Chapter Thirty-Two #4
“Doran happened,” said Mareda. Gently, as though this should be obvious.
And Goddess, maybe it should have been. “Avette was waking, and my father was frightened. That awful old pendant; it was growing erratic. He thought she might wake angry, so he called in Doran. He needed an ally. He didn’t want to admit to me what he’d done, and he’d burned every other bridge, snubbed all the family he had, so there was only Doran left.
But Doran didn’t protect him. He had no reason to, cousin or not.
Mother was gone, and here was a new, powerful contender for the throne with every reason to hate the one person Doran would never want to see crowned—you. So he tried to ingratiate himself.”
Adeline closed her tired eyes.
Doran had tried to kill her.
She wanted to be surprised; like Edward, he’d known her since she was a child.
Unlike Edward, he had openly and vehemently despised her because she had always known who he was.
She’d known who Edward was once, too. Despite what grief had made of him, she should have known who he was.
Something peripheral called at her attention, sore and intangible like a bruise blooming unseen.
Was. The past tense that formed her own thoughts, and every word Mareda had spoken of her father.
“Marry,” she said, surprised to hear her own voice wavering and whispered. “Marry, is he—is Ned—”
She couldn’t. But Mareda only nodded.
“She killed him,” she said, too matter-of-factly to come easily, even to Mareda. Her eyes were brighter as she spoke, pain lending them a little of their old shine—a little of their old conviction, too. “We’re all that’s left, Ade. That’s why Imogen’s pushing so hard. That’s why it has to be you.”
Adeline was not sure how to respond, out loud or even within her own head.
Because how had it come to this, with no one left to save them?
How was she now standing at the head of the table where she’d always been seated, forever looking up for guidance?
When just months ago she’d still been seeking advice from her father, help from Edward, acceptance from their mother.
Yes, she’d been building a life of her own, yes, she’d been campaigning as heir—but she was meant to have the true adults behind her, as they’d always been.
She’d done little more than chair a few public courts; this was not a job for her.
It sounded hard, it sounded terrifying, it sounded unlikely beyond belief.
It also, unfortunately, sounded entirely bloody necessary.
Adeline said none of this aloud, or anything else for that matter—but for all the tension between them, the fissures that had become a chasm, perhaps some of that old sibling bond still hung in there.
Just a thread uniting them still, pulled taut but intact.
Even though she hadn’t said a word, Marry reached across that table and the chasm both, and wrapped her frail fingers around Ade’s.
They still sat there, hand in hand, when Imogen returned some minutes later with three steaming mugs on a tray.
She nudged the door shut with her hip, and the brief cold receded behind her as she crossed the room.
Her nose and cheeks were flushed, curls fluffed and unsettled as though the palace hallways were quite as wild as the winter beyond these walls.
But as she crossed to set the tray down on the table, her eyes flicked to their clasped hands, then Marry’s contented face—and the chill that had tensed her jaw simply melted away.
She smiled; a true smile, bright and beaming, bronzing her dark cheeks.
And Marry smiled back.
The air around them turned soft and warm as a physical embrace—until Imogen seemed to feel Adeline’s eye and quickly cleared her throat, grabbing a mug from the tray.
“Right,” she said, suddenly pragmatic. “Mareda, Jack tells me you haven’t had your broth yet either, so here you are.”
Mareda took the mug from her hands, their fingers locking over the ceramic for a moment before she pulled away.
Though Imogen had turned deliberately brisk, the smile on Marry’s face hadn’t faltered.
The very opposite, in fact. It was spreading, colouring the apples of her cheeks until even her eyes seemed brighter.
They were vivid, closer to her ocean deep blue when she turned them on Adeline—then glanced sheepishly away, flushing harder.
Adeline felt her lips slip into a breathless Oh.
“Ade,” said Imogen sharply.
Her head snapped up, brow frozen in its disbelieving arch. Imogen gave a slow blink at her expression, but then ignored it, barrelling on.
“He said you’d had your ration today, but you need your strength if we’re going to continue tonight. Marie dug up some honey for a cup of tea.” She reached into her pocket and withdrew three small, lumpy parcels of linen, dropping them onto the table. “And Jack’s been foraging.”
Adeline’s “thank you” caught in her throat, all her reserves apparently occupied with the whirring of her mind.
She was distantly aware of Mareda thanking Imogen for them both, then easing to her feet and ushering Imogen into her seat.
Aware of her sister slipping into the bedroom, something about getting changed into her bedrobe.
Adeline barely heard her. She did hear the door click shut behind her, or maybe that click was in her own mind, the pieces slotting together.
“Daughters,” she said aloud.
“Adeline,” Imogen said, a low note of warning.
Adeline felt her gaze slide to her friend; heard herself say again, “Oh, all the fucking daughters.”
“Keep your voice down,” Imogen ground out, eyes flicking to the bedroom door.
Adeline did her best to whisper. “I’m such an idiot.”
Was she really so self-involved? How had she never known, never even guessed—
But Imogen was shaking her head. All that brisk, terse energy physically seeped away, the proud set of her shoulders slumping.
“You’re not. She didn’t want anyone to know.”
“Why?”
Imogen raised her fine brows—not without effort, it seemed—and leaned back in her seat, gesturing from the glossy spirals of her curls, to the elaborate detailing of her lace bodice, to the graceful sweep of her skirt.
“Goddess only knows,” she quipped.
But when Adeline was just a little too slow to smile, Imogen sighed, dropping her gaze.
She fidgeted with the handle of the mug, and it struck Adeline that she had never seen her so self-conscious before—or at all, really.
She took a sip of her broth, painted lips pursing tidily on the rim.
Not even the slightest smudge when she set the mug down.
“She didn’t want the scrutiny,” Imogen said slowly, stiffly, as though it hurt to say it aloud. “The derision that your mother always faced for how she conducted herself. Romantically.”
Adeline felt her eyes bulge a little at the suggestion, tried to blink it away.
It was true. Snow Queen, people had whispered, not enough warmth in her heart to spare.
They’d called her other things, too. Power hungry, selfish, cold, unfeeling—and worse.
Things nobody wanted to hear or think about their own mother, no matter how tense their relationship might be.
“And that was why you stopped speaking,” Adeline guessed.
“We stopped speaking because I grew tired of being a secret,” said Imogen. “I am not someone to be hidden away.”
“No,” Adeline agreed, and for a moment, Imogen’s smile returned. “So Marry’s been in love this whole time.”
The smile dropped. “She might have been, once.”
“Marry doesn’t change her mind.”
Something flickered over Imogen’s face, too quick to catch. “Maybe that’s the problem.”
“Are you in love with her?”
Imogen’s breath caught visibly, an answer clearly swelling in her lungs like a reflex.
Adeline thought she knew the answer; she certainly knew the hesitant, pained response to it.
Recognised it all too well. It almost made her feel guilty for asking, but Imogen just gave a slight tic of her head and lifted her mug again, another long sip.
“It’s not going to matter either way,” she said, a little quieter than usual. “Unless something changes for us all. If you want to talk about love, Ade, let’s talk about your Merrow King.”
Her heart contracted. She had been very carefully not thinking about Kai, as far as she could manage it, because to do so was to fall to pieces.
And she could not afford to fall to pieces right now, not if she wanted to free him and everyone else.
But the pressure in her chest was constant, a weight that grew with each passing day that she could not lay eyes on him.
She only knew he was alive because Imogen was still preparing the wedding, only knew he was being fed because Ger had been returning from the kitchens every day with assurances from Jack.
But she didn’t know if he was well. If he was coping.
No one could tell her that.
“What about him?” she asked.
Her throat was tight, her heart pounding.
“I think I can get you a moment alone with him,” said Imogen, a touch too grim to be comforting. “Before … Well.”
Before the wedding.
The wedding that will not happen, she told herself fiercely.
“I won’t lie, Ade, it’s going to be hard won. It won’t be pleasant.”
“I don’t care,” she said at once. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it. I can do it.”
Imogen’s brows sloped, eyes soft with sympathy.
She set down her mug and reached past Adeline’s own untouched tea.
Her hand was cool when she laid it over Adeline’s, despite the warmth of the broth she’d been nursing.
As though she wore Aera’s gift like a glove, forever wreathed around her long fingers, wound between the silver rings she wore, so similar to the ones Marry favoured.
“It won’t be pleasant for him,” Imogen said gently. And then, pursing her lips against the same wince that narrowed her eyes, “I’m going to need that pendant back.”