6. Kaedryn #2
Her gaze lifts. I should not have said it like she is already there. “How so?” she asks, cautious now.
“The sky is different over water and forest. Warmer currents. Longer stretches where you can ride the wind without fighting it.”
The longing that crosses her face is so brief it hurts. “I have read of the sea cliffs,” she says.
“Then you will see them.”
She looks at me, and the guarded princess briefly disappears enough for me to glimpse the woman beneath.
Then Selvara’s voice drifts across the table.
“Adelina has always preferred small, quiet spaces. Haven’t you, dear?”
The door closes. I watch it happen.
Adelina turns to the queen with a perfectly composed expression. “I’m grateful for the spaces I have been given, Your Majesty.”
Another flawless answer. Another thing that makes me want to put my fist through stone or my hand around the queen’s throat.
Selvara smiles. “Such a contented heart.”
I take a slow drink of wine so I don’t respond. The meal continues. Adelina does not look toward the windows again.
When the final course is cleared, Varek sets his cup down and turns to his sister. “Adelina.”
She responds the instant he says it, as if her name in his mouth is a pulled chain. “Yes, Your Majesty?”
“You may retire.” It’s not a request. It’s barely dismissal.
The dinner has not ended. The political conversation is not finished. But her purpose has been served. She has been seen, signed, displayed, and now she is being put away.
She rises. “Of course, Your Majesty.” She curtsies to him first, then Selvara, then me. “Your Highness.”
I stand.
The movement draws her eyes up, startled. I want her know not every man in this room expects her to bow while he stays seated.
“Princess,” I say.
For a second, I think she might speak. She does not. She turns and leaves, silver skirts whispering over the stone, two guards moving behind her. At the doorway, her shoulders shift, and I can sense some invisible burden has settled more heavily across them. Then she’s gone.
The room feels colder without her. I sit only because standing would make the next words too aggressive.
One breath.
Two.
Then I look at Varek. “She should have been told.”
The table stills. Varek’s brows lift, the practiced surprise of a man who heard me perfectly well. “I did what I thought best for my sister and my kingdom.”
I study him and see the faint tension behind the eyes, the man beneath the polished host, surfacing for half a breath before the smile closes back over it. The man is desperate to assert his dominance and power. He has never seen battle, and he has been careless with his treasury.
Yet he is the lesser of two evils, and he has resources
I hold his gaze and feel my power press against the edges of restraint, eager to fill the room again, to remind every person here that Elyrion did not send a negotiator weak enough to be managed by northern smiles.
But Adelina is gone, and I don’t know who pays for my anger when I’m not in the chamber.
So I swallow it. For now.
“I trust there will not be another surprise of that nature.”
Something in this house is wrong. I’ve known it since she walked in, and the evening has only sharpened it. I have no proof. What I have is a signed treaty, my father’s seal already given, and a border that bleeds a little more every season. I can’t risk my kingdom over something I cannot prove.
So I let it lie. I tell myself the responsible thing is to do this correctly. Secure the alliance, observe the forms, raise what’s wrong through the proper channels in their proper time. I tell myself it’s discipline, not surrender.
Selvara lifts her glass. “Tomorrow will be easier for everyone. Tonight was a great success.”
A success.
I think of Adelina’s shock when she learned she was to marry me and the way she said thank you when I gave her the bare dignity of understanding what she signed.
“Yes,” I say, setting my napkin beside my plate. “I’m sure you see it that way.”
Sylas shifts behind me.
I stand. “My party has traveled for several days. We will retire now and see you again at for the morning meal.”
Varek inclines his head. “Of course.”
“Please let our servants know if you require anything,” Selvara says.
I leave before diplomacy can demand anything else. The corridor outside is empty, cold, and quiet, and my men fall into step behind me without a word. For several strides, no one speaks. The silence is not uncomfortable. It is necessary.
Then, when the hall is empty, Sylas murmurs, “That was interesting.” There is no humor in it.
“That is one word,” I reply.
Rowan moves on my right, his voice lower. “She didn’t know.”
“No. And he didn’t care that we knew she didn’t know.” I flex my fingers, wishing desperately I had somewhere to train and channel this tension.
Soren is quiet for a few seconds before saying, “The queen is worse.”
I glance at him.
He looks ahead. “The king is obvious. She’s not. She’s like a snake hidden in the grass.”
That matches my own impression too closely for comfort.
We continue down the corridor, the torchlight sliding over the stone ahead of us.
I should be thinking of the treaty, troop routes, the political advantage now secured, and the complications that may follow.
Instead, I think of silver wings, a rose-colored mouth, pale eyes that knew too much fear for a woman presented as cherished.
I think of the way Adelina looked at me when the shadows gathered and the flames guttered low.
I defended her. But I also frightened her.
The truth of that settles beneath my ribs beside the pull that still has not loosened.
Whatever Princess Adelina is, whatever I have spent all evening refusing to name, she is not what I was told to expect.
And if I’m not careful, that may become far more dangerous than the treaty we signed with a kingdom full of secrets.