For King and Country ⭒Caspian x Reader⭒

Chapter 12

The chill from the open window sifted into my room as the revelry still going on in the camps below filled the night air. The dissonance of different songs, played by different instruments, sang by different people, lifted up to me as I paced in front of my fireplace.

Hours earlier Caspian had left me in the garden after having kissed me. That still felt strange to think of. I found myself reaching up and touching my lips now and then as if I somehow could grab that kiss and make it tangible again.

As he left, I watched him disappear into the hedges to set things straight, the way that he felt he needed to. A stone bench caught me as my shaky knees gave out beneath me, as I tried to breathe before I made a move to leave the garden myself. My head was spinning and the corset was just a little too tight for the staccato breaths that I was taking in.

Was that even real?

You know in dreams how everything has a misty palette to it? That's how it felt. Like it was some machination of my own that I built while I fell asleep, but the smile on my face was very real. The muscles cheeks felt tired from being taut from the joy I was experiencing.

Instead of going back through the ballroom, exposed to whatever was taking place, I elected to go in through a back entrance, which was usually dark, damp, and unlit, but with the number of guests milling about Caspian must have asked that the servants light the torches in the back passages. My shoes echoed off of the stone steps, while the heavy material of my gown rasped against the gritty stairs.

Inside, the halls were fairly empty, save for the few people headed back to their rooms for the evening, spent out from the night. Lady Priscilla of Stormness Head was walking down the halls with her wife, their arms were looped together while Priscilla's wife laid her head down on her spouse's shoulder, her gray hair falling down her back. Priscilla gently laid her cheek against her wife's head as they slowly paced down the hall. It was so rare to see two people of power actually in love with each other, yet the two of them didn't let their affection be silent.

Sometimes I wondered what the courts would look like if everyone married whoever they wanted. Would bickering and petty politics end now that when they laid their heads down at night they were beside someone who cares for them? How often had dissatisfaction with their own lives leaked into the debates and disputes that peppered court conversations?

A snap of a piece of firewood startled me from my musing as I continued my pacing, waiting for that sound, the sound of Caspian's door clicking shut. That was my signal, the red flag they wave at the beginning of a race, the beginning.

What did Blair say when he told her he would not only not be proposing to her, but to no one? More interestingly, what had Corinne said, if anything? My bet is that she just gave him a thumbs up.

Out of fear of retribution, I had shoved a chest in front of my door in case a crazed Narnian decided to take Caspian's decision out on me. Although it was a silly thought, my brain always jumped to far-fetched conclusions, when the court's preferred method of attack was pettiness.

Footsteps clunked down the hall with the slight rattle of buckles against a pair of boots, and there it was, that sound, the sound. The door was shut, and he was in there waiting.

What if he changed his mind? I'm sure tonight has been complete insanity for him. He won't be up for conversation of any kind. I'm sure.

I tossed around every reason why I shouldn't go to his room, but my brain was doing a lovely job of dismantling every argument against the unfounded anxieties rattling around in my head. As I prepared to leave my room, I ran through the conversation I'd been building in my head of what I'd say and then what'd he'd say, just so my nerves didn't lurch my stomach into turmoil.