A/N: Sooooo, who's ready for a certain reunion? No further notes, I'm determined not to hint any more than I already have. Enjoy! (But can we appreciate, for a second, the sheer miracle of a chapter under 5k for once? I was very proud, lol.)

Chapter 64 Content Warnings: N/A

Chapter 64: i can't escape

Addie

Two days later, news of King Caspian's arrival sweeps the city. "He's coming!" "He's returning ahead of schedule!" "He will arrive in two days more," says the rumour mill, frenetic with anticipation. After a year on the Eastern Sea, the king is coming home.

She will meet him again. It's unavoidable.

Addie buries herself in work - assisting in Doctor Cornelius' study by morning, the kitchen for lunch and dinner, and then back to the study late into the night. Though the castle's library, records and the Doctor's personal collections are extensive, so far they've found no mention of rings, pools, or the forest. The Wood Between Worlds, as Doctor Cornelius has taken to calling it.

For all time's strange movements between worlds, four years in Narnia while almost thirteen passed in England, suddenly she has no time at all.

It happens like this: on a cheerful morning filled with birdsong and a merry wind that makes the early summer heat bearable, the city crier races through the streets singing the good news. The day is worthy of its auspice - the city is in high spirits, flush with the excitement of summer and the upcoming Maying festival Prattletwig spoke of, and rose petals perfume the air. Throughout the castle, the same glad tidings ring out, melodious and inescapable.

The king has returned.

Either out of mercy or sensibility, Doctor Cornelius keeps her busy from dawn and every minute afterwards fetching old scrolls from the records room - formerly spare servants' quarters, dark and damp and cold - on the excuse that records predating the Telmarine era are more likely to mention the rings.

The records room is also on the north side of the castle, farthest from the courtyard and well out of the way of the king's procession.

Good. Better she remains unnoticed as long as possible.

Her mistake is timing.

The fanfare has been building since breakfast, so she's numbed to it. One, two, three hours of celebratory songs and chants rippling like waves, ebbing and surging as news trickles in.

Addie shoulders her bag of books, careful not to disturb the scrolls in her arms. Better not to listen; so long as she's busy and out of sight, that's all that matters.

She's passing by the courtyard overlook when the cheers crescendo. Her arms are aching after three hours of carrying records to Doctor Cornelius' personal study, and she stops to rest a moment. All day, she's been skimming yellowed scrolls in her spare moments, and, when the Doctor got antsy, resuming her shuttle service. It'll take them days, if not weeks, to scour them all.

Addie glances out into the courtyard expecting another wave of anticipatory celebration, but the crowd is parting for a parade of horses. A man on a black charger leads the procession, and there, at last, is the face she spent years sketching and dreaming of and trying to replace in her heart.

Every servant, lady, and passer-by in the hall rushes onto the balcony to observe the king's arrival, shouting effusive welcomes. Addie could tell herself that she's swept into the wave of well-wishers, that she never intends to abandon the priceless scrolls several centuries older than she is on a nearby table and she is baffled to find herself pressed against the balcony's stone railing.

It would be a lie. If she told herself she didn't mean to step into the sunlight and crane her neck for a proper look at him, it would be a blatant, laughable lie.

So Addie doesn't dwell on how she got there, because the moment she lays eyes on him, the rest is unimportant.

He has a beard.

She's staring, trying to reconcile this face with the clean-shaven prince she remembers, when she realises a far more important detail, a shock as sudden as hot glass meeting cool water.

Caspian isn't alone.

A lady glowing silver-white rides with him, not quite beside him but close enough the meaning is clear.

She's beautiful. The glowing woman is beautiful, and Caspian is helping her dismount, his hands tender, his face lit with a gentle smile. Ever courteous, ever charming, ever…

Is that how he once looked at her?

No, surely not. She was not so graceful, so stately, as this lady at his side. Her milk-white face is soft with kindness, her full lips spread in an accommodating smile, her cheeks tinted pink as Caspian's hands linger at her waist.

It's a curious thing, the heart. How fragile it is, how little it cares for the passage of time.

Addie's stomach lifts, twists in on itself, writhing in a pained denial.

She has no right to feel like this.

It was she who left him.

Addie repeats it like a prayer, pleading with her own treasonous heart to let this pain pass her by. She ought to be glad, relieved that he is as well-off as she assumed he'd be.

It is then that her mistake bears fruit. Because for all her self-talk of being happy for him, reassured that her departure was perhaps not so serious as Lola and Doctor Cornelius made it seem, Addie's eyes are more stubborn than her mind, and she has not torn her gaze away since she laid eyes on him.

It is then, at the cusp of her finest self-denial, that Caspian looks up.

She is too late to look away.

Like magnets, their eyes meet, and the force of it sucks the air from her lungs. The cheers of Caspian's people fade into the background, distant yet present, but they are nothing compared to the sight of him, the vertigo of looking into his eyes even from this distance.

He's grown up.

Caspian's shoulders are broader and he's filled out the tall, trim frame she knew - more muscles than she recalls, but still lean. His skin is tanner, healthy and sun-kissed, so different from his pale complexion as a shut-away prince. Rather than royal robes, Caspian wears a rich burgundy shirt and matching sleeveless coat with gold trim, the colour slightly faded - likely from a year in the sun and sea spray. His hair has grown to his shoulders, wavy and wind-swept and still as dark as rich chocolate. His beard hides the cleft in his chin and sharpens his jaw - makes him look like a man. No longer a prince, but a king in full.

And yet…

Caspian's eyes are the same: expressive, intelligent, dark as new-moon midnight.

She's still staring.

Addie tears her gaze away, slips behind the cheering ladies, and returns to her errands of scrolls and invisibility.

Caspian

It is a welcome marked by loud cheers and a shower of rose petals. More than worthy of a king, especially one gone on the sea for a year and a day. His people's joy is nearly enough to erase his apprehension in returning here. This castle is still Narnia's capital until Cair Paravel's restoration is complete six years hence, but Caspian would have preferred to stay in the east.

This place is rife with many, many memories. Too many.

Not ten minutes in this courtyard, and he's already seeing ghosts. Caspian glances up again, and that face is gone - proof that while time heals much, the heart is still weak.

It's maddening. Does he not have a lady of the stars at his side, a lady curious enough about his kingdom to make the months-long journey west to Narnia's shores? Lilliandil, who he first met on the island of Ramandu - her father - in the Eastern Sea. Lilliandil, who accepted his request to court her with the rising sun and crashing waves at Glasswater as their witnesses.

Caspian squares his shoulders and puts the ghost of her from his mind. Soon enough, he will settle into his land-legs in the city of his ancestors, and the past will haunt him no more.

"It's everything you said it'd be." Lilliandil smiles graciously, unruffled by his people's raucous (though welcome) cheers.

"A bit busier," Caspian says, passing Destrier's reins to a stable-boy.

Lilliandil glances around the crowded courtyard, a few stray rose petals stuck in her hair. "Yes. You are well-loved."

Caspian turns from her to greet his people, as is their due, before ushering Lilliandil inside and into Dalia's capable hands. Nadni has more experience, but…

Some things he still does not know for certain. Among them, what role Nadni may have played in his first love's departure.

Better to be cautious. Better to assign a sweet, amiable lady-in-waiting to attend Lillandil, so she will not be chased away by a harsh tongue and exacting manner.

Old fears, yes, but he would rather take precautions.

Caspian leaves Lilliandil to Dalia's care with a bow and a kiss to her knuckles.

"I must speak with my advisors," he says. "Dalia will assist you. I hope to call on you this evening, should you feel rested after the journey."

Lilliandil, the daughter of a star and every inch a lady, curtsies. "I welcome your hospitality."

Months on the sea, and still these formalities. Lilliandil was freer on her father's island, barefoot and filled with song. Yet ever since she set foot aboard the Dawn Treader, she's cloaked herself in etiquette almost as formal as his own.

Then again, he has not been very lighthearted and free, either.

"Welcome, Sire!"

Trumpkin's booming greeting echoes through the main hall, easily rising above the joyous courtiers, bowing guards, and servants rushing to and fro, a few stopping to gawk. The last time Caspian saw his castle in this much of an uproar was his coronation day.

Despite the pandemonium, Caspian's smile is genuine.

"Trumpkin, old friend."

Trumpkin scowls, his usual gruffness returning. "Not so old, mind you. See if I keep your seat warm while you go off questing again."

What from others would be disrespect, Trumpkin means fondly. Still, Caspian raises an eyebrow in a show of offence.

"It's good to see you, too," he says.

Trumpkin huffs and marches down the hall, two steps for every one of Caspian's.

"Narnia's fared well, even in your absence," says the dwarf, waving over a faun attendant. Caspian accepts the single offered paper - Trumpkin's summary report, little more than a list of all the laws, petitions, and other paperwork surely waiting on Caspian's desk. En route to Caspian's study, Trumpkin shares largely good news.

"The council is scheduled to meet in - yes, yes, in a moment, Sir Brightwing - in three days," Trumpkin says, taking a scroll from Sir Brightwing's beak. News from Telmar, judging by the wax seal of an eagle's head. "Had quite the diplomatic trip, eh? Lord Stefano sends reports from the Seven Isles every fortnight, the Duke of Galma wrote to express his disappointment but continued goodwill, and King Nain's ambassador returns next week for the season."

"And the Lone Islands?" Caspian asks, nodding a passing greeting to two of Glenstorm's sons. "How fares Lord Bern?"

"A better duke than Gumpas was a governor," says Trumpkin. "He's purged all known slave traders from the islands, and shut down a black market last month."

"Excellent."

Caspian's brief stop at the Lone Islands on the return journey was little more than a supply refill. His voyage was only to last a year and a day, and only continuing on with the western winds would bring Dawn Treader home on time. Lord Bern had not yet found the black market when Caspian left.

No doubt more will crop up - decades of an entrenched slave economy won't be purged in a few months - but Lord Bern has made good progress rebuilding the economy with trade in seafood, livestock, clover wine, and pearls.

"Archenland fares well and welcomes your return," Trumpkin continues. "King Nain has sent healers to Terebinthia, but no further news yet."

Caspian turns into the corridor where his chambers lie. "And Calormen?"

"Calormen ships were seen near the Lone Islands and we're tracking their spies in the Western Mountains, but no open conflict as yet. The details are on your desk."

Trumpkin bows as a faun rushes ahead and throws open the door to Caspian's study. The king's study, unlike his old one, can be accessed from either the hall or his bedroom.

As expected, his desk is piled with reports, papers, and various other letters demanding his attention, though less than he imagined. In another time, a different study, he'd have sighed and looked for a distraction, perhaps reason to sail away again, but this is no longer that time or place.

He is no longer that prince.

"Your Majesty?"

Caspian pauses and looks back at Trumpkin.

"It's good to have you back."

Caspian smiles. As much solace as he found on the sea, part of him is glad to be standing on Narnian soil again.

"Thank you," Caspian says, and disappears into his study. His castle's rejoicing continues unabated outside. Out there, his people are free to indulge themselves without his solemn presence.

Caspian's barely settled at his desk to greet the paperwork when a knock comes.

"Enter," Caspian calls.

The door opens to reveal his Lord Chancellor and former tutor, Doctor Cornelius.

"My king," the Doctor says, bowing. "Welcome home."

Caspian stands at once and rushes to greet him with open arms.

"Professor, it's good to see you. I saw the restorations at Cair Paravel are faring well."

Lord Chancellor though the Doctor may be, Caspian has always called him professor. He is not a boy anymore, yet it feels too strange and distant to call Cornelius anything else.

Doctor Cornelius hugs him tightly and claps his back. "Continued excavations have slowed progress, but there is much of the Golden Age we've recovered."

Caspian swallows against a twinge in his heart and tells the Doctor about Lucy, Edmund, and their cousin Eustace's brief visit.

Doctor Cornelius brightens further, his eyes twinkling. "Aslan has blessed you, my boy."

Caspian's pleasant mood falters.

If only he could believe that, too. More likely, he would have failed on the voyage in some critical way had Lucy and Edmund not been there.

"I suppose," Caspian answers, turning toward his desk. His old professor knows how to read his expression better than most. "But by His own word, they will not return to Narnia."

A moment of silence passes.

Doctor Cornelius clears his throat. "Then it is a gift that they came to you."

Wood creaks as Caspian clenches his chair's backrest. He forgot how deep the Doctor's faith runs, and he underestimated how starkly he has diverged from the religion of Old Narnia.

"Will that be all, Doctor?"

"Not quite." Soft footsteps, an expectant presence behind him, and Caspian turns to find Cornelius looking up at him gravely. "There is something more you must know."

Caspian strides to his throne room on stiff legs, his pulse thundering in his ears.

Years he prayed, and now, of all times, she returns?

Aslan has crueller timing than he gave Him credit for.

Four years. It has been four years and now, when he has stitched himself back together, when he has buried old wounds deep enough to be the king Narnia needs, when he saw with his own eyes how she moved on perfectly fine, now she returns?

She is determined to be his ruin.

A few attendants are milling in the throne room. Caspian sends a minotaur to fetch her and dismisses the rest with a brusque wave as he marches up to his throne - this, the singular consolation she left him. It is the only chair here; he had the council's seats moved to a larger room that could more easily accommodate the centaurs and minotaurs.

Caspian sits, he adjusts the heavy crown of his ancestors that he rarely wears, and he waits, brooding on times he thought long past.

He does not react when a minotaur guard ushers her inside. Caspian leans on his throne's arm, chin resting against his fist, and watches Adelina flinch as the door bangs shut. She approaches his throne unsteadily, her eyes darting to either side of him, never lingering too long on his face.

She's unsettled.

Good.

"So, it's true," Caspian says, his voice echoing in the cavernous room. "You have returned."

Addie stops at the tip of the 8-point star etched into the floor at the stairs' base. There, at last, she meets his gaze.

"I didn't think I…" Addie swallows and straightens. "I'm sorry for intruding. I didn't mean to."

"Yet here you are. Why?"

"I'm not sure."

"Is that so?"

A line etches between her brows, but Addie's voice is still barely a whisper.

"It was an accident," she says, as pretty an excuse as she's ever told.

Caspian scoffs.

"England couldn't satisfy you?" Before Addie can answer, he barrels on. "Have you come bearing tidings from Aslan?"

"No, I…" Addie swallows, her eyes straying from him. What right does she have to fumble, as if she is the one at a loss? "I found a set of strange rings and -"

"My Lord Chancellor informed me," Caspian interrupts. "Why did you use them?"

"I didn't know what they were," she answers, milder than he remembers her capable of. "I was trying to return them to someone."

"Who?"

"I don't know."

Ah, still her old refrain. Addie will flare up soon, accuse him of an ill welcome or not believing her, and he will have the pleasure of picking apart her every lie. Doctor Cornelius told him all.

Addie continues, as if he had dared her aloud.

"Two ladies left a box behind on the train. I was trying to return it to them."

"And you happened to slip on a magical ring in the process?"

"I couldn't catch them," Addie says. "I dropped the box, and I touched a ring when I was picking it up."

Still, that steady, measured tone. She's learned self-control these past years, but it will crack. Soon, it will crack.

He will make it crack.

He will see her as she has always been: fiery, inconstant, lashing out in recklessness, willing to hurt those she loves most to spare herself pain. A woman too busy being afraid to understand how to love or be loved.

"Speak plainly," Caspian says - as much a challenge as a command. Addie wasn't good at speaking plainly, nor honestly.

Her tale is dubious at best, told in a matter-of-fact manner he would expect from a messenger, not her. It could be true - a box carved with an apple tree, two pouches each containing two rings, a blustery winter wind that knocked the box from her hands. Convenient, he says, that the ring she first touched happened to be yellow, that it happened to transport her here.

"Not here," Addie corrects, still in that flat voice, mocking him with put-on calm she can't possibly feel. She hasn't affected any emotion since he began demanding answers. "To a forest, then here. I went in the wrong pool."

Doctor Cornelius told him about the forest - the Wood Between Worlds, as he called it - but it sounded more credible from his old professor's mouth.

"An accident, I presume?" Caspian asks, sharp with scepticism.

Addie only blinks at him. "Yes."

"And why did you not return to the Wood at once? Why come to the castle?"

Why barge into the life she turned her back on? Why interrupt the home that moved on in her absence?

Why now, of all times, when a lady of the stars waits for him to call on her?

Addie hesitates, and ah, there is her old habit. A lie will come next.

"I…" her voice falters, gaze darting to either side of him, as if she's searching for a better story than she has. Next the flare, the fire to cover up uncertainty and fear.

"I was trying to get home," Addie says, a slight tremble betraying her. No fire yet, but it will come.

"Were you indeed?"

"Yes." Again, her voice wavers.

Caspian sighs - a breach in stoicism and royal distance, but he is only a man.

"Why are you truly here, Adelina?"

Her lips tighten.

"I don't -"

She's lying.

"Enough!" Caspian's shout echoes as he jumps to his feet. After she broke - shattered - his heart, Addie has the gall to sneak into his kingdom, his castle, his life, and claim she doesn't know? Does she think him so gullible, so easily disarmed by the frailty in her eyes?

Does she think him some naïve, pining princeling, readily won by a years-late return?

Addie stiffens, but she does not move. Caspian waits for the truth to spill out in a clumsy, frantic tangle torn from her throat. She will blurt the true reason she has come back - now, of all times - and then he will close the chapter she has torn open.

For the good of Narnia.

"You will tell me why you returned," Caspian says, slowly descending the steps from his dais. "You will tell me why you did not leave when you realised your mistake. You will tell me what you intend by lingering here."

The crown weighs heavily on his brow, a reminder that no matter how Addie lifts her chin and tries to look brave or how he would have softened for her in times past, Narnia must come first.

For four years, Narnia was all he had. She made well sure of that, and by the Lion, he will keep to it.

"I didn't mean to come back," Addie finally says, treacherously soft. "I know I should have left right away."

"Then why did you not?" Caspian clasps his hands behind his back and peers down at her, his patience dangerously thin.

The line of Addie's shoulders softens. "I suppose I was afraid I couldn't find the pool back to England again. And I was curious, of…"

"Of what?"

"I…" It is a trick of the light, the way her eyes shine.

"I had family here, too," Addie says. "The maids, Perla. I needed to see them. To see they were happy. Then Doctor Cornelius summoned me and…" She squares her shoulders. "I never meant to intrude. Give me the rings, and I'll go."

"No!" Caspian's breath sharpens in his chest, a poisoned dagger-point. "No."

Addie frowns, lips parting in a protest he doesn't give her a chance to voice.

"As my Lord Chancellor must have explained, when you return, the rings return with you. Anyone possessing them has an open path into my kingdom. Do you think I would entrust those rings to just anyone?"

Let alone you?

Addie's jaw tightens, the beginning of stubbornness.

"People I love live here. I will protect those rings with my life and speak of them to no one -"

"And if you fall ill, what then? When you grow old? Who then will guard the rings?"

Time passes differently between their worlds; Addie's lifespan there could pass in a single Narnian year. Or the opposite - a thousand years could pass in an English year as it did for the Pevensies, and there is no way to map the passage of time.

After years making and maintaining Narnia's peace, fighting through blood and exhaustion for every respite, he would be a foolish king to let just anyone carry around portals to his kingdom.

Addie has not answered. Though the look in her eye isn't agreement, it matters not.

He is king; his word is law. And his command is that Addie stay here, where she can be supervised and the rings investigated, until he deems otherwise.

Against all this, Addie makes no argument. She purses her lips and knits her brow, but at the end of his pronouncements, she raises no protest.

"Doctor Cornelius is studying the rings," she says. "I'm sure it won't be long until he understands them. And I -"

"Let us hope so," Caspian says coldly.

Curious - but predictable - that Addie conveniently leaves out she is studying them too, and at the Doctor's request.

Caspian will allow it. Doctor Cornelius can keep an eye on Addie, discern her motives, and guard the rings in case she thinks to steal them.

She might not stoop so low, but he can't risk being wrong about her.

Addie has surprised him before.

She surprises him now, as she holds her stiff posture and utters an apology.

"I'm sorry," Addie says, so quietly. "I'll leave as soon as I can. It'll be like I was never here."

If such a thing is possible, Caspian will get on his knees and praise Aslan from dawn until midnight.

To Addie, he says only, "Perhaps."

Soon, she will be gone again and all will return to as it should be.

Caspian dismisses her. He wishes he had stayed atop his throne when Addie curtsies and turns her back on him to walk away. Still, that reserved, resigned air hangs around her.

The observation slips out before he can stop it.

"You've changed, Adelina."

Addie stops, but she does not look back. Caspian barely hears her whisper, and a deep, treacherous part of him wishes he hadn't.

"It's Adelaine," she murmurs. "My name is Adelaine."

Addie

She saw him, spoke to him, and she survived.

Not much comfort, but it's something.

It's more than Addie thought herself capable of this morning. Now the initial shock has passed, and she can return to the shadows. She knew them well when she snuck to see Caspian the prince; now she will know them again as she gives Caspian the king his peace.

He's… different. She knew Caspian the young man; the only Caspian in that room was Caspian the king.

Addie flattens herself against the wall to let a servant bearing a laundry basket pass. She's trapped here for the moment, but the least she can do is make herself unnoticeable. Caspian might even forget she's here.

She never should have touched the ring. She should've said, "What a shame," and left the box alone.

Now, unless she breaks into the castle vault and steals the rings back - insanity, even for her, and a breach of trust - she's stuck here, out of place and causing trouble and…

Unwanted.

Addie sniffs and chews her lip until sense returns.

Lola and Perla were glad to see her, and they seem to want her here; that's enough to make this brief, accidental visit worth it. The only thing to do is keep her head down, scour records with Doctor Cornelius, and stay out of sight until she can get back to London, Ted, and Josie.

Her home.

A/N: They've finally met again! And I threw another lil wrench in between them, didn't I? Hehe oopsie! Was that the reunion you were expecting?

So, a content warning you can expect for a lil bit of Heartworm is the ever-lovely "brief non-OTP relationships." Just a heads up 😅 I'd say we're also entering the Slowburn Era, but the last time I tried that with Caslina they got frisky within 7 chapters of meeting each other... so we'll see how stubborn they really are as I keep writing.

Chapter 65 Preview:

It is possible, perhaps, that…

'You are both where you must be.'

If this is Aslan's will, if He brought her back…

'You still have not let her go.'