With Courage [King Caspian X OC]

Chapter 29

"Wait here." Marco stopped Amber with a firm hand against her shoulder and walked up to Caspian's door several paces away.

Amber blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I have a plan."

"So do I. It involves me knocking on the door and hoping he answers."

"Well, mine's better than that. Just wait for your cue."

"My cue?" She said incredulously. "You realise I've waited three years for this, right?"

"So have I, now shh. Let me have some fun with this."

She eyed the door suspiciously as Marco cleared his throat and straightened before it. He shook out his shoulders and raised a hand to knock, turning to Amber with a grin as his fist hovered millimetres away from the wood. She rolled her eyes. "Get on with it."

Though she wasn't keen to admit it, he was helping.

Amber had stopped counting the days in which gravity clung to her shoes like mud. Really, it had never been a feeling of note before her time in Narnia, where she first felt that tug of freedom, her foot slipping easily from the earth. Afterwards, it became impossible to ignore. Her tether to the ground, pulling her into its grasp like quicksand, forcing her to stay still, stay put. Never chase for what you want. Fate will keep it from your grasp.

Marco knocked. Three rasps, matched with three jolts in her chest.

"Enter." His voice, oh that voice. How she had missed him, the weight of it suddenly crushing when faced with all that she had lost, fresh and sharp in her mind once more. "I'll be with the council shortly, I was only – oh! Marco, hello."

"Your Majesty." Marco stepped into the open doorway. Amber watched his back bow as they spoke, a shaft of sunlight unspooling into the corridor. "Wonderful weather today, wouldn't you say?" She resisted the urge to swipe a hand against her eyes. Subtle, she snorted to herself.

"Yes, it's a beautiful day. I might go sailing if the wind is in my favour."

"An excellent idea, Your Majesty. Perhaps you would like some company?"

The earnest pause from Caspian was almost too much for her. "I appreciate the offer Marco, but I'd quite like the time to clear my mind. I'm meeting with the council soon, so it will certainly be needed."

"I wasn't offering my company, Your Majesty." I suppose that's my cue.

Marco stepped aside as, for the first time in three years, Amber met Caspian's eye.

He was not the Caspian she had known on the Dawn Treader, but he was equally not the stately King she had imagined meeting at Cair Paravel.

With his body still half turned towards the balcony, he seemed unwilling to submit himself to enjoying the early afternoon breeze, as if it were a luxury he had not yet earnt. Dressed in a deep purple tunic and an overcoat of thick brown leather, she could trace the memory of the man she knew and loved and lost with this new vision of the future. A crown resting beside his bed, abandoned. His hair, still long enough to brush against his shoulders, half tied back to reveal a stubbled jaw.

Was he still her Caspian? Was she still his Amber?

Narnia had given her armour. London had reinforced its strength. Nothing was the same as it was.

Was this a reunion or an introduction?

The shutters behind Caspian's expression were cast away. Disbelief unfurled like a flower in full bloom, both soft and brilliant.