teeth and swallows a hot curse. Addie's every suggestion hinged on escaping separately - twice the risk, and infinitely more dangerous for her. "I had to protect you."
Always, he had to protect her.
Addie was supposed to be the person he could keep - the first he could keep safe, keep by his side, keep out of Miraz's clutches.
In the end, she wasn't, and it was by Addie's own design that he failed.
Addie's eyes flash, glinting a warning. "I hate when you try to protect me. You're a hypocrite, Caspian; you risk yourself for Narnia whenever you please."
"Because I must!"
Caspian almost regrets shouting, but Addie doesn't even flinch.
"It is my duty," he continues, voice low and edged with iron. "My responsibility is to safeguard Narnia and its people. That is my burden, not yours, and I will not see you take it from me for the sake of your own self-destruction!"
A chill settles over Addie's features. More distance, more walls she's throwing up in defence.
"You risk yourself for your kingdom. I risked myself for you. It's not that different."
"None of your wounds were necessary, Addie! None!" Caspian gestures to the space between them, a growing chasm. "You could end this at any moment by walking away. I do not have that luxury with my crown. Don't claim it's the same; it is not."
It couldn't be more different; Addie has no duty to him. Every tie between them is a choice born of desire and wanting, and thousands of lives have never hinged on Addie's choices.
If she had died, Caspian could not have set aside the kingdom and the Narnians to tend his grief. He didn't, when he thought she'd died in the escape. His is a duty far deeper and more binding than what he - what either of them - wants.
Lion's Mane, he is tired of Addie's callous self-disregard.
"You won't protect yourself, so I must do it for you."
Like a spark from flint, Addie flares. "Remind me, how did that work out?"
The sting of failure crimps between Caspian's ribs, throbbing like a wound. He will… always regret that.
But that egregious mistake was not entirely his fault, was it?
"How was I to know Marcos would hurt you?" Caspian searches Addie's face for an answer and finds a blank mask staring back. "As far as I knew, he had only hurt others for you."
Addie's mask cracks. The shadows deepen in her eyes, and somewhere inside the depths, a wall crumbles.
"Not just others," she whispers, hugging her knees as her gaze slides to the floor. "We got drunk once, and he didn't… he wouldn't stop. Wouldn't let me stop." Addie shrugs lifelessly. "That's what happened between us."
The ground tilts beneath him, memories and old suspicions tumbling like stones in a river.
Matters of that sort are often a soldier's mistake.
It was just a misunderstanding.
Addie's mouth on him, her sudden shivering when he thrust too far.
You can't protect me from everything.
He's ruthless.
You had no right to send me with him!
You have no idea what kind of man he is.
He suspected. From the beginning, Caspian suspected Marcos had crossed a line. Then he found Addie in the forest with him, and she willingly, repeatedly trained with him. Caspian assuaged his fears and assumed an ill-ended dalliance.
If Addie had only told him!
"Why," Caspian asks, hoarse, "did you not tell me what he'd done to you?"
Caspian watches as a tremble wracks Addie's form, and Lion help him, Lion forgive him, all he can think is that this pain is her own doing.
"It was my pain," Addie rasps. "Mine, not yours. It belonged to me."
"Your pain affects us both." Foolish statement; he's said that before, and to no effect. Caspian schools the flames roiling in his stomach and speaks, low and steady. "You… why can you not tell me these things?"
Addie's hands curl into fists, defiant despite the defeat writ in her face.
"I was afraid of what you'd say. What you'd… what you might think of me." Addie turns her face into her knees - hiding, predictably. "It felt like my fault, what he did. Both times."
Caspian knows he's being defensive, because he had suspected and if Addie hadn't just died - almost - in his arms, he might have stopped to think more clearly. He could lie - a little lie - to comfort her and bring her to his arms. He could say not an ounce of it was her fault.
He's sick of lies, little or otherwise. Isn't that why he and Addie are here, rather than celebrating a new engagement?
Caspian knows what he says next will hurt her.
He says it anyway.
"Had I known, had you just told me, the second time never would have happened."
Addie doesn't move, but he tastes the acid burn of her anger, metallic and corrosive.
"You didn't ask, either. You just drugged me."
Caspian bites back a scoff.
"Would you have told me?"
Caspian waits.
And waits.
And waits.
Addie is silent.
"You say I don't trust you," Caspian says. "You do not trust me, either."
Something inside her snaps; he feels the echo in his own bones, the cold in his own veins. Addie lifts her head, and Caspian stares into a forge-fire.
Addie babbled the opposite not three nights ago, and he thought that was truth wrung from her by their frantic fucking. I do trust you, she cried. I do, never stopped. Can't help it, don't you understand?
The overwhelm of passion spun those words from her lips and gave them voice.
Nothing more.
Addie does not trust him now, as she looks at him like an enemy she can't forgive.
"Maybe you're right," Addie says, low as a threat, sharp as an arrow - a calculated kind of hurting. "Maybe I wouldn't have."
Caspian's inhale burns from the inside in the way only fresh heartbreak can. His face is stone.
At last, the confession he sought. There is no satisfaction in it.
He is standing at a cliff's edge, and it is a long, long way down.
Caspian shrugs, helpless. "You see? How do you expect me to believe you, Addie?" And Caspian knows, he knows he's breaking something, but he can't stop. "Did you truly speak with Aslan? Did He say your parents are alive? Did He tell you England is your home? Or are you lying because once again, you refuse to trust me with the truth?"
Addie's eyes water, yet her voice is ice itself - frozen and unyielding. "Does it matter? If you won't believe me either way, why should you care if I'm lying? Why would I bother being honest?"
Another confession, and more proof he cannot trust her. No matter how he wants to, he can't.
Addie might be posturing, because he baited her and she's more furious than he's ever seen, but no matter how long he stares, Caspian can't tell. Addie is unreadable, and all at once he is looking at a stranger.
He has been a fool.
Caspian stands and throws decorum and perfect posture in front of his bleeding heart. He wraps himself in royal distance and stoicism and swallows the cloying thickness, the salt of his unshed tears.
"Do as you will, Adelina. Lie. Run. Run from me, run from Narnia itself if you wish. I will not stand in your way."
His face splinters on grief the moment he turns his back on her.
As Caspian walks away in the measured steps the royal march, part of him is waiting, foolishly waiting, for Addie to call him back. For her to run after him, shout at him, to confess whatever secret she's hiding. He all but dared Addie to prove him wrong, and he can't help hoping that she will. Caspian is still waiting when he reaches the door, when he pulls it open, and when it creaks shut behind him.
He waits in vain, there, in the dim hallway, his back to the closed door.
So be it.
Caspian spins on his heel and leaves his heart behind, and he pretends not to hear the break of sobs as he goes.
Addie
She's still crying - ugly, wrenching, too much wreckage to shove behind denial - when Lola finds her.
Lola doesn't ask, doesn't say anything, just opens her arms and holds.
Eventually, somehow, Addie runs out of tears. The well is dry, the field parched. She is a scrap of a weed wilting in the unforgiving light of the sun, and there is but one thing left to do.
Run. I will not stand in your way.
"You're right," Addie hiccups into Lola's shoulder. "You were right."
Before long, the castle's bells toll, calling everyone to the city square.
The assembly.
It's time.
With steady hands, Lola pats her back, smooths her hair, straightens both their dresses. Addie stands when Lola does, and she feels… she feels…
Nothing. She feels absolutely nothing. There is a void where her heart used to be, a bloody tangle that spreads numbness through her limbs.
It should probably frighten her - how easy it is to follow Lola outside, to melt into the crowd, to leave the courtyard and the castle and him behind.
Everything's easier in the aftermath of something. The suffocation of feeling nothing is a welcome blanket, and she has been so cold.
If she can't feel, she can't hurt. It's better this way.
A sour taste creeps across her tongue - resistance, a sick denial from inside her.
This isn't better. Nothing about this is better.
Lola leads her through the throngs of people - an even split of humans and Narnians - toward the kitchen, where Perla, Claudia, and Sellea are joining the sea of people. Sellea spots them first, and the naked apology on her young, heart-shaped face nearly cracks Addie's brittle facade.
"I'm sorry, I should've misdirected -"
"No," Addie interrupts. She can't be sure if the attempted comfort reaches her tone. "It's alright, Sellea. Doesn't matter, anyway."
Perla frowns and drags her into a hug. Addie returns it with arms that don't feel like her own, but some of her broken pieces stick together.
If Perla hadn't, she might've broken into a thousand pieces all over again.
The city square is already filling when their flour-dusted party of five arrives. Sellea's youthful curiosity drives them toward the front, and Claudia finds the easiest path along the hip-high stone wall that's the only barrier between the square's edge and open air. Like the castle, the city's western edge sits on a cliff.
Ahead, three stone stairs separate a raised platform and a towering, twin-trunked oak from the crowd. The tree is a rarity: two trunks wound together as one, half its roots crawling over the cliff's edge. For generations, it has stood guardian over the city's travelling merchants, farmers selling their crops, and wandering city folk seeking mid-tier jewels.
Today, it feels like a judge.
"Could've held this an hour ago," Perla grouses. She hates crowds almost as much as she hates interruptions in schedule. "I best hear no complaints about a late lunch."
Addie's stomach lurches. She managed half an apple this morning, and even that is threatening to reappear.
"Well, you may have fewer mouths to feed," says Claudia.
Addie breathes slow and steady through a dim ache as Lola sidles close, her arm a welcome anchor amid the jostling bodies.
"Angel!" Alfonso shoulders through a cluster of unarmoured guards and rushes to Lola's other side, a hand cupping her barely round stomach. "Should you be out in this sun?"
Addie stares into nothing and ignores the knot in her stomach as Lola kisses him hello.
"Love, I'm fine. I'm sure this won't take long."
Some time later, the crowd's murmuring crescendos. Feet shuffle and strangers press close as they part down the middle. Caspian (her heart drops to her shoes at the fleeting sight of him) leads with Aslan at his side, followed by the Kings and Queens, Doctor Cornelius, and a few other Narnians - Glenstorm, Trumpkin, Trufflehunter, a bear, and a mouse. They spread out in front of the tree with Caspian in the middle, standing tall and straight like a king.
She's going to be sick. She's going to be sick.
Addie sways, only for Lola to steady her. Perla's hand clamps her shoulder, another anchor.
"Next time, eat properly."
Addie's vision blurs.
Aslan's gaze sweeps over the crowd, bringing quiet in its wake. Addie shrinks behind Lola when his golden eyes arc toward her.
Cinnamon and sunlight bloom in the back of her throat, an insistent invitation. Addie stares at the smooth stones beneath her wooden shoes.
The warmth passes, and her legs ache to run.
Then Caspian speaks, and the sound of his voice roots her in place.
"Narnia belongs to the Narnians just as it does to Man," Caspian begins in a voice clear as a summer's day, warm as the sun, confident and steady as the thick oak behind him. It's like this morning never happened.
Proof, that he'll be perfectly fine.
"Any Telmarines who want to stay and live in peace are welcome to. But, for any of you who wish -" Caspian's voice breaks without warning. Addie dares to peek from behind Lola, and there's a flash of… of something in Caspian's face, but it passes as quickly as it struck.
With a brackish clearing of his throat, Caspian lifts his chin and continues. "For any of you who wish, Aslan will return you to the home of our forefathers."
"It's been generations since we left Telmar," says a man in the crowd. "It's a Calormen colony now."
Aslan steps forward and explains they're referring to the world of the Kings and Queens and that the Telmarines are descended from pirates there, which means the Telmarines are originally from… from Spare Oom?
Addie glances at Caspian before she can help it. Did he know this?
He's scanning the crowd, dark eyes sweeping from face to face.
For half a heartbeat, their eyes lock.
Caspian looks away.
Addie can't. She stands and stares and it's stupid, she's being stupid and hopeless and needy, but she can't tear her eyes away.
Look at me. Look at me.
He doesn't.
"It is to that island I can return you," Aslan's saying. "It is a good place for any who wish to make a new start."
Caspian's jaw clenches as he scans the other side of the crowd, his back turned to her.
Someone volunteers - Glozelle, that's his name - one of the generals Caspian took with him to the castle. Caspian bows, as if this volunteering is a great honour.
Caspian would not bow for her, Addie thinks, if she had spoken.
"So will we." A veiled woman holding a baby steps forward too, with an older man at her side. Lady Prunaprismia, Addie realises belatedly.
Wait, that's…. Lady Prunaprismia and her baby are the only family Caspian has left.
Politically, this bodes well for Caspian's rule; he'll have no challengers. When Lady Prunaprismia leaves with her baby, Caspian will be the only living member of the royal bloodline.
Yet as his aunt steps forward, Addie sees no relief in Caspian's face. He's donned a mostly unreadable regal mask, but as she watches, a whisper of loss seeps through his outward show of respect.
"Because you have spoken first, you shall have my blessing in that world." Aslan breathes on the three of them - four, counting the baby. At once, a crack splits the air and the tree, it… moves.
Slowly, the oak's twin trunks untwist.
Lola startles and leans into Alfonso. "Is this what you meant by living trees?"
"Not quite," Alfonso says. "At the field, they walked."
"It's magic." Sellea strains forward, enraptured. "It has to be! See how it moved when Aslan breathed?"
Claudia groans and kneads her forehead. "Can't it be quieter?"
Only Perla says nothing. Addie holds her peace, too.
The tree opens into a tear-drop shape wide enough for two people to pass through side by side. Blue sky and the Northern Mountains lie beyond, the same vista anyone would see standing at the city square's edge.
With a final glance at Aslan, Glozelle, Lady Prunaprismia, and the older man approach the tree. If they're afraid, they don't show it. They walk steadily on, closer and closer.
One moment, they're walking. The next, they're gone - vanished in less time than it takes a heart to beat.
The crowd gasps, and even Caspian jolts, faltering a step toward the tree before he squares his shoulders and faces the restless onlookers.
"Where did they go?"
"He killed them!"
"It's a trap!"
"How do we know he is not leading us to our death?"
Caspian answers none of it. Even he's at a loss.
Until High King Peter steps forward and volunteers himself and his siblings. King Edmund and Queen Lucy frown at once, but Queen Susan doesn't seem surprised.
"Time's up," Peter continues, unstrapping his sword belt as he approaches Caspian. "After all, we're not needed here anymore."
Caspian's carefully blank face falters as the High King holds out his sword.
"Aren't you?" he whispers - too quiet to hear, but Addie knows the shape of every word that leaves his lips.
High King Peter takes Caspian's hand and closes it around his sword. "No, we're not. Narnia is in your hands, now."
Caspian lifts his chin, regal visage returning to hide any sorrow. He's gotten very good at that - at hiding his pain.
"I will look after it until you return."
"That's just it," says Queen Susan. "I'm afraid we aren't coming back."
Caspian stiffens, and for a moment, his eyes stray, so close to finding her before he straightens.
After a brief, quiet conversation among the Kings and Queens, they're saying their goodbyes to Glenstorm, Doctor Cornelius, and the other Narnians. Lucy and Susan briefly turn toward the assembly and hesitate, like they're looking for someone. They were kind and welcoming; Addie's sorry to see them go.
Addie waves on impulse, propelled by manners she doesn't need anymore. Both queens return the gesture before their tearful goodbyes to Aslan consume their attention.
Caspian stands alone with High King Peter's sword in his hand.
We're not needed here anymore.
I'm afraid we're not coming back.
I trust you to find your way back to us.
Addie tangles her hands with Lola's, a mess of sweaty fingers bunched at her hip.
Do as you wish, Adelina.
How could she ever wish for this?
Addie watches the Kings and Queens disappear through the tree too, swallowed by a flash of concrete and a dark tunnel filled with other humans in uniforms and holding square cases. There one moment and gone the next.
As before, the crowd ripples with surprise, slightly less than the first time.
Caspian gestures toward the tree. His hand seems to shake, but perhaps that's just her imagination. Wishful thinking.
"You see," he calls over scattered murmurings. "Narnia's Kings and Queens have passed through. The way is safe."
A grey-bearded Telmarine noble in a forest-green overcoat steps forward, arm in arm with a woman with sharp, angular cheekbones. Caspian bows, a hint of relief softening his shoulders.
That's Lord Donnon, one of Caspian's biggest frustrations from the old council.
Caspian will be fine. More than fine - everything is falling into place for him.
After Lord Donnon and his wife disappear into the tree, others follow. Nobles and commoners alike, some eager and some cautious, yet most look like people running away, not running toward.
They look like people unmoored, people without a home.
They look how she feels.
"Well, I guess now's as good a time as any."
Addie turns to Claudia and finds her hugging Sellea, patting the younger maid's off-centre cap.
"Behave yourself," says Claudia. "Or, on second thought, don't. Someone's got to cause trouble, and Addie keeps vanishing."
It takes everything Addie has not to react. She's only managed to paint a void over her feelings for Caspian - not the maids. Not her family.
Claudia faces Perla next.
"Off with you," says Perla. "Go on."
Claudia's grin wavers, and she throws her arms around Perla. "Someone's got to bring your recipes to this ancestral island."
Perla's red-rimmed eyes squeeze shut. "See that you do."
Addie finds her voice, silently cursing its roughness. "You're leaving?"
Claudia slips from Perla's embrace and crushes Addie into her own.
"Tea's under my cot," Claudia whispers. "A month's supply. Go to the market and find Brensei. She knows to expect you."
Addie swallows the sting in her throat, and doesn't admit she won't need it. "Thank you."
Last, Claudia hugs Lola, and they trade quiet words among themselves.
And then, Claudia's leaving. Caspian glances toward her as Claudia ascends the stairs behind a trio of bakers. He almost meets her eyes, almost -
Please, look at me.
He doesn't.
Instead, as the stream of travellers thins, Caspian refocuses on Aslan.
Lola's hand tightens on her arm.
"It's alright," she whispers. "Really, Addie, it's alright."
Addie watches Claudia depart Narnia.
Is it a new start if she's returning to a childhood home she doesn't remember?
You can have more than one kind of family.
Addie stares into the tree's opening, and she trembles. Gods, how she trembles.
And she decides.
Caspian
All his known political antagonists have left. His politicking - with the Kings and Queens' help - has paid off.
He ought to be glad. He ought to be relieved.
If Caspian thinks only of Narnia, he is.
When the line of departing Telmarines slows to a trickle, Caspian steps to Aslan's side.
"Aslan," he breathes. "I must ask something of you."
Aslan inclines His head, though He doesn't look away from the Telmarines approaching the enchanted oak.
"Ask, Son of Adam."
Caspian could ask where He's been. Instead, voice rougher than he'd like, he asks, "Did you speak with Addie last night?"
Aslan flicks a gold-furred ear. "I did."
Movement in the crowd almost draws Caspian's eye, but he keeps his attention on Aslan. It's only more departures.
Even if Addie spoke with Aslan, that doesn't mean He said…
Caspian asks Aslan the singular, burning question he has swallowed for hours.
"Addie said she is of Spare Oom. Of England."
Aslan nods at someone in the crowd, and then His head swings and His lion's eyes are bright as suns, and no, no, he has been a fool!
Caspian knows the truth before Aslan speaks it.
"She is," says Aslan. So simply, so easily.
"Her parents?"
"They wait for her beyond the door, though they do not know it yet."
Addie spoke true.
Caspian whirls to find her, finds the maids - no, there are only two maids, Lola and Sellea, standing with Perla, all three of them red-eyed.
A chill shoots from his head to his heels.
Addie's here. He knows she's here, he saw her somewhere in the crowd.
Caspian searches the sea of humanity, his mouth already flooding with the taste of apologies, because he was so harsh, too harsh, blinded, angry.
He finds her.
At the front of the thinning crowd, he finds her.
There, last in line for the door in the tree, he finds her.
Their eyes lock. Addie freezes.
Do as you will, Adelina.
The breath stills inside him, lodges in his lungs like stone.
Run. Run from me. Run from Narnia itself if you wish.
Caspian shouts her name, a plea and an apology, but Addie is already running. She darts to the far side of the line and he's pushing bodies aside, reaching, reaching, misses her sleeve by a second.
I will not stand in your way.
"Addie, no!" Caspian screams as he did at the Stone Table, desperation shredding his throat, sight blurring as he sprints.
His outstretched hand closes around rough-spun cloth and he's got her, he'll never lose her again, never doubt again, they're -
One moment, Addie is there, long braid streaming behind her, and he is sorry, so so sorry, and he is begging without an ounce of pride.
The next, she's gone.
In his hand is a scrap of cloth, coarsely woven, one end perfectly cut.
Afterward, Caspian can never quantify how long he stares into the tree. He knows, distantly, that his knees are numb, that he fell reaching for her and he has not yet risen. He knows it is unkingly to wear his shock and absent heart so nakedly. He knows Aslan's stare is heavy on his back, that his head is whirling.
The rest is distant. The stragglers shuffling behind him are unimportant, the assembly's mumbling is irrelevant, and the weight of his kingdom is nothing compared to the weight of what he has done.
He wasted all that time doubting, looking anywhere but her because he could not bear to see more dishonesty in her face.
He could not stomach the evidence of the heart he broke, a mirror of his own.
Caspian waters his face with salt and regret, because this is his doing. Addie came to him frantic with truth, and he met her with ire and distrust.
He chased her away. He all but dared her to go.
A puffy hand clasps his shoulder, and the voice of Caspian's professor floats past his self-loathing.
"Stand up," Doctor Cornelius hisses. "You are a king."
A sob curdles in his chest, sickly sweet like rotting fruit.
"I can't," Caspian chokes.
Doctor Cornelius drags him to his feet, steadying him when he sways.
"You must," says the Doctor. "You must."
I'll try, Professor.
"Are there any others who -" His voice scrapes to a halt. Caspian rasps an inhale and tries again. "Any who wish to -"
He must try; he is their king. Not a man who just lost -
He is their king. Nothing more.
Nothing less.
Caspian clears his throat and swallows through the sandpaper grit of grief. "Are there any others who wish to start anew?"
The crowd shifts. No others come forward.
Caspian looks to Aslan. The Lion nods, satisfied with the number departed. As hoped, most dissenters both noble and common left, whittling the Telmarines in Caspian's council down to two. The rest are Narnian, as they should be.
He will have duty aplenty to drown himself in.
Caspian dismisses the crowd in a hurry, less gracious than he ought to be, but as gracious as he can manage.
No sooner has the assembly begun to scatter, than a snap and creak have Caspian spinning back to the tree.
It's closing.
The door is closing and Addie is -
"Aslan," Caspian pleads.
With a final groan, the trunks twist shut. Caspian's knees give out in the same moment.
His mouth falls open, grief too loud for any human sound.
"Arise, Son of Adam."
"Where were you?" Caspian whirls on Aslan. "All night, I searched. Where were you?"
Aslan's tail flicks, a small warning. "It is not for you to know, Caspian the Tenth, where I wander. Rise now and rule. You are both where you must be."
"How can you say this?" Fear digs into Caspian's stomach at Aslan's low growl. "I don't understand," Caspian pleads.
"Rise, Caspian."
He does not know how, but Caspian finds it in himself to obey.
A/N: So. Uh. That happened.
I know things look very bleak right now, but please trust me when I say we are very much still working toward that Happily Ever After. We're at the story's midpoint now, aka The Abyss, and we've just had the death. Now comes the rebirth. I still have so much planned for these messy, broken idiots, and everything I'm doing to them now is to get them closer to the happiness they deserve.
Chapter 55 Preview:
He can survive the blurry visions of soft pink lips and brown eyes flecked with hazel, the ghostly brush of a work-calloused hand and a forbidden whisper in his ear. He can even stomach the memory of bare skin, of frantic kisses by candlelight and grasping hands shoving off clothes.
He can bear it. So long as he thinks of her in pieces, he can bear it.