Chapter Six
Adeline
“What do you think?”
Adeline eyed the spread of pastries — there were dozens of them. Piles of the same glossy, gleaming buns neatly arranged on multiple sets of tiered plates that crowded the long wooden dining table. It was… excessive. A little bizarre, really.
“I think,” she said slowly, “you could open a private bakery.”
Aunt Eleni laughed.
It was not the sunny, buoyant sound that Adeline recalled from her golden summer on these shores, though perhaps those memories were warped now — exaggerated by the contrast to her parting memory of her aunt.
The sight of her standing on that dock, brow knitted fiercely and tears streaming freely down her cheeks while Adeline’s father bundled her aboard their departing ship, never once turning to wave goodbye.
They had not left on the highest note, and their every meeting since then had been formal.
Performative. Niceties exchanged beneath the sharp eyes of Selma’s gossiping courtiers.
This was new territory for them both, but she could appreciate that Eleni was trying — exceptionally hard, if the overabundance of sweet treats was any indication.
Adeline had first mentioned her craving just hours ago, on their awkward carriage ride from the docks to the Imperial Palace.
They’d bounced through the cobbled, uphill city streets and for a moment, Adeline had straddled time itself.
She had been a child again, her father by her side, laughing as he scrambled to keep up with her scattered attention so he could explain each new sight and sound and scent.
It was his voice she’d heard in that moment as she took in the world around her.
Those pink flowers spilling over the walls are nycta — our national flower. Blooms year round, but it’s positively humming with honeybees in the summer.
Smell that zest in the air, Mischief? Clementine buns, from a world-famous bakery.
See the way the road sparkles? That’s the sunlight catching little flecks of crystal in the stone. It’ll be warm beneath your feet when we step outside.
Hold your breath Ade, we’re passing the fish market. Ah now, it’s not that bad.
But it had been that bad, all those years ago and again that very afternoon.
Just as she had at the age of seven, Adeline reacted a second too late, body tightening both with her withheld breath and an odd sense of betrayal, for she’d been filling her lungs with the sweet scent of baked goods mere moments before.
The smell of brine, hot and wafting beneath the midday sun, was a solid force with enough might to rock the carriage.
She’d given an involuntary groan, and at her side, Eleni had exhaled on an awkward laugh.
“You always did forget about the fishmongers,” she’d said.
Sitting too still on the plush carriage bench, her fingers sunk tight in the cushions beneath her, the Empress had watched her niece with those familiar brown eyes.
Her own eyes; her father’s, too. On Silas’s face, Adeline would have read that same expression all too easily — it was hope.
They’d not spoken in so very long; so many hurt feelings and unanswered letters ago.
Some surly, regressive instinct within had her reaching for a quirked brow and a clipped reply, but she stopped, drawing herself up short with notable effort.
Unanswered letters.
Adeline had tensed against the thought, seized it lest it form legs and run away with her — but the slight bulk in her skirt pocket was a brand against her thigh, burning and insistent. A letter she would never answer.
She had made herself smile; made it warm.
“Well if memory serves, I’ll need at least three clementine buns to erase the hot fish taste from my mouth.”
She’d made a face, and Eleni’s smile had loosened and spread, relief overtaking her.
And that had been that — an awkward moment averted.
Only it hadn’t been — just saved for later, as it turned out.
And now here they stood in her Aunt’s bright and airy dining room, surrounded by wine fountains, and sunlit stone, and far too many clementine buns.
The warm salt breeze wove through the open archways and sent their cloyingly sweet scent washing over her.
The effect was a little sickly, but she made herself move forward and reached for a bun.
Its glaze had begun to run in the thick heat, and it pooled around her fingertips where they dented the soft pastry, glueing her knuckles together.
She took one giant bite and smiled a stiff and sticky smile. Eleni beamed back at her.
“No more fish taste?”
Adeline gagged on her pastry and her aunt’s smile dropped.
“Sorry,” she winced.
“S’okay,” Adeline managed. “Ask me again in about four buns time.”
“Are you really going to eat four of those things?”
The voice that sounded from the entryway was high and incredulous.
Adeline glanced up to see a small figure edging into the room with her arms crossed tight across her chest. She could be no more than thirteen, even if she held herself with the air of a courtier who had seen far too much over a long and eventful life.
The girl considered Adeline imperiously, through bright brown eyes that may as well have been a coat of arms; a Vanjir child, there was no mistaking that.
Adeline tried not to notice the hostile current that spun outward from where the girl stood and threatened to drag her under.
“I could be convinced to share,” she said, smiling warmly.
The girl gave a vague hmph, and let her gaze flick over Adeline, assessing her head to toe before cocking a discerning brow.
“Lyra,” Eleni said, sharp enough to have the girl dropping her crossed arms. “This is your cousin, Princess Adeline Beira of Eisalaan.”
“I know who she is,” Lyra said beneath her breath. She might have rolled her eyes too, but she dropped into a curtsey before Adeline could tell for sure.
Adeline mirrored her, dipping her head to hide the slight twist of her lips. Daughters knew she remembered being Lyra’s age. Remembered how she’d felt like a moody impostor in her own body, every word coming out wry and snippy whether she meant them to or not.
“A pleasure to meet you, cousin.”
“Alright,” said Lyra.
Adeline crammed another bite of pastry into her mouth to keep from laughing, and Lyra wrinkled her nose with clear distaste. Eleni sighed.
“Where is your grandfather?”
The girl snorted. “Only Isa knows. He left the parlour before I did, but he moves like a drunk turtle on four broken legs.”
“Lyra.”
“What’s she done now?”
At the sound of a new voice, hoarse and low, Lyra’s grin overtook her. It was a lovely smile, actually; the apples of her cheeks glowed with her joy, setting the whole of her small face alight.
“Ah, Papou! I’m impressed,” she said cheekily. “Only took you forty minutes.”
The old man shuffled around the entryway and Eleni hurried to meet him, then helped him to a seat at the top of the dining table. He winked at Lyra as he went.
“This old turtle has a bit of life in him yet, agameni.”
The old man sank into his seat with a groan, laid his hands on the armrests and then, satisfied that he was settled, he fixed his eye on Adeline.
“Now, sweet Adeleni. You remember me?”
Adeline smiled. “Of course I do.”
And she did, a bit; Papou was her father’s father.
He’d been ill the last time she’d been here.
She thought that might have been the reason they’d come here, in fact, so Silas could help Eleni with the then-Emperor’s duties in his absence.
Still, he’d made time for her. She remembered sitting at the foot of his bed, and that he’d recited old fairytales to her from memory; half of them in Dhaliaan that she didn’t quite understand.
She remembered that his room had been thick with flowers; an indoor meadow.
“I named my horse Papou,” she told him. “My father found me a mare about a year after we visited, and I insisted on naming her after you.”
This set Lyra’s eyes to rolling once more.
“You named your mare Grandfather?”
“I was little,” Adeline said, with a shrug and a gesture at Papou. “I thought it was his name.”
Papou laughed heartily, his eyes disappearing into folds of wrinkles with his smile stretched wide, thin shoulders juddering beneath his ears. Then, still chuckling, her grandfather reached into his embroidered tunic and produced a slightly crushed nycta flower.
“I am honoured. And in return, a little gift for you, agameni.”
Warmth tugged at Adeline’s chest, and then at her lips.
She set her half-eaten bun on a side plate and hurriedly wiped her hands on the nearest napkin, the delay earning her a low tut that she could only assume came from Lyra.
She ignored her cousin and reached for the flower in her grandfather’s outstretched grasp.
“Thank you,” she said, squeezing his hand with her free one as she drew the flower toward the glow in her chest and smiled. “I have fond memories of these.”
She stroked a careful fingertip along the flower’s edge. The delicate pink petals were slightly bruised at the edges, purple where they’d been crushed within her grandfather’s tunic. Still, the perfume they wafted was heavenly.
“You remember the flowers, then?”
Adeline glanced up from inhaling the sweet nycta scent, and blinked slightly to find Papou leaning forward in his chair, his stare tight with intent; unblinking.
Unease coiled in her lungs, and she released it with a small, huffed laugh, glancing around to her aunt for some explanation to her grandfather’s sudden intensity.
But Eleni was watching her too, her brows knit as she glanced from the nycta to Adeline, something expectant in the weight of her gaze.
Even Lyra seemed mildly interested for the first time, her eyes fixed to the flower even as she angled her head rather pointedly away from Adeline.
“Well, yes,” Adeline said finally, pinning her smile in place against the heavy atmosphere that threatened to flatten it. “Yes, I remember them. Dhalias is famed for them, after all.”