For King and Country ⭒Caspian x Reader⭒

Chapter 22

"Princess? No!" One woman cried out at the sight of my face peering through the curtains. My very presence in the country was the symbol of loss—even the most powerful couldn't escape.

The carriage came to a sudden halt. The guards began to shout, "Move out of the way!" As the sound of rumbling footsteps thundered around me. I leaned out of the carriage once more, and throngs of people had flooded the streets blocking our route.

A hand grabbed my wrist through the open carriage window, and an elderly woman stood there; big blue eyes contrasting from the grey pallor of her skin that she had inherited from the spiritless skies, "Princess," The woman hissed.

"Who are you?" I whispered, leaning closer to the woman.

As I leaned forward, the woman shoved a heavy item wrapped in sackcloth into my hands. She looked around to see if anyone had seen the conspiratorial exchange, and turned her glassy eyes back to me, "Do what you must, girl," She gave my wrist a more tender squeeze and whispered, "For Narnia. For Aslan."

The carriage began to lurch forward again as the crowd parted for our entourage. The crowds had fallen silent again, no loud commotion or shuffling of feet; just murmurs, rumors, and speculation.

My heart took up a rhythmic song against my chest as I unfolded the sackcloth. As the scratchy cloth fell away, my hands almost lost purchase of the item enclosed—a dagger.

Do what you must.

Somehow word of my impending arrival had been leaked to the Narnian underground. They were arming me for battle. No one needed to brief me on what this symbol meant—If Erik gives me the opening, I need to take it.

Underneath the dagger was a leather holster. Quickly, I hoisted up my skirts and buckled the contraption against my skin, and slid the weapon into its home.

My father had given me a dagger and it had saved my life once, but it was stripped from me once I boarded the ship set for Vidalia. But this—this wasn't a means of protection. This was a tool of intent. A blade imbued with a mission.

The carriage rattled along, taking sharp turns left and right, stopping suddenly; no secret messages passed on at those stops. But with each roll of the wooden wheels over the cobblestone, it took us closer to wherever Erik had asked that I be delivered.

Will it be the gallows? The dungeon?

The carriage halted again, and the sound of metal creaking punctuated the heavy silence hanging inside the dark transport.

I knew that sound. I had grown up hearing it. The castle gates were opening for the carriage. I was entering the belly of the beast.

My hand reached out beside me, expecting to find Caspian's. That had happened many times over my journey. Sometimes I forgot that he wasn't there sitting beside me, or cradling me at night, and I'd roll over to tell him something or touch him, but only the phantom of his memory seared the air.

The door to the carriage came opened to entrance steps carved from an obsidian-like stone, streaks of white marble bleeding through it—some would have called it an impurity or an aberration, but it was like a jet of light streaking through the darkness. Hope.

Every step up the stairs pulled my shoulders done as if boulders were being stacked upon them, for I knew what awaited behind them—every nightmare that I had beheld in my sleep in Narnia. My past, the life I had owned for many years, had become a harbinger of death.

The mighty doors swung open, revealing the low-lit castle. Shadows seemed to eke out of every corner and its tendrils reached out to grab me.

On the walls were the trophies, the taxidermied bodies of Narnian creatures. As a child, it had not bothered me. They're animals they said. But I had learned that they were more human, more alive than most of us. My eyes examined the floor. I couldn't gaze upon the bodies any longer.