Chapter 25
Caspian
Keira looked back at him, eyes swimming as she searched for an answer. The answer that had eluded him for three years worth of sleepless nights.
Her full lips parted as her gaze fell. Slowly, her hand drifted into her wool coat. Caspian’s brow furrowed as she retrieved a piece of paper, a letter that had been hidden within. She held it out to him wordlessly, still not meeting his eyes.
Caspian had to remind his arm how to bend, to reach, his fingers to close around the soft parchment. It was wrinkled and worn down by the years. The creases were set and in places coming undone. He could only assume she had kept this on her person all this time…
He opened it with care and read.
It was from the war offices, dated after the battle at Icespire Pass…
The breath left him as he read farther. It is with the deepest regret that I must inform you of the loss of First Sword Caspian… It was a mistake. It was a lie. How had- Had she really thought-
Realization came over him like an ice of icy waters. Of course she had. She’d told him so. I lost someone… he died at Icespire Pass.
Caspian stared back at her, letter forgotten in his hand.
Her shoulders were shaking against the sobs she was clearly trying to silence.
“Did you- You must have-” Caspian collected his racing thought. “Did you look for me?”
Her mouth opened, and a shuddering breath escaped. “I went there. I went to Icespire Pass. I saw- I saw the death there. So many… How could you have- How could anyone have survived that?”
Caspian’s hand came to cover his mouth. He thought of the weeks he’d spent unconscious, recovering in the fort’s hospital.
After that, he’d been in and out of consciousness, not even able to speak his own name.
It had been two months after the battle that he’d been able to send his first letter, penned by one of his healers.
“I wrote to you as soon as I could,” Caspian said. “When you didn’t answer, I came back for you, but the tower was empty,” he said. His tone was flat. “I rode all the way to Silverfell to find you, and no one knew where you’d gone.”
Keira sniffed. “I couldn’t stand to stay at the tower without you, to be around Ignatius after what he’d done.
I was in too much pain to care about my studies.
It all seemed meaningless. I just left everything and went south, like we talked about.
” She sniffed again, more resolutely, still looking down at her hands.
“And now Ignatius is gone. He wrote to me… when he got sick… But I ran too far-” That was all she could take.
Her proud shoulders collapsed into sobs.
Caspian pulled her into his arms. His fingers curled through her thick black hair as she shattered against his chest. He could only imagine the pain she had suffered, to think he was actually lost forever.
Finding her gone, he’d been heartbroken and confused.
If the venom had been allowed to finish its work…
He would have been devastated. Destroyed.
“I should have stayed. I would have been there with him. I- I wouldn’t have lost you.” Her frame trembled in his arms. “I was just so angry. I couldn’t-”
He hushed her, rubbing his hand over her back. “I’m here now. We found each other again. That’s all that matters.”
Keira clung to him so tightly he was unsure if she would ever let him go. Caspian lowered his head, kissing her hair, breathing in her scent, like summer sun and growing things.
His nose brushed lightly against her forehead, and Keira looked up at him.
Her green eyes were still wet with tears.
His heart skipped a beat as he absorbed her features.
The warmth had returned to her cheeks, her lips once again rosy and full.
With her in his arms, the rest of the world grew dim.
Even the last three years faded like an unpleasant dream.
This wasn’t at all like his fantasies, his memories, which like her letter had been worn down by time.
After conjuring her memory for so long, the subtle changes in her were undeniable.
She was fully a woman now, her curves more pronounced, the lines of her cheekbones, her jaw, more defined than they had been.
Caspian savoured her with every sense, the familiar and the new, because it rooted him deeper into the reality of this moment.
She was here with him now, and it truly was the only thing that mattered.
Her dark lashes fluttered up at him, and his blood heated. Her hands ran up his chest, and he could see only her. Keira’s lips parted, and he was undone.
Kissing Keira was coming home. All at once it was achingly familiar.
The feeling of her in his arms, her scent, the smoothness of her skin.
Yet, it was not the same. It began slow and deep, searching.
Her touch glided over his arms, his chest, his hair, as Caspian held her firm against him.
He brushed his thumb over her cheek, coaxing her deeper into his kiss.
A fire kindled within him as he felt the sweeping motions of her tongue pass his lips.
Their explorations grew into something more…
desperate and consuming, wild. Until the heat of it made him feel as though his heart might explode.
Her fingers twined in his hair, gripped his clothes, clawed his back.
Caspian was holding onto her for dear life, part of him still afraid that this was some magnificent dream.
If he let her go that she might drift away.
But it was more than that too. The way the blood was rushing through him now, he wasn’t sure if he could.
He didn’t realize he was moving with her until his back collided with the wall of the cave.
Keira’s body pressed into him more, her teeth drug against his bottom lip.
An unbidden groan stirred in his throat.
Caspian ran his fingers through her hair, down the curve of her spine to cup her backside.
It was fuller than he remembered, and curse him if it wasn’t perfect enough to be the end of him.