4. Adelina
Adelina
The meeting chamber.
I expected the receiving room or the grand ceremonial chamber where visiting courts are usually welcomed.
But I am summoned to the meeting chamber.
Cold dread settles low in my stomach.
Freya is beside me, but I feel her go still. I have not heard that room named in years. “Thank you,” she says, calm enough that only I would know the sound of warning beneath it. “The princess will come at once.”
The guard bows again and steps back into the hall.
Freya turns to me, and whatever fear she feels is tucked away before I can study it too closely. “Come here.”
I obey because I do not know what else to do.
She adjusts a chain in my hair first, then the fall of it over my shoulders, arranging the waves so they fall like a cascade over my shoulders.
Her fingers move to the circlet, centering it by the smallest degree, then to the necklace at my throat.
The pendant is cold against my skin. She smooths the edge of one beaded sleeve, checks the drape of the skirt, then cups my face briefly in both hands.
Her eyes shine. She takes my right hand and turns it palm down, then bends and presses a kiss to my knuckles the way she used to when I was small and frightened of storms. “Call your wings as the queen ordered. Go in peace, little love.”
Peace. The word feels impossible.
I nod anyway. If I speak, I might not stop. I call my wings, forcing down the cry of pain. They slip through the concealed slits built into the high back of my dress, and I adjust them, stretching them gently into the perfect position before I step through the door.
The hallway outside my suite is colder than my rooms, the air carrying the faint mineral scent of old stone and distant smoke. Two guards wait to escort me, neither of them the one who delivered the summons. I step between them, my hands folded at my waist, and begin to walk.
The deeper we go into the castle, the more unfamiliar it feels.
I was born here. And yet the halls beyond my wing of the castle feel like a place remembered from a life that does not quite belong to me.
Tall stone walls rise around us, carved with ancient victories and kings whose faces have been worn smooth by time.
Torches burn in iron sconces shaped like talons.
Frosted glass windows look out over courtyards I am no longer permitted to cross.
Servants step aside before I reach them, bowing low, eyes down.
The burn in my back grows more insistent with every step, the dress shifting just enough to remind me of where the lashes fell, though Freya’s careful arrangement keeps the fabric from rubbing too harshly. Even so, I hold myself straight, my wings in perfect posture.
At the turn toward the eastern hall, I slow and then freeze. One of the guards glances at me. I force my feet to move.
The meeting chamber lies ahead.
The doors are visible now, taller than I remember, dark wood banded in silver, carved with the old crest of Dravaryn, the one my brother had altered after his coronation.
My father used that room for private councils, not public displays.
My mother would sometimes pass through those doors with him, her hand resting lightly in the crook of his arm, her skirts whispering behind her.
Once, when I was very young, I sat beneath the long table while a storm raged outside and my father pretended not to know I was there until my mother lured me out with sugared apples. The memory is so sudden, so warm, that I nearly stumble.
I have not entered that room since before they died.
This is not right.
A welcoming dinner should not begin in the meeting chamber.
A diplomatic visit should not place me before a foreign prince in a room meant for decisions, negotiations, signatures.
I try to slow my breathing without making it visible, but my heart has begun to beat too quickly, making my head spin.
I have to calm down before I go in, or my brother will make me pay for it later.
The guards stop before the doors.
For one terrible second, all I can hear is the echo of my own pulse and the distant murmur of voices beyond the wood. Male voices, low and unfamiliar. The king’s, unmistakable. The queen’s, smooth as silk laid over ice.
Then the doors open.
A herald inside turns, staff striking the floor once. “Her Royal Highness, Princess Adelina Leora of Dravaryn.”
My name moves through the chamber, and every conversation stops.
I step forward. The room is brighter than the hall, lit by fire and crystal lamps that cast gold over dark stone.
The long council table remains at the center, though it’s been cleared of maps and ledgers, polished until the surface gleams. Heavy chairs line either side.
Tall windows look out toward the western cliffs, their glass silvered by the sinking sun, and banners hang from the walls, Dravaryn’s black and gold beside Elyrion’s dark blue, green, and silver, arranged with too much care to be merely decorative.
Varek stands near the head of the table. Queen Selvara is beside him.
And across from them, with five men arranged slightly behind him, stands the crown prince of Elyrion.
Four of them are clearly guards, still and watchful.
The fifth is not. He is younger, close enough in feature and coloring to the prince, and where the others keep their faces blank, his moves, taking in the room, the banners, me, with open interest. Then I remember the prince has a younger brother.
I see Prince Kaedryn and forget, for one treacherous heartbeat, how to breathe. My wings tremble faintly before I force them still.
The portraits didn’t lie, but they didn’t capture the force of him standing in a room, the quiet command in his posture, the way his presence seems to press against the air without him lifting a hand.
He is tall, well over six feet, broader through the shoulders than I expected, and dressed in dark formal leathers worked with deep blue, green, and muted silver.
His hair is black, his face composed in lines too disciplined to be called cold, though cold is the first word my mind reaches for because it’s safer than the others.
Then his eyes find mine.
A thread draws tight behind my ribs, sudden and sharp enough that I nearly press a hand to my chest. It feels like a hook behind my sternum and belly pulling me toward him.
I lower my gaze before anyone can see the confusion pass through me, but it’s too late for me not to feel it. The sensation lingers beneath my ribs, quiet and impossible, like some hidden part of me has remembered something my mind can’t.
The room stretches between us, longer than it should. I keep my steps even, my hands folded, my face calm. Every eye follows me. I don’t look at the prince again. I don’t dare. Instead, I focus on my brother, on the place before him where I’m meant to stop.
His gaze moves over me once, slow enough to make my skin tighten. He looks at the dress, the jewels, and something in his eyes shifts. I’ve become exactly what he intended. He smiles, warm and bright and utterly false.
The sight of that smile frightens me more than his approval.
I reach them and sink to my knees. The movement pulls fire across my back, sudden enough that my vision sparks at the edges, but I keep my head bowed, wings tucked, hands resting lightly against my skirt.
“Your Majesties,” I say, my voice steady.
“Rise, dear one,” Selvara says.
Dear one.
My stomach turns at the fake sweetness. I rise because she told me to, because everyone is watching, because whatever game has begun was set in motion before I entered the room and I’m already behind.
Selvara reaches for me. I don’t flinch when her fingers brush my cheek. I don’t let my face change when she adjusts a strand of hair Freya placed deliberately over my shoulder. Her touch is light, almost affectionate.
“There,” she says softly, though her voice carries just enough. “You look lovely.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
The king’s gaze remains on me, heavier now. “Princess Adelina,” he says, formal for the room, for the foreign court, for whatever is about to happen. “You honor us with your presence.”
“The honor is mine, Your Majesty.” The words are automatic.
A faint satisfaction moves through Selvara’s expression. I’ve answered correctly. For now.
My brother turns slightly, guiding attention toward the prince, and I feel the room shift with him. “Adelina,” he says, his hand settling at my elbow in a gesture that may seem affectionate to anyone watching. His fingers press just firmly enough to remind me of the night before.
“Sire?” I respond.
“Allow me to introduce Crown Prince Kaedryn of Elyrion.”
I turn because his hand forces me, and the prince steps forward. It’s enough to change the air.
The strange pull in my chest tightens again, quiet but undeniable, and I force myself into a curtsy before my body can betray me. The movement is graceful and the pain is hidden because I am trained.
“Your Highness,” I say.
His voice, when it comes, is lower than I expect. “Princess.”
One word. It moves through me like a struck string, vibrating somewhere beneath my ribs before I can stop it. My fingers nearly curl into my skirt before I stop them. I lift my eyes because courtesy requires it. He is still watching me.
His gaze is steady, controlled, but there is something beneath it I can’t read, intense enough that it makes the rest of the room feel too small. It is somehow different from everyone else’s gaze.
Silence stretches around us.
Selvara laughs softly, a beautiful sound, really, if she weren’t such a snake. “How sweet,” she says, and rests a hand lightly at my back where my wings meet, close enough to where the whip hit that I feel the threat of it.
I go still.
The queen smiles at the prince, pretending she hasn’t noticed. “Adelina has been looking forward to this visit with great anticipation.”
No, I haven’t.
“I’m honored by Elyrion’s presence in Dravaryn,” I say instead, because it’s safe, because it’s true enough, because I can’t afford another silence.
Kaedryn’s gaze doesn’t move from my face. “Elyrion recognizes the importance of this visit.”
My fingers curl once in the folds of my skirt, hidden by the fabric. The king’s hand remains at my elbow. His grip tightens by the smallest degree, enough to draw me back to him without making it look like force.
“Crown Prince Kaedryn,” Varek says, his voice carrying through the chamber with perfect calm, “I present my sister, Princess Adelina Leora of Dravaryn.”
He pauses just long enough for me to think I understand my place in the room. Then his smile deepens. “Your future wife.”
Everything inside me goes silent.
The fire crackles and pops. A soft shift of fabric rustles. The wind outside howls and then quiets.
The queen’s hand rests on my back, light as silk, sharp as a blade. My brother’s fingers wrap around my elbow.
And the prince’s gaze is frozen on me.
Future wife.
The words don’t make sense. They can’t. This is a diplomatic visit, a welcoming dinner. That is what I was told.
For one dangerous second, I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t find the answer that will save me. And across the polished floor, Prince Kaedryn looks at me as if the world has shifted beneath his feet too.
Because he understands that I was not told I would be betrothed today.