Chapter Nineteen #3
“Whoever held it would have the power of Adlhas at their fingertips. They’d Wield all the power in the world.”
“Yes,” said Kai. He dropped Adeline’s gaze, his eyes sinking to the deck before he forced himself to look at them all, the effort of it evident in the squaring of his jaw. “Six hundred years ago, I told this story to Avette.”
His voice thinned at the tail end of her name, and Adeline watched his chest hitch as he caught his breath.
It took her a moment and a slight pang between the ribs to realise that she’d held her own, too.
She watched, tight-chested, as Kai splayed his hand out before him, palm up so the thin ribbon of scar caught silver in the moonlight.
He traced it with his gaze as he spoke, his voice low and distant, an echo of so many years passed.
“When she asked me to, I sought out the Pearl so she could use it to hold off her father, the King. We knew I might not succeed, that the storm could prove too strong, and it did. The current nearly tore me to pieces; the pressure of the depths nearly crushed me. She’d planned for that, though.
The stormwaters would be the next best thing, she said.
So I filled a glass vial and brought it back to her. ”
The noise of the revelry fell away; within the bubble of their forecastle, they might have heard a pin drop to the sodden wood floorboards.
They had all known Kai’s story, of course, but somehow, against the epic backdrop of their Merrow creation myth, the gravity of it became a smothering weight.
Adeline chewed her lip, eyes locked on Kai’s face, every flicker of pain and tension that ticked in his jaw, his brow, the tense corners of his eyes.
At his throat, the Adhlian pendant flickered a ghostly green, and Kai’s fingers twitched into a fist, closing around his scars.
“And, as we now know, I doomed us all.”
Something splintered inside Adeline at the look on his face.
Setting the wine aside, she found herself crawling across the circle before dignity could get a look in.
Kai reached for her at once, drawing her fluidly into his arms, and she held him for what could have been hours; what may have been several long minutes.
“And the prophecy?” said a familiar flat voice.
Kai raised his head from her shoulder, and she released him with no small amount of reluctance; she looked around to find Os cocking a meaningful brow at his King. It dropped when he caught Adeline’s eye, and he cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Isn’t that what we’re doing here?” he said, to no one in particular.
Kai sent his cousin a withering stare, but Adeline was already shifting backward off his lap, her cheeks warming.
She spared a small smile for Alun when he scooted over to let her in, her hand still caught in Kai’s firm grasp.
Kai reached into his trouser pocket, struggling one-handed to retrieve a crumpled scrap of paper, which he handed to Os.
“The Cerulean Heir,” Oswalt read. “This is the prophecy?”
“Isn’t that a book?” said Adeline. “The one about the Duke’s secret baby with the serving girl who’s really a princess—”
Ceri’s ragged gasp cut her off.
“You mindless brute,” she screeched, “you ripped up my book?”
“Perspective, Ceriwyn, please,” said Kai, though he didn’t temper his guilty wince. “Eda was in a trance, seconds from passing out, and chanting a centuries-old prophecy in my face. I had to act fast—”
“Behold the silver winds that blow,” Oswalt read beneath his breath, having flipped the torn page to reveal a long, cramped passage in Kai’s frantic hand.
With a frown flickering beneath his sandy sweep of hair, Os cleared his throat and began again.
“Behold the silver winds that blow
where gilded waters once did flow;
a fate as cruel for Merrow as for Man.
Distorted gift of silver daughter
devastates Her holy waters—
years and ice and sorrow time will span.
A frozen heart must bear the price
of treasures wreathed in bonds of ice,
but blood will run the only way it can.
For Mother’s tears already known
Will hide a heart of pretty stone,
and pretty hearts revive the drown’d clan.
The storm will seek out peace and calm,
beneath a magic bearing palm,
all power resting in her icy hand.
Now only traitor’s truth can see
the one who sets the rivers free;
and all within Her ancient, bless’d plan.”
A long hiss of breath broke the ringing silence that followed. Alun glanced around at them all, brows pitched so high that the whites of his eyes stood out against his dark, moonlit skin.
“She predicted it all. Everything that happened to us.”
“So far,” Ceri added darkly. “Are we the “drown’d clan?” Or is that Daithí’s kin—”
“It’s a prophecy,” said Os, in the slow, patient voice of a parent clinging to their last shred of sanity. “It’s little more than a fairytale. They only hold as much meaning as you give them, and you assign that meaning.”
“Os,” Ceri said flatly. “Years and ice and sorrow? A frozen heart must bear the price?”
Adeline’s swallow was so harsh that Ceri heard from across the circle and shot her a remorseful glance. Kai’s warm grip contracted around her hand. Os gave the tension but a moment to stretch its limbs, then barrelled on adamantly.
“We’ve never known the Elders’ prophecies to hold weight before,” he pointed out. “Never paid them any mind, not under Kai’s rule.”
“We haven’t,” Kai agreed slowly. He turned to meet his cousin’s eye, and though Adeline couldn’t see his expression, something in Oswalt’s dropped, dragging at the edge of his lips and his brow.
“But you didn’t see her, Os. Eda. She was barely there; she didn’t even sound like herself.
This was—it was something else this time.
I don’t know what it means, but it’s not like the folktales. ”
“So we’ll figure out what it means,” said Ceri. Her voice was so full of grit that it hardened her soft hazel eyes to steel. She set her jaw and stared around at them each in turn. “Eda says we can save the Laune; set the rivers free. So let’s do it.”
Though they didn’t so much as glance at one another, Adeline felt Kai’s arm tense against her own, his fingers jerking in her grasp. He was, she knew, recalling the same awful argument that had so painfully cleaved them apart.
How could I ever trust that you won’t watch Eisalaan drown to save the Laune?
In her mind, her past self was vicious, her voice airy and shrill with indignation.
She had been so angry with him for deceiving her; so scared of what Selma might do if she’d found out; so preoccupied with her mother’s legacy, the legendary Queen of Snow and Silver.
But now, Selma was gone. Edward and Mareda had devolved into hatred and degraded themselves with unforgivable violence, an attempt on their lives.
And the Thaw was no longer just about Eisalaan; it never had been.
The Merrow had lost their power, magic had all but disappeared from the entire world.
If the story was true, if the Pearl was really down there, its pulse frozen mid-beat, how could she expect the world to stop turning just so her Silver Kingdom might thrive?
I wouldn’t do that to you, Kai had said.