Chapter Thirty-Seven #3
Trembling, she raised her head to watch as Kai rode out the surge of his own power, jaw set, and shoulders squared.
It didn’t escape her notice that Imogen had let him bear it a few moments longer, and it was easy to see why.
Ropes of shimmering water wove through Adeline’s clumsy nest of bark and shoots, collecting scattered debris from the cracks in the wood before sinking through the tabletop and leaving the desk bone dry and ever so slightly neater.
Kai’s breath sawed from him as he straightened and shook out his hands, but he eyed Imogen steadily.
“It relieves you,” he noted.
Adeline followed his gaze; Imogen was sitting upright, her eyes brighter and shoulders drawn back for the first time since she’d sat down.
“Immensely,” she said. “But it’s short-lived. It’s like trying to contain an endless flood, and occasionally having somewhere to bail out the excess. I held back as much as I could.”
Kai shook his head at the note of apology in her tone.
“I can handle it.”
Her eyes flicked to Adeline, and the others followed, the weight of their unspoken concern undeniable.
“I can do it,” she said.
Honestly, she barely convinced even herself.
She felt a brush of warmth over her hand where it still lay splayed on the cracked table, and looked up to find Kai watching her, his expression tender enough to have the others awkwardly averting their eyes.
“You can do it,” he told her, with so much assurance that she knew his belief would fill the space her own couldn’t. She turned her palm and laced her fingers with his, and Kai held fast to her hand even as he returned his attention to the table.
“We’ll be ready,” he told Imogen. “Whenever the time is right.”
Imogen blew out a long breath, audibly bracing herself.
“Well,” she said slowly. “She’s not entirely predictable, but we all know she likes a spectacle. She plans to make a big show of her power at the end of the ceremony.” She paused, expression unreadable, though it flicked from Kai to rest on Adeline. “On the seventh vow.”
“What’s the seventh vow?” asked Kai.
And though Adeline’s hand twitched in his grasp, she could not meet his eye; it was Imogen she watched as she answered him, brow knitting ever tighter.
She hadn’t been to that many weddings, but she remembered the vows well enough—they signalled when the long and drawn-out droning of the Priestess had finally come to an end, the ceremony complete.
“It’s our wedding custom. Seven vows to bless a marriage. Each one sealed with a kiss. One for the Goddess and each of her daughters. One for your spouse, and one for Eisalaan.” She glanced up at Kai then, breath swelling, trapped in her tight lungs. “After that, the marriage is bound.”
His face was the rise and set of the sun all at once, understanding dawning even as the sparse light in his eyes dimmed.
“I see.”
“I know it’s not ideal—” Imogen began.
“But it’s necessary,” Kai finished grimly.
And Adeline finally released her breath in a short, sharp laugh.
It hurt; the sound ripped through her chest without a hint of actual mirth to ease its ascent.
At her side, Ger tensed. Kai stared at her.
Marry sighed out her nose, eyes closing like she knew exactly what was coming.
Imogen looked on all too calmly, the understanding on her face close enough to pity to be absolutely maddening.
“No,” said Adeline.
That was it. No. A firm no. There was no more to say. But when no one else spoke, and Kai turned inward like he’d herd her away, talk her down, she stepped back.
“No, it is not necessary. It can’t be necessary for him to bloody marry her.”
Mareda hadn’t opened her eyes. She massaged her pinched brow, so like their mother in that moment that it made Adeline want to scream. She bit down on the urge, teeth aching.
“Why are you all acting like I’m insane?”
Mareda finally looked at her, her blue eyes cool enough to sting.
“Because we are under siege, and this is the first plausible plan we’ve had in months. They’ll be wed for all of five minutes, Ade.”
“I don’t care if they’re wed for five seconds. That’s five seconds too long. That’s five seconds where she has won.”
“Big picture,” Ger coaxed, his fingers brushing her elbow.
She wrenched her arm away.
“It’s not happening.”
Kai took her hand again, firmer this time.
“Adeline, it’s alright. I’ll do it. If it comes to it, I’ll marry her so we can see this through.”
Adeline could only stare at him. She did not know if the others had stopped breathing too, or if the fracture in her chest had severed something so vital she simply could not hear anything but roaring static.
An unbearable weight was free-falling within her, tearing down everything in its wake, her voice and heartbeat ripped away in its path.
She pulled her hand from Kai’s, and even the hurt on his face could not slow the collapse of everything that kept her upright and breathing.
Impossibly, she gasped in a breath anyway, pain sawing through her with the effort.
“Alright,” she said.
It wasn’t alright.
Nothing was alright. But after a terse moment, Marry spread the parchment out over the cracks and brambles, and they all continued as though it was.