A/N: Welcome to... rock bottom! Just kidding, we've had that already, but this is Caspian at his lowest so please forgive one more angsty chapter. 57 won't be nearly this ouch, and before you call bull, my beta reader even agreed. Of course, my beta also greenlit all the ouchiest bits of this chapter I was worried about... but the good news is I'm back in my normal-chapter length era! 😅
Chapter 56 Content Warnings: alcohol as a (very) unhealthy coping mechanism, reference to assault, violence
Chapter 56: cut me like a knife
Caspian
In the dark of midnight, Caspian stumbles through his castle with a bottle in hand. Habit strapped his sword to his hip, and longing carried him on bare feet to the rooms he swore to himself he would not enter.
Distance be damned; he'll start anew tomorrow. Tonight, under a black moon, is a night for mistakes. He's already drunk too much. What's the harm?
It's been weeks. Enough to make a month, perhaps two. To his shame, Caspian stopped counting. Or he's lost track.
Without Addie, time moves as fast as a deer outrunning a wolf.
As slow as unanswered hope.
Caspian swallows a dry, oaky mouthful and wipes the dregs from his mouth. The bookshelf door to his old study looms ahead, distorted but familiar.
This is the path Addie used to take.
The path she almost died in, likely. Twice he's paced this passage, and there is no trace of her blood. So much the better; his hand aches for want of a hilt, and it would be so easy to summon the former Captain of the Guard - assuming he's still in Narnia, find the soldiers assigned here that night, and mete the pain they dealt her back on to them.
Caspian dimly remembers swearing vengeance for her sake once before.
If anything happens to her, I will mete it to you thrice over.
Well. Marcos is still in Narnia.
Even life in the castle dungeon is a paltry fraction of what Marcos put Addie through.
Caspian turns from the siren call of his study with one hand at his hip, leather-bound hilt unyielding against his palm.
The stairs to the dungeon are ice-cold stone - a shock to the senses, numbing his toes, but not enough to clear his head.
It's a pleasant fog, this. Nursed by the bottle in his left hand, sharpened by the hilt in his right. Not so kingly, perhaps, but even kings can be made fools.
"Sire?"
Caspian regards the dungeon guards - two minotaurs, whose furry, bullish faces waver in his vision.
"Keep to your post," he orders. "No one leaves."
The minotaurs trade a glance, but they open the gate and stand aside.
It takes Caspian startlingly little time to retrieve a set of keys from a satyr making rounds and find the cell he wants. The beauty of the bottle is how effortlessly time passes under its influence.
How terribly time drags in the day. What relief these nighttime indulgences bring.
Caspian stares through the iron bars at the prisoner he came to see and doesn't stifle the curl of satisfaction flooding his chest. There is a certain pleasure in seeing this man brought low.
In the far corner, Marcos lies asleep curled on his side, twitching on a bed of hay.
Caspian swigs his last and tosses the bottle away, unbothered by the foggy sound of breaking glass. Marcos startles awake, jerking upright and patting his waist where a sword belt would be were he a free man.
He meets Caspian's stare in silence, jaw clenched beneath his patchy beard. "Come to gloat?"
"No."
Well, perhaps a little.
"What, then?" Marcos waves toward his barred window, a tiny square no wider than a man's head. "Letting me out? I heard what happened. She's gone now - no need to placate her."
Marcos' singular virtue, if he possesses any, is his talent for giving Caspian an excuse - a reason, a provocation.
Marcos is mocking him, mocking the heartbreak he's soaked in wine, and what right does Marcos, of all people, have to throw stones?
The keys rattle in Caspian's hand. It takes four tries to find the right key and another two to turn it, tempting frustration even through his bleary determination.
Caspian draws his blade, and the cell door whines on screeching hinges.
Marcos stands, his gaze sharpening. "It's like that, is it? Couldn't wait for the rats to finish me off?"
Yet, for all his bravado, Marcos' tone is not so steady as before.
Lion, that's gratifying.
Marcos inches from the wall as Caspian enters. Another virtue of the bottle is how unobtrusive it renders the hay and rough floor beneath his feet, how distant the stench of damp stone and waste is.
"You've made your point," Marcos says. "I'm down here rotting, and you've got your throne. I'd say that's punishment enough."
"For accessory to murder, maybe. But that's not all you've done, is it?" Caspian draws the tip of his blade across the dark stone floor.
Marcos swallows, throat bobbing in the dim light. "She wouldn't want this."
He's a killer!
We got drunk once and… he wouldn't stop.
Caspian twirls his sword and blocks Marcos' attempt to sidle along the bars. "She might," he says. A bitter chuckle curdles his tongue. "I certainly would."
"She's not here. She'll never know. So who are you avenging?"
Caspian smiles, a cold thing that burns his mouth. Marcos falters back, giving precious ground.
"Would you attack an unarmed man?" Marcos says.
"Why not? You attacked an unarmed woman." Caspian swings and misses, metal whistling through the air. Marcos darts to the side - still in range thanks to the small cell, but an annoyance nonetheless.
"Did she scream?" Caspian's sword grazes stone rather than flesh and rings in his ears, the mocking laugh of failure. Somewhere, distantly, he knows he's torturing himself. "Did she cry?" Another swing, another miss - nearer than the last. "Did she beg you to stop?"
Caspian arcs his blade up, steel singing a promise of half-peace if he can just take - take a life, take revenge, draw blood and find some small recompense in it. Marcos dodges backwards, arms high.
Caspian's returning downswing meets its mark and cuts a shallow line across Marcos' ribs. Satisfaction blooms in Caspian's chest, matching the scarlet proof he struck true.
Hissing a curse, Marcos covers the cut and jumps from an attack Caspian doesn't make yet.
"Killing me won't bring her back!"
Caspian's next strike falters, his own weapon a traitor in his grip. Again, again, again, and his blade finds no mark.
Marcos stands with his back to the wall and nowhere to go.
It is not a kingly smile, this curl of Caspian's lips. But it is the only smile he has left with Addie gone.
He lunges. Marcos ducks, rolls, and all at once the cell is empty and the door is swinging, almost closing -
Caspian shoulders the barred door open and gives chase through the dark, damp hall. Marcos has nowhere to run, nowhere he is safe. It's only a matter of time.
He just has to follow the blood.
Something hits his shoulder, a sharp sting fading into nothing. Ahead, Marcos bends and throws another chunk of glass - this one misses. The stairs loom ahead, and Marcos takes them two at a time.
Caspian follows at a jog and waits for the sound of a criminal caught and the desperate swears of a man who knows he is doomed.
No one a king wants dead survives. Miraz taught him that, though Miraz was never quite king.
Marcos shouts, and Caspian rounds the bend to find him struggling against the two minotaur guards like a rabbit in a trap. The fog of wine fades from Caspian's mind as he pauses and beholds Marcos in all his hopeless, foolish glory.
He should have done this weeks ago. Might she have stayed then, had he proved his love in blood after every other language he had failed her?
You made me his prize for murdering my sister!
Might it be justice, then, to make penance of this man who hurt her so deeply? Marcos is responsible for the deepest scars between them. He worried away at her, gnawed and festered in her heart, and Caspian let him. Worse, Caspian enabled him, sent Addie into his clutches and made her defenceless. Marcos trapped Addie in secrets she never divulged until it was too late, forever too late.
They were always running out of time. Lion, had he only known how borrowed it was…
Now, Marcos is nothing more than a rag doll held aloft by overlarge hands, and there is… this must be satisfaction, this sharp wringing in Caspian's stomach as he watches a man he once thought a rival fight uselessly against guards thrice as strong as any human.
A minotaur - the right one, frowning deeper than his companion - turns to Caspian.
"Shall we escort him below, Sire?"
"To his cell?" Caspian shakes his head. "No need."
It will be easy - too easy, almost - to wash these steps in blood. As Addie said, Marcos is a killer and he violated her and he is nothing, his death will mean nothing but retribution Caspian should have taken on her behalf long ago.
He may be too late, but is it not worth something, to mete out punishment as vile as Marcos is even if Addie isn't here to see it?
Lion's teeth, he must stop thinking her name. He will fall to his knees and weep if he thinks her name.
"Hold him."
The command lashes through Caspian's mouth, bitterness dancing with hate, but there is justice here, still, isn't there? Reparations to claim, vengeance to deal?
"Sire -"
"Hold him!"
It's not a king's yell, that - it is the scream of a wretch, of a man tipping over the edge of a cliff.
What does it matter? He's been falling to a slow death ever since she left.
Caspian grips his sword with both hands and thrusts the point at Marcos' chest, aiming for his heart, if the man even has one.
"Caspian!"
With no warning but his name, two surprisingly strong hands catch Caspian's arm.
His blade halts a hair's breadth from Marcos and his twisted, belated revenge.
Caspian finds his childhood tutor staring up at him, more furious than he's ever been.
"This is not your concern," Caspian says, in a voice he barely recognises - a voice like his uncle's.
Doctor Cornelius' grip tightens, branding a bruise into Caspian's wrist.
"You are my concern," the Doctor snaps. "Narnia is my concern."
Caspian keeps his eyes fixed on Marcos, lest he falter yet again. Blood has soaked through his ragged clothing, but it's not enough.
"This has nothing to do with Narnia."
Doctor Cornelius shakes him, and Caspian's arm trembles with the effort of keeping his sword aloft, so close to ending this man who deserves it.
"Everything you do, every decision you make, affects Narnia," says the Doctor. "Even this. Especially this."
Caspian shakes his head violently, trying to jostle the sudden twinge in his gut free.
Doctor Cornelius continues, every word harsher than the last. "Would you become your uncle? This is not the way of Narnia! This is not the way of Aslan!"
"Aslan's gone," Caspian says.
Like her.
"You think this is the legacy He left you? You think the Kings and Queens entrusted this kingdom to you for this?"
They didn't, but what does it matter when everyone is gone? What do legacies matter if their origins are not here to witness him fulfill or betray them? He leaves nothing behind, betrays no trust, if there are none left to see it.
What has the path of the Lion ever brought him but loss and heartbreak and so much loneliness? Was it not Aslan who set Addie's steps toward London, who lured her from her rightful place here?
"This is justice," Caspian says, flat and hollow. He strains in his old professor's grip, and his sword catches on Marcos' shredded shirt.
Doctor Cornelius moves between them, eyes bright in the gloom, and Caspian meets his gaze despite himself.
"This is retribution," says the Doctor, quieter and harsher. "Revenge will not mend your heart; it will break you a different way."
Caspian blinks, eyes stinging, but he grits his teeth and pushes, and a small circle of red joins the trickle on Marcos' chest.
This is justice.
This is justified.
Caspian stares at the man he came to kill, a man imprisoned by his command, a man who deserves nothing but the sharp end of a blade, and he feels… he feels…
He feels nothing.
Doctor Cornelius takes him by the shoulders, leaving Caspian's sword arm free.
He could do it. So easily, he could kill.
Above him, the minotaurs exchange an uneasy glance.
"Caspian, you have been given a great destiny." Without warning, Doctor Cornelius' fingers sink into his shoulders, bruising muscle and skin. "Do not squander it."
You are a noble contradiction, my prince. Telmarine by blood, Narnian by heart. You are the only one who can bring peace.
Caspian clenches his jaw. Whose peace? Certainly not his own. Narnia's peace, then, to which he is nothing but a servant, bound to a destiny he never asked for and a crown that has cost him everything.
Narnia is all he has left.
The Kings and Queens have left, and Aslan has vanished again.
Perhaps he is all Narnia has left, too.
Killing is not the only way.
Caspian's sword lowers. His voice scratches like claws on stone.
"Return him to his cell."
Caspian pushes past Doctor Cornelius and leaves the dungeon and all its temptations behind.
He needs another drink.
The world is still foggy as Caspian waves off the bridge guards' concerns. The sounds of a sleeping city float into Caspian's ears like water - his boots on cobblestones, a hooting owl, humming crickets and cicadas, the occasional hiss of alley cats, wind-rattled shutters. A breeze stirs Caspian's hair, crisper than these months of summer, drying his sweaty brow as he drags an axe through the street. Autumn is fast approaching, that death of warmth and sunlight in exchange for blustery days and ever-colder nights.
For the first time, Caspian returns to the place he lost her.
The twisted oak that took her towers above the empty city square, leaves rustling as wind from the mountains disturbs its branches.
The axe is an unfamiliar weight in Caspian's hands as he climbs the three stairs, his boot catching on the last step. Caspian stumbles, rebalances, and stares at the tree. Ghostly creaking stirs in his memory, mocking. A reminder of how close he was, Addie's sleeve in his hand, so close, almost stopped her.
Almost.
Almost.
How sick he is of almost.
Is she happy in England? Has she found her parents?
Has this cruel, sudden ending been worth it for her, at least?
He… hopes it has. It must be, or there is nothing to make this loss worth it. He hopes this has hurt her less than it has hurt him. Hopes she, at least, is free of this choking heartbreak.
Addie must be happy - he needs her to be happy with her parents, because he has lost her to them and it is entirely his own fault.
Caspian grips the axe tighter, its rough wooden handle threatening his palm with splinters.
He didn't think she would actually do it. Yes, he was cruel, yes, he walked out on her, and yes, he dared her to run, but he didn't know there was anywhere for her to go and he did not think she would do it. Always, Addie pulled herself back from the edge and ran back to him, abandoned the cusp of heartbreak in favour of his arms.
This time, he pushed her too far.
She isn't coming back.
Caspian lifts the axe, teetering with the weight. He rebalances and swings.
The axe-blade cracks into the right trunk, splintering bits of bark as Caspian pulls it free. A paper cut compared to the tree's impressive girth. Caspian swings again, takes a small chip of wood when he yanks the axe free.
My parents. Aslan said they're alive.
Crack.
He said they're in England.
Crack.
It's so soon. It's soon, why would you…
A splinter hits his knee.
You want my honesty, so stop looking at me like that and listen!
Crack.
You still don't trust me.
He didn't, and she didn't either.
And you still believe I am better off without you.
Crack.
Are you?
He isn't, but Addie might be.
I would understand if all this - if it was too much.
Was it?
I know I wasn't much good at it, but I was trying.
She was better than she thought. Did he not tell her so? Did he leave her alone too much?
If I'd known, I would've told you.
Would you?
If Addie knew, if she'd told him from the start, would it have changed anything? Would she have stayed?
Does it matter?
Swing, crack, the ring of metal on stone as he nearly drops the axe.
Do as you will, Adelina. Lie. Run. I will not stand in your way.
Lion, he should have. He tried, but she was so damned good at slipping through his fingers.
Caspian's shoulders ache, but there's no stopping now. He will keep hacking at this cursed tree until it falls over the cliff and takes all his memories with it.
His next swing reverberates up his arms, trembling in his shoulders.
With a yell, Caspian swings his hardest yet. A hairline crack cuts through the right half of the trunk, but it still stands tall and strong.
His next hit is too reckless - the axe glances off a raw edge and his boots slip, balance lost. Caspian crashes shoulder-first onto the cobblestones, the axe skittering out of immediate reach. Splinters prick his palms, his fingers, his arms and shoulder through his shirt - scraps of hurt he clings to like a starving man, because pain is all he has left of her. It's all Caspian can do to push himself onto his knees and stare at his handiwork. It's a mess of haphazard cuts and chips, more splintered mess than precise tree-felling.
He can't do it.
Caspian kneels at the foot of the tree and weeps.
If he closes his eyes, he hears her footsteps in the hall and the slide of the bookshelf. His stomach lurches as the room spins, but it's worth it to live in fantasy a moment more.
He shouldn't be in here.
Caspian leans against the window seat's wall, stone cooling his sweaty back through his nightshirt, and stares at the moonless sky. He shouldn't be here, but she ought to be.
Is the moon dark in London, too?
A door clicks. When Caspian summons the strength to look, Doctor Cornelius is standing in the study doorway, his face carefully blank. He, too, is in his nightclothes.
Quiet disappointment weighs on Caspian like a yoke, and the shape of his former professor blurs.
"A healer is seeing to him," says Doctor Cornelius. "He will live."
Caspian swallows. "Good."
With a sigh, Doctor Cornelius sits in Caspian's chair, sinking into the cushion worn pale with use.
"I don't know how to do this," Caspian whispers. "I don't know how to do this without her."
"You will learn, my king. In time."
King. Is that all that remains of him?
Caspian sniffs and wipes his cheeks. "I don't want to, professor."
"You are young," the Doctor says, more scholarly distance than fatherly advice. "It is… first loves often end thus. But you cannot heal like this, wallowing in the past."
Lion, how callous that sounds! Is it so wrong to have hoped for better?
His love for Addie was no fleeting first love. It was… it was everything, and now there is a gaping hole in his heart where she once lived.
"It's barely been two months," Caspian snaps. The summer heat is fading, so it can't have been more than half a season since she left.
Doctor Cornelius rests his elbows on the desk. For the first time in Caspian's memory, the surface is completely bare, years of use writ in light scratches and discolourations.
"I know this is… difficult for you," says his old tutor, something missing in the attempted comfort. "But you cannot let this destroy you. You have -"
"Yes, duties to Narnia. I know."
You'll have an entire kingdom to your name - a court, subjects, councils, all of it. Anyone you could want. Lose me and you'll still have all that.
Addie was wrong - a kingdom is a paltry distraction. All the ruling in the world can't help him sleep at night, can't replace all he has lost.
But it is all he has.
Doctor Cornelius clasps his hands, thumbs fidgeting. The long pause that follows isn't his usual scholarly distance prodding an answer. It's… hesitation.
Caspian sinks further into the pillows. Perhaps he is not the only one at a loss.
"I drove her away." Caspian's voice cracks, a now familiar splintering. "There is nothing I can do to set this right. She's… she's gone."
The state of Narnia is something he can fix, with politicking and negotiating and alliances of trade and mutual protection. This project of peace will stretch for years, but Caspian knows, mostly, what he is doing. And when his need was dire, Aslan and the Kings and Queens returned to help bring peace.
Now, when Narnia is on the path to prosperity and the Narnians have their home again - when his kingdom is entering a new age but he is a shell of himself - now who is here?
He is alone.
He was never alone when Addie was here.
"Caspian." Doctor Cornelius's tone draws his gaze, and sympathy akin to compassion stares back. "I don't know the particulars. But whatever happened between you, it was her choice to run through that tree."
His vision swims. A tear leaks down his cheek, a scalding recrimination.
"You didn't see her face." Caspian's chest aches, forever on the edge of collapse. Or perhaps he has already careened off the cliff and this is the rushing, inevitable, unending descent. "In less than a day, she learned her parents were alive, she was not of Narnia, and Aslan could send her back to England. And I…" Caspian swallows, almost chokes on regret. "She came to me reeling, and all I did was doubt and accuse her."
Doctor Cornelius is silent, patient, as Caspian shudders.
"I should have listened, I… she might have stayed if I…"
Had he let her speak, believed her, told her without hesitation he wanted her to stay here, with him, might she have?
Yet, knowing now that she spoke true…
If Aslan appeared and told Caspian that his parents were alive, that he could see them again, he'd rush at the chance.
Perhaps Addie did, too.
Caspian kneads his brow, where the headache that will keep him bedridden come morning has already begun.
Addie didn't look like she was running toward her parents. She was running away.
From him.
On his shoulder, a hand.
Caspian looks up through watery eyes. Would that it was Addie before him, not Doctor Cornelius.
"You mentioned Aslan," says the Doctor. "Perhaps this is all part of His plan."
You are both where you must be.
Caspian grimaces before he can stop himself. More likely, Aslan's only concern is for Narnia and the individuals within it mean little to Him.
Curse divine plans; there is nothing, nothing right about this. Addie is still gone, and she left nothing but emptiness in her wake.
"That is no help, Doctor."
"Neither is your current state." Doctor Cornelius pats his arm, more intrusion than comfort. "Seal these rooms. Put this behind you and do not pick at a bleeding wound. Time heals everything."
Caspian's shaking his head before the Doctor finishes. "Not this."
"Give yourself a chance. I do not think Adelina would wish this for you."
Caspian stares out at the dark fathomless night and says nothing.
Doctor Cornelius is right, but it means little.
Addie isn't here to say so.
The next morning, Caspian orders the tree cut down, locks his old rooms, and gives Doctor Cornelius the key. It's for the best; surely this will mark the end of grieving.
Yet when Caspian visits the city square and finds the severed stump staring back at him, the knot in his chest wrings tighter.
Addie
"Addie, wait up!"
Addie skids to stop, hand outstretched. Josie's sweat-sticky fingers slide into hers, and they're off again, a sunny forest ahead and the dairy barn behind. With the morning chores done, only one project remains.
Mischief.
For Henry, a redhead who misbehaves in stealth, that's tickling the dairy cows' ears with hay until Mrs Shaw catches him. For Ollie, his younger brother with sun-dark freckles and a laugh like a forest imp, mischief is hide-and-seek with the promise of a tickle fight when the seeker finds the hiders.
Josie hates being tickled, and Ollie hates the forest - he squealed about a spider he swore chased him back to the farmhouse for hours, and hasn't set foot further than the treeline again.
Which turned the forest into Addie and Josie's only haven.
They sprint into the shady shelter of the woods, jumping over wayfaring-trees and weaving between silver birches, hawthorns, and moss-covered oaks.
"Ouch, oh!" Josie almost falls, but Addie slows to catch her. Even after two years, Josie's not used to dodging roots and thorny bushes.
"I've got you, c'mon!"
Addie helps her hop along until they crest a hill and Addie's favourite hawthorn looms ahead, its low, easily climbed branches like welcoming arms ready to shield them from sight. Addie boosts Josie up first, then jumps to follow, using a hip-high foothold on the trunk.
"There, safe at last," Addie says, climbing to straddle the next highest branch.
"We could always hide in the barn rafters, you know. Ollie's a terrible climber." Josie brushes leaves from her hair and leans down to inspect her foot.
Addie fights a giggle. Josie's not a great climber either, and the rafters are full of barn swallow nests. Josie'd never forgive herself if she knocked one down, especially in early summer - the chicks are just learning to fly.
"You okay?" she asks instead.
Josie stretches her leg, pointing her toes. "M'fine, just stepped wrong. Stupid rock."
In the distance, Ollie shouts, "Here we come!" Which is fine, because he never enters the woods.
Except…
Addie straightens, listening. That's two sets of feet, and they're closer than they ought to be.
"Just one round, Ol! Mrs Shaw took out jacks."
Ah, Henry's joined today's game. Not fair; Henry runs fast as a rabbit - good for avoiding Mrs Shaw's switch - and he can climb anything.
"Awfully rubbish of them," Josie whispers. "Ganging up on us like that. It's supposed to be just one seeker!"
"You climb higher," Addie says. "Hide in the leaves."
"What about you?"
Addie grins. "I'll give them something to chase."
After all, she doesn't mind a good tickling, and she wins half the wrestling matches she gets in with the boys. Something about being chased makes her heart pound and gives her feet wings, brings out the fighter in her.
Addie boosts Josie further up, jumps down, and waits until Henry and Ollie are almost at the hilltop.
Then she runs, welcoming the gleeful shouts of her pursuers.
Though Henry's fast, he doesn't know the forest like she does. He almost catches her twice - grabs the end of her braid for half a second - but Addie spins away and jumps a stone she's tripped on several times before.
"Bollocks!" Henry goes sprawling, and she's off again.
"Watch your step!" Addie calls.
Henry says another bad word. No matter; she's already out of reach.
She's better at this than she thought. Within a quarter hour of sprinting and strategic hiding, Addie's lost Henry, and she can't hear Ollie at all. Hopefully Josie got high enough.
Addie picks a handful of very under-ripe bilberries - green, sour, as wild as she feels - for a snack and wanders deeper. Soon, she'll turn back for luncheon. Until then, what's the harm in a little adventure?
Addie spits out a too-bitter berry. She's always liked the woods. Her misadventure in a storm aside, here her breath comes easier, her steps lighter. The trees feel alive in the way of wild things, untamed where the farm's dairy cows or barn cats or peckish hens mostly follow Mrs Shaw's commands.
Here, the air feels bright like sunshine and promises. Like if she goes deep enough, she might find a particularly delicious secret.
Sometimes her head hurts if she strays too far, and her name floats on the wind if she listens hard enough.
Nonsense, maybe, but it's fun, pretending there's more to the thicket than the same plodding countryside life waiting for her with the Shaws. They're not terrible, just not…
Home.
Sometimes, it feels like home is hiding somewhere between the trees. Like someone's out there waiting for her to find it.
A/N: Time's passing quicker for one of our OTP than the other... taking guesses on where in the Narnia timeline Addie might reappear 👀
Chapter 57 Preview:
The front door clicks open just as the last streaks of sunset red have faded. The sudsy bowl in Addie's hands clatters into the sink.
"Addie? Adelaine, is that you?"