Chapter Text
Caspian woke abruptly. A hand covered his mouth, but the man it belonged to was familiar, standing above him and looking at him through glasses sitting low on his nose.
“Five more minutes,” he requested sleepily, relaxing as he pulled the professor's hand from his face.
“You won’t be watching the stars tonight, my prince,” came his worried reply. “Come, we must hurry.”
Doctor Cornelius pulled him from the bed, and with growing concern, Caspian followed him hurriedly to the wardrobe across the room.
“Professor, what is going on?”
“Your aunt has given birth… to a son,” he answered before pushing beyond the back paneling into a secret passageway.
Understanding flooded through Caspian in the moment he stepped into the wardrobe after him, but despite the urgency now burning in his blood, he turned back to peer into his room through a crack in the door to see that General Glozelle and several of his men had entered and surrounded his bed, crossbows ready.
He stayed just long enough to see them fire into the bed, before turning to follow Doctor Cornelius down a winding stairway. It let out near the armory, and after what he’d just seen, he was quick to grab armor and a sword before turning to the stables.
“You must make for the woods.”
“The woods?”
“They won’t follow you there.”
Caspian wasn’t sure he would want to go, himself, but there was a desperation in his professor’s voice he did not have the heart to question. Besides that, he was already being handed something wrapped tightly. There wasn’t time to question anything. He tucked it away quickly.
“It has taken me many years to find it. Do not use it except at your greatest need.”
“Will I ever see you again?” He asked, worried more for his professor than some lost treasure.
“I hope so, my dear prince. There is so much I meant to tell you. Everything you know is about to change.”
Caspian knew that better than most; he was only a few months shy of his eighteenth birthday, when he would be crowned king, successor to his father, Caspian IX. But the birth of his nephew was enough to set everything on its head at the castle.
“Now go!”
He cut through the courtyard, making it nearly across the bridge before the fireworks sounded.
“A son, a son. Lord Miraz has been blessed with a son!”
He urged Destier on, chased by Telmarine soldiers on horseback through the city. They rode hard, through waters and across fields until they reached the woods. Caspian pressed on, into the unknown before risking a look back over his shoulder. He didn’t see them, but he also did not see the branch ahead of him until he turned back to the front.
Caspian was knocked from his horse, caught by the stirrup, and dragged along until he could finally unhook himself. He lied there for awhile, catching his breath, and then sat up to look around.
Suddenly, to the right, the tree opened up, or rather a door in the tree opened up and two figures stepped out.
They were short, squat men, but something about that seemed wrong to Caspian. They weren’t exactly men, as he was.
“He’s seen us!” one of them called.
The other drew a sword and ran toward him. Then, when just a few paces away, he stopped. His eye had caught something on the ground nearby and Caspian looked. The horn.
Behind them came the sound of hooves. The Telmarines had caught up.
“Take care of him!” cried the man nearest him, taking off toward the approaching Telmarines.
Unsure of what that might mean for him and determined not to find out, Caspian grabbed the horn.
“No!”
He heard the sound of its call echo through his bones before he felt a sharp knock to his head, and nothing else.