A/N: This chapter is brought to you after a week spent in and out of an antihistimine haze (shoutout to my immune system for going absolutely insane) so if y'all see any typos, please do tell me, I'm on my last brain cell here and she's swimming in meds 😅
Anyhow, in other news, expect the total chapter count to creep up again. Lord only knows by how much (who knows? Not me, I'm just the author!) So if you're getting nervous about this plotline, well, just know the story will expand as it must to resolve this lil problem and give us that Caslina content we've all been craving.
Chapter 92 Content Warnings: more PTSD
Chapter 92: you're with me
Caspian
From sunrise to sunset for three days, Addie sits before the council in a small wooden chair surrounded on three sides by the Council of Lords and answers every question in totality, no matter how pointed or accusing.
But as he feared, Addie is perhaps too open in her answers, as if desperate to find absolution by claiming all the guilt for herself. While she mentions Opheodra's manipulations and explains the basics of the enchantment, she always circles back to allowing it to happen, highlighting moments of uncertainty that she ignored, on and on until she had no thoughts or feelings of her own.
It was not you.
What if it was?
Caspian strokes his beard, his mind swirling with memories. When Addie returned from Ettinsmoor, he thought she looked different - paler, thinner, more aloof. When she taunted him with her pleasure at another man's mouth, the defiant spark forever in her eyes had darkened to playful cruelty, a wicked dare flashing green, the likes of which he'd never seen from her. His Addie was playful, teasing, contrarian, but never cruel.
Until she was. But by then, she hadn't been his Addie for a long time.
Yet in that fortnight, there were also moments, precarious and easily forgotten, when she almost seemed herself again.
I didn't mean for you to see that.
I've been looking for you, too. It's a bit like old times.
You know I hate your stifling attempts at protection.
Perhaps those hints of her old self were a cry for help - a plea he did not recognise or heed until it was too late. How she must have been screaming for someone - him - to see the truth.
Was that why she taunted him so?
After Addie shares the complete story of her enchantment, the council focuses on the events at Christmas - first, the fire.
"Why those rooms?" Lord Relvos asks her. "They were unoccupied, in a rarely used wing of the castle. If you sought to sow panic, why not in a more public area?"
Addie's gaze almost strays toward him, but she catches herself in time.
"It was a distraction," she says. "No one needed to get hurt."
"The guards and servants who rushed to put it out easily could have been," says Duzig.
"Moreover, a fire in a nearly abandoned corridor would be less easily discovered," says Cozimo. "It was mere luck that our king had the foresight to set a spy upon you - a detail you could not have known - and that word of your fire spread before the flames were unquenchable."
Addie shifts in her seat, her hands hidden in her skirt. "I—"
Lord Gorelvi interrupts her. "Had the fire raged out of control, the entire castle could have been destroyed!"
"Gorelvi, let her speak," Caspian says.
At his gesture, Addie tries again.
"I did know," she says, quiet but clear. "About the spy - I'd noticed a mouse following me days before."
"How convenient," Gorelvi sneers. "Nevertheless, you recklessly risked the lives of hundreds in your treasonous quest. Furthermore—"
"Perhaps a more useful question," says Lord Duzig, "is whether those rooms held a particular significance. For is it not true that they were once His Majesty's chambers?"
Caspian sits tall and straight as the weight of several stares falls on him.
"They were indeed," Caspian answers.
The council whispers among themselves, speculation he does not dignify by acknowledging it.
At Addie's insistence, he agreed not to disclose their past tryst. She argued it might blow back on him, even though their involvement was before his kingship. While he doesn't share that concern, the affairs of his heart are not for the council's ears, and they would likely insist that he recuse himself from the inquest.
He could not - did not - spare Addie from this interrogation, but he cannot leave her alone in it. While Trumpkin is sympathetic and Cornelius, Relvos and Denclover can be convinced, he must be here to protect her from the more draconian lords - namely, Gorelvi, Cozimo, and potentially Duzig - who are eager to dole out the harshest punishment the law allows. A council evenly split on the question of her innocence is a far riskier gamble than he anticipated.
A gamble he ought never to have taken.
Lion damn it, he should have granted Addie a royal pardon and been done with it, his own curiosity and desire for answers be damned! She's told him anything he's asked.
Well, almost. On the matter of her feelings - and his own - she remained stubbornly silent on their return journey from the moors.
Caspian restrains himself from thinking back to what she said that night in his tent - almost said, might've said, if rash hope isn't distorting his interpretation. The question of either of their feelings is best left for after the council's investigation concludes.
Thanks to Addie's discretion since her return to Narnia this past summer, he's comfortably certain that none but Doctor Cornelius knew all they were to each other, and the Doctor agreed to say nothing when pressed.
"Did you know this, Adelaine?" asks Denclover, with such gravity the other lords fall silent.
"I… yes," Addie says, gaze fixed straight ahead, studiously avoiding eye contact with anyone, including him. "I heard gossip that His Majesty had locked them and forbidden anyone to enter. I thought it'd buy me time, keep him preoccupied while I broke into the vault and freed Hallgrim."
"I see," says Duzig, frowning.
The council murmurs among themselves, granting Phamrus, the royal scribe, time to finish scratching his transcript.
"As yes, your northerner friend. You two left quite the trail of bodies from the dungeon to the city gates," Cozimo says, flipping through his papers. "You first drugged six dungeon guards, is that right?"
"Yes."
"Did you intend to kill them?"
"No." Addie's next breath is unsteady, but her voice remains strong. "I didn't need to."
Gorelvi pounds a fist on the table. "And yet you carved a bloody path from the dungeon to the city gates!"
"Let us be clear for the record, Lord Gorelvi," Caspian says, projecting so his voice echoes through the room. "It was the escaped prisoner, Hallgrim, who felled the castle's guards, not Adelaine, and he met his sentence at the edge of my sword. We are not here to weigh his sins on another's shoulders."
"It was she who freed him," Gorelvi snarls, pointing an accusing finger. "Or do you deny that, maid?"
"No," Addie answers, a slight tremor in her hands. "I don't deny it; I did free him, and he killed… I don't know how many. But if I'd left him in the dungeon, those guards would still be alive."
Caspian fights a sigh as Phamrus scribbles furiously and Gorelvi sits back in his chair. Addie's not helping her own case. At every turn, she seems intent on making it worse.
"Why did you free him?" asks Trumpkin.
Addie takes a breath as if to steel herself. "I didn't think I… I couldn't leave him behind."
"Was that one of the witch's orders? To return together or not at all?" Caspian asks, trying not to think of Addie and that northman tangled together before Christmas.
Trying not to remember every time Addie left him behind.
"Not necessarily," Addie says. "I mean, she didn't say so explicitly."
Then why did she not leave the northman behind? Was there more between them than that audacious moment in the hall?
Caspian schools his features into impassivity and probes further.
"What did she say?"
Addie shifts, tucking crossed ankles under her chair. "Only that we were to bring back the rings and Queen Lucy's cordial by any means necessary. I didn't think I could get out of the city without him, so…"
Hallgrim was just a means to an end, then. Was it the enchantment that brought Addie to welcome the northman between her legs?
The taste of ash and bile floods his mouth. If Addie's obscene display was entirely born of the enchantment, if Hallgrim's ministrations were meant only as a useful distraction, if it was not Addie taunting him, but the witch working through her—
Was Addie and Hallgrim's entanglement yet another violation, another crime to add to the seemingly endless list of Opheodra's evils?
Caspian clenches his fists, the arms of his throne creaking in his grasp. He ought to have pulled that man off of her at once, ought to have defended her with steel and all the power of his crown.
Here, at least, he can still do Addie some good.
Caspian forces down the fire churning behind his teeth and refocuses on the present conversation.
Denclover flicks his tail. "Could you not sedate other guards, as you did the first six?"
"I…" Addie blinks longer than usual, her stoic mask slipping. "I suppose I could've."
"Then why did you not?" says the centaur. Denclover sometimes asks the obvious to see what the object of his questions will say.
"I didn't think there was time," Addie says. There's no mistaking the wobble in her voice. "But maybe there was. There probably was, I should've—"
A small shiver wracks her. Caspian leans forward, appraising. Addie will need a respite soon; she's speaking more guilt than sense.
"Much good that does those soldiers now," says Gorelvi.
"How many?" Addie's voice thins. She swallows like she's bracing for another yoke of guilt.
Caspian clenches fists on the solid arms of his throne. He'd spare her this truth, but he cannot even go to her to soften the blow.
Lord Cozimo is the one to state the number, scrutinising Addie as he does.
"Seventeen."
Addie's eyes widen. "Seventeen?"
"Indeed, deaths you must have witnessed. Tell me, did you ever protest your bodyguard's methods?"
Caspian grips his own hands, reminding himself that Cozimo's question is a valid one, despite the contemptuousness of his tone.
Gorelvi sniffs. "Her assassin, more accurately."
"My sword," Addie murmurs. "Opheodra called him my sword."
Lion, what is she thinking? Such language implies Hallgrim took his orders not just from the witch, but from Addie as well.
He cannot easily absolve her of that.
"Are you saying the northman's crimes were at your behest?" Lord Relvos picks up on the same thread immediately, his islander accent thickening in surprise.
Addie's fingers move faster in her skirt, as if she's picking the very skin from her bones, and Caspian knows what she will say.
He rushes to speak first, before she can.
"As I understand, the northman was in Lady Opheodra's employ, not Adelaine's, and under the sway of the same spells," Caspian says. He focuses on Addie, his heart twisting at the anguish in her eyes. "Had you ordered him not to use lethal force, would he have heeded you?"
Blinking, Addie calms infinitesimally, thinking, as Phamrus' frantic scribbling fills the brief quiet.
"I don't know," she finally answers. "I never tried."
Caspian turns to the council. "As my report last week relayed, I crossed blades with the northman Hallgrim in Underland. Even upon grievous injury, when the witch's spell was broken, he declared his loyalty to the witch and fought viciously. I believe we can safely assume he would have cut down anyone in his path to complete his mission. Including Adelaine."
All but Gorelvi slowly nod, murmuring agreement, though Duzig's stare lingers longer than the rest.
"A risk she took when she sprung a royal prisoner from his cell." Gorelvi flaps a hand at Addie as if shooing a fly. "I doubt she feared this northman would turn his blade on her."
"Adelaine," Caspian says. "Please stand and indicate the northman's stature."
Addie meets his gaze head-on, but after a moment, she obeys.
The council mutters when she stands on tiptoe, hand as high as she can manage to indicate his height.
Caspian makes a show of appraising Addie's indication, and nods. "Add perhaps another two inches, and you have an accurate measure of the man."
"He must've had a drop or two of Giant blood," Lord Duzig muses.
"I myself found him a formidable opponent," Caspian says. "This woman could not have stood against him. Seventeen of our finest could not."
The council nods, voicing grim agreement, and Addie takes her seat.
There, that ought to settle the matter.
Caspian relaxes into his throne, satisfied, but then Lord Cozimo clears his throat.
"Your Majesty, did you not say that the northmen continued to fight, even when the enchantment was dispelled? That he served her willingly?" Lord Cozimo gestures toward Addie. "How then can we be certain Miss Adelaine here did not also serve of her own volition?"
Eyes narrowed, Caspian curses himself all over again for allowing this inquest in the first place.
But for the moment, he holds his peace. It's worth seeing if any other council members will come to Addie's defence.
To his pleasant surprise, it is Lord Denclover who speaks in her favour.
"She displays the same disquiet present in all the other disenchanted," says the centaur.
"Indeed," Cozimo replies, "but surely slaves forced into hard labour should not be compared to right-hand positions within the witch's circle of power. The northman was enchanted as well, yet served freely."
"The northman Hallgrim was the only servant of the witch who fought in her name even after he was freed of the enchantment," Caspian explains, forcing a calm exterior. "As stated in my report, the northman Varn, another of the witch's right-hand men, could not explain his situation and all he knew of the witch fast enough - much like Adelaine. It was largely thanks to his information that I and my men escaped overt confrontation and thus annihilation in Underland."
"It seems to me," says Doctor Cornelius, "that we may accurately judge the sincerity of the disenchanted, Adelaine included, on their immediate actions after regaining their will."
"I'm inclined to agree," says Trumpkin, twirling his regent signet ring. "As His Majesty's explained, both Varn and Adelaine were instrumental in defeating the witch from the moment they were freed. Hallgrim appears to be the exception, not the rule."
Around the council chambers, Denclover, Cornelius, Relvos, and even Duzig nod in agreement.
Caspian's gaze strays to Addie. Though she hasn't listened when he's insisted on her innocence, perhaps hearing others defending her will ease her mind.
But Addie is staring at her lap, gripping her hands white-knuckle tight, and her eyes are as haunted as ever when she glances up at him.
Again, Lord Cozimo breaks the quiet.
"Could their eagerness to confess be the mark of a rightfully guilty conscience?" asks Cozimo. "An appeal for clemency from a crown oft-known to be more merciful than punishing?"
The Giants of Harfang would disagree heartily.
Caspian clenches his teeth against his boiling temper. The Narnia he has rebuilt is a land of mercy, as it ought to be. Too long did this land and all its people suffer under the yoke of his ancestors' brutality. But Cozimo's sentiment stinks of old Telmarine values, and an argument of righting generational wrongs will not sway him.
"How many criminals have you known who freely confess to their crimes?" Caspian snaps, not so measured as he ought to be. "Much less who have argued their own guilt? All the disenchanted display the same tormented remorse - even those closest to the witch, Hallgrim notwithstanding."
Lord Gorelvi scowls, scratching at his short beard. "It's a pity that this Varn is dead and cannot show us this remorse himself."
"For that, you may curse the Giants of Harfang," Caspian says. "But we have evidence enough that the witch is the guiltiest party without him."
"Perhaps," says Lord Cozimo.
"But what of the other prisoner?" Duzig leans onto his elbows, peering around the room. "The one killed in his cell?"
Addie inhales as if struck.
"Unfortunate, but likely a prisoners' altercation," Caspian says. "I am less concerned with the death of a violent criminal than of my loyal men."
While Marcos' death was regrettable, it's best blamed on Hallgrim. As he said nothing implicating Addie in the shock of the moment, there is no reason for anyone to dispute his word. Every killed guard was at the northman's hands; it's tidier to ascribe Marcos' demise to Hallgrim as well, lest the council speculate that Addie also wielded blades against his men. Though it leaves a sour taste in his mouth, Addie has been through enough.
Gorelvi, Cozimo, Duzig, and Relvos are all keenly observing Addie's blank stare and furiously busy hands.
"You saw this man killed?" says Relvos, his accent thickening, a play of curiosity and compassion softening his weathered face.
Addie speaks as if she's miles away. "Yes. There was… he… there was so much blood. He looked surprised, like he couldn't understand what—" Her face crumples.
She would not have killed Marcos in her right mind. If ever he doubted it, he cannot anymore.
The true Addie was not a murderer. She sits here, now, crying over a man who once defiled her, a man who does not deserve her tears.
"Did you know him?" asks Trumpkin, compassion softening his usual gruff manner.
Addie doesn't seem to hear him right away; she blinks rapidly and stills, grief spilling down her cheeks, before nodding.
"A long time ago. We were friends, before…"
"He was imprisoned for accessory to murder and treason, among other crimes," Caspian interrupts, as much for Addie's benefit as the council's. Marcos was no innocent man; had all his crimes been known, he would have met execution rather than imprisonment.
Yet the torment on Addie's face does not abate.
"Were you close with this criminal at the time of his crimes?" Gorelvi, again - pressing the issue when he ought to be silent, to let Addie compose herself.
Addie shakes her head.
Doctor Cornelius sits back, head tilted as he strokes his beard. "Please describe the circumstances of this man's death."
Addie tangles her hands together, her knuckles white, and explains haltingly. "I'd already sedated the guards and freed Hallgrim. He was getting his… his armour and sword and—" She rubs a spot on her palm. "He - Marcos - the prisoner, I mean - I guess he woke up. He recognised me, wanted me to let him out. S-something… favour for an old—" She trails off, staring blankly ahead.
Caspian clenches his jaw and presses his spine into his throne.
He cannot go to her - he cannot.
He ought to have asked her about this in private, before they arrived in the capital.
"Why didn't you release him?" Lord Cozimo's frown is wavering between skepticism and a hint of the sympathy already worn by Trumpkin and Relvos.
"Indeed," says Gorelvi. "You'd already freed your assassin. Why not release an old friend?"
Flinching, Addie mumbles as if reciting a dream - or a nightmare. "I - we - Hallgrim and I, we didn't need him." Her hands twist around each other, miming a washing motion. "He said he'd call for the guards. Then he did and…"
She's trembling.
"I see," Caspian says, hurrying to close this line of questioning. "And the northman silenced him."
Addie winces, her lips moving but no sound escaping. She stares into nothing, hands shaking, a bloodied thumb streaking her skirt with red.
"Call a recess," he whispers to Doctor Cornelius. "Now."
The Doctor bangs the gavel without hesitation. Addie startles, snapping upright in her chair and falling silent.
"Council adjourned for the afternoon recess," Cornelius intones. "We will reconvene in one hour's time."
A few of the council grumble at the sudden interruption, but most rise without complaint, eager for lunch and a chance to stretch their legs.
Caspian grips his chair's solid arms and stays seated. If he stands, he'll run to her, and the entire council will see his judgement is compromised in this matter.
He waits, jaw clenched and muscles coiled tight, until the door guard comes to fetch Addie and he sees Rainroot waiting outside.
He knew this would be too much for her. He knew.
Addie
She has to tell him. Has to tell all of them that it wasn't just Hallgrim, that even he was surprised, Didn't think you had that in you, and there was no reason to do it, not really. Marcos was already suffering for what he'd done, and…
Hallgrim would've done it. She didn't need to.
But in that moment, her mouth tasting of forest leaves and vomit and the seed she spit out over a castle wall, she wanted to.
Opheodra sent her to the castle to take back what was hers.
The rings, it was supposed to be the rings - not revenge on someone who didn't mean anything anymore.
The sound of muffled conversation outside her door reaches her, distantly.
"Addie."
She jolts, knocking her elbow on the window, hands falling from her wet face. She didn't hear Caspian come in.
"It was me." The truth spills out, tastes like blood in her mouth. "It wasn't Hallgrim, it was me. I killed him."
Caspian approaches like she's a wounded rabbit, instead of the killer she is.
It wasn't her.
It was her.
Marcos' blood is on her hands.
"Not truly," Caspian says.
She takes him in, concern eclipsing the shock, disgust, and judgement that should be in his face, and her stomach drops.
"You knew?"
He nods.
"Then why—but—I should be on trial."
"You are, despite my better judgement."
Caspian pulls the chair from the vanity, wooden legs scraping over the rug, and sits so close his body heat kisses her shoulder.
"You weren't in your right mind, Addie." Caspian reaches out, only to let his hand fall. "You were six months enchanted by then."
And how happy she was for it!
Addie reaches to pick at a piece of raw skin on her thumb, but Caspian takes her hand before she can and holds fast.
"I killed him," she says, hoarse with the ugliness of the truth. "Enchanted or not, I killed him, Caspian. In cold blood, for no real reason, just because for a split second, I…" When she blinks, Marcos' shocked face stares back from the dark behind her eyelids, and a phantom hilt slick with blood weighs in her palm. She could taste forest leaves and the sticky remnants of the sedative Caspian gave her so long ago, and she…
"I wanted to," Addie whispers. "I think I actually wanted to."
To that, Caspian has no immediate answer.
Eyes stinging, Addie scratches the damning itch on her palm, the ghost of blood that wasn't hers flickering as she looks for stains of the crime.
"Addie."
Caspian pries her fingers away, forcing them to uncurl as he tangles them with his.
If he makes another excuse for her, she'll snap at him, and he'll well deserve it.
Instead, he surprises her.
"I almost did the same."
Addie blinks.
That can't be right; Caspian had Marcos thrown in the dungeon, not executed.
Caspian looks up, and the look in his eyes stills her tongue, takes the very breath from her lungs.
"You were ensorcelled," he says. "I was merely drunk. I went down to the dungeon, drew my blade, and entered his cell with every intention of striking him down."
Why would he…?
"But you… I… why?" Addie blurts.
Caspian's eyes darken. "Imprisonment was too lenient for all his crimes, especially against you. I sought retribution - for your sake, and for mine."
Addie's heart thunders. Caspian wouldn't… he threw Marcos in prison. That was supposed to be the end of it. That was the end of it.
Caspian smooths a thumb over her knuckles, a warm anchor she clings to.
"You unwittingly delivered his deserved sentence. And given that I almost did the same with far less excuse, I cannot and will not hold this against you."
He should!
"But you stopped. I didn't."
She could have stood back and done nothing. Could have let Hallgrim do it without a word of complaint. Marcos' blood would still be on her conscience, just like all the guards Hallgrim cut down, but at least it wouldn't be her hand that—
"Doctor Cornelius stopped me. I did not stop myself." Caspian's gaze drifts down, studying their joined hands as if some secret lies there. "It was… not long after you left."
Her breath hitches.
Then she almost drove him to…to—
He was destroyed. Don't expect the same man you knew.
Addie's lips part on a horribly insufficient apology, but Caspian speaks first.
"It wasn't right," he acknowledges with a hard swallow. "Neither your actions nor mine. But it's over now, you are yourself again, and I will not have you destroy yourself over something you had no control over."
That's just it - maybe she did have some control. Enough that she could've stopped herself.
"You can't know that," Addie says. "Maybe I did—"
"Would you do it now?"
Addie scowls. Caspian's used this argument before, and she likes it even less now.
"No, but what matters is I already did it. I killed him!"
With a sigh, Caspian tightens his hold nearly to bruising. It doesn't hurt, but it's close enough that she can breathe a little easier.
Breathing brings clarity - a reminder of why she wanted to talk to Caspian in the first place.
The council thinks Hallgrim killed Marcos.
"I have to tell them," Addie says. "The council, they need to know."
Caspian frowns and shakes his head. "No. Let them believe it was Hallgrim."
"I can't—" Addie wipes her face on her sleeve.
"You must."
She looks away. Caspian guides her back, his grip gentle but firm on her chin.
"Lord Gorelvi would gladly see you executed, Addie. If you admit to this, it will be the springboard he needs to argue you were not forcibly enchanted, not merely complicit, but a willing party to the witch's crimes."
You poor thing. You must know they'll execute you for everything you've done.
Addie shivers. Opheodra was right.
Caspian's thumb tracing up her cheek pulls her back to the present.
"I will let nothing of the sort happen to you. Nothing, do you understand?" He leans close, eyes heavy with promises he shouldn't be making, not to her. "But I need your help. Don't make this more difficult for both of us."
She's not making it difficult, she's being honest. Exactly as she should!
But execution…
Panic flares, shivering up her neck. Did she survive Underland, Harfang, and Opheodra just to die here?
Caspian wouldn't allow it; he said he wouldn't. Of that, she's certain.
But what if… what if that's…
Addie's heart thunders in her ears. She does have blood on her hands. She killed Marcos in cold blood and was an accomplice to dozens more deaths.
No, hundreds. After Opheodra tore the gnomes from Bism, the number of humans in Bism began shrinking - sold to Harfang, most likely, because Opheodra didn't need them anymore.
My servants have earned their respite. Their work for me is finished.
Those are deaths she enabled.
Does she even have the right to argue she shouldn't die, after all that?
God, she doesn't want to die, and she didn't mean to get anyone killed, just wanted to get home, and it wasn't all her, but—
But without her, there might've been more survivors, Marcos would still be alive (and rightfully imprisoned), and there wouldn't have been seventeen guards killed on Christmas.
"They can't judge me fairly unless they know everything I've done," Addie murmurs, fighting past the fear trembling in her jaw. "Everything I'm capable of."
"Not all of them are judging you fairly," Caspian counters. "Don't give them more weapons to bludgeon you with. I will grant you a royal pardon if it comes to that, but you would still be in danger."
Addie winces. Maybe they are being fair, and Caspian just disagrees. He's been too lenient with her, too understanding, and it doesn't make sense.
She pulls away and wraps her arms around her knees. "You shouldn't be protecting me."
"Yes, I should. I have not…" Caspian takes a deep, shuddering breath like he's in pain. "I've failed in that too many times. I cannot…" He clears his throat. "Not again."
Failed? What, in protecting her?
Addie shakes her head. If anything, Caspian's tried to protect her too much - both as a prince, and now.
"Hallgrim needed no enchantment to obey the witch," Caspian says. "You did. But I do not trust all the council to know - or care - for the difference."
Maybe they shouldn't care. Whether she was a willing servant or not, people are still dead because of her, good people who could be home with their families instead of resting in their premature graves.
Caspian almost was, too.
"You've been claiming more culpability than is your due," he continues, soft with absolution she has to be imagining - so greedy, always, for what she doesn't deserve. "I know you want justice, but there is none to be had in claiming the witch's crimes as your own."
Of course there is, because they're not just Opheodra's crimes - they're hers, too. She should be punished!
"It was my hands that did them, Caspian. Mine, not hers. I stole the rings and the cordial. I killed Marcos. God, I even attacked you!"
Teeth ready, Addie lifts her free hand to her mouth, but Caspian grabs it first, his face so severe she wants to shrink from it.
There's nowhere to go - she's caged between him and the window.
Despite his hard expression, his tone is gentle.
"You've been summoned to speak truth, not your own self-flagellations."
She's said nothing that isn't true.
"I am. It can be true that she enchanted me and that I did terrible things and I didn't do enough to stop her. I…" Regret spills down her cheeks. "I was grateful. I didn't care what she was or what she wanted or why until it was too late, and then I did nothing to—"
"I saw you in Underland, Addie! I saw you kneeling at her feet like a puppet!" Caspian's face contorts, his grip tightening almost to bruising. "I never truly understood how you could've done all those things until then. But the council wasn't there. They did not see what I saw."
Good - they're unbiased. They can judge what she's done without the veil of pity.
If just one of them wants her head, but the others don't, maybe that's not… unreasonable. As long as it doesn't actually happen.
God, does she even have the right to think that?
She doesn't want to die, but she doesn't know what true justice would be for everything she's done.
Even if she did, her fate's held between Caspian and the council.
Addie blinks.
Not entirely. Her fate is still her own - she can confess to the council despite Caspian's wishes, and gamble her life on hoping they won't follow Lord Gorelvi's opinion on her sentence. Or she can stay silent and let Caspian protect her.
Her choice. Her life.
She shouldn't be the one deciding this. She has no right.
Caspian sighs like he knows what she's thinking.
"Justice has already been served. The witch is banished, Hallgrim is dead, Harfang has surrendered, and all the disenchanted who were unwilling are recovering. The only purpose of the council's investigation is for them to recognise what I already know to be true."
How can he be so certain? How can he even look at her after…
She's never given him any reason to trust her.
She doesn't realise she voiced the question until Caspian answers.
"You saved my life." He looks down, studying their hands as if he gives them credit for it. "You gave up the one thing you've wanted since returning to Narnia to bring back the cordial, and I would not be here if you hadn't."
Of course she did. It was less a choice than an instinct - as inevitable as the sun setting and rising again, as waves washing away footprints on a sandy shore. She wasn't giving up her greatest desire; in that moment, she only had one.
For Caspian to survive.
He was dying, and she had to save him. Nothing else mattered.
"You shouldn't have been there at all. If I'd gotten the rings back earlier, you never would've had to go to Underland."
She explains waking up when Opheodra used the rings, the brief rush of clarity, a half-formed plan that failed before she could set one foot into the hall, and Caspian's face slackens.
"You fought through her spell even then?"
"I failed."
"No."
Addie turns away to stare into the late afternoon sky - pink creeping over blue, the first blush of sunset staining puffy white clouds - but Caspian's reflection stares back in the window, dark eyes boring into her.
"You didn't," he murmurs.
It'd be so much easier to believe him. But wanting the easy way out is how Opheodra controlled her so effortlessly.
The truth is this: that she failed over and over again, she almost condemned all of Narnia to the witch's whims, and she almost got Caspian killed.
And she did kill someone - in cold blood. She wouldn't do it now, but she did it then.
Swallowing, Addie avoids Caspian's gaze. He's too earnest - more knife in her stomach than a caress, drawing her helplessly back to meet his eyes.
"Say nothing more about Marcos to anyone," Caspian says. "Let the council move on to more important matters. It'll be over soon."
When she doesn't answer, Caspian turns her to face him, his fingers warm on her chin.
"I need you to trust me," he says.
It's not just trusting him to protect her. This means trusting Caspian's interpretation of justice, too.
Trusting his certainty more than her own self-loathing.
"I don't deserve this - you helping me," she whispers. "I don't."
Caspian pulls her hand into his lap, tracing slow circles against her palm, carefully avoiding the scabs there.
"If you must think in terms of punishment, can you not accept you've already served it?"
Addie frowns. She hasn't, really - has she?
"Those months of enchantment were crueller to you than any judgement in any court in Narnia could ever be," Caspian says. "Even now, its effects haunt you. Is that not penance enough?"
She… hadn't thought about it like that.
Is that penance, or just well-deserved consequences?
"Trust me, Addie," Caspian murmurs, soft as a prayer. "Let me help you."
She takes a shuddering breath and agrees.
A/N: Soooo, how do we feel about Caslina kinda sorta finally working together to solve a problem? Ish? 😂 Chapter 93 will be coming in about 2 weeks, TBD!
Chapter 93 Preview:
"Get changed," Bruna whispers, "and come with me."
"Where?"
"To the king, you daft girl, where else?"
