7. Adelina #2
“Yes.” The blunt answer hits harder than reassurance would have.
Freya doesn’t soften it.
“And if they lock you down before morning, if they take away your garden, your attendants, your chance to breathe without permission, I may not be able to get you out. Tomorrow they can move you. Assign Elyrion guards. Remove me from your rooms. Call it protection. Call it preparation. Whatever name they give it, I may never get this chance again.”
I look down at the map because I can’t look at her. “After the two checkpoints, what then?”
Her finger moves across the parchment, past the marked routes, past forests and border roads and places I’ve only ever read about.
“The Celestial Sea,” she says. “Then the Sea Temple.”
Maralis.
Sanctuary.
I look up slowly. “That’s only for those who renounce political protection.”
“It’s for all who seek refuge under sacred law.”
“I’d have to give up my title.”
“Yes.”
“My claim.”
“Yes.”
“My brother would say I betrayed the crown.”
“He already treats you as though you exist only to be used by it.”
The words are so sharp, so true, that I flinch.
Freya’s face softens, but she doesn’t take them back. “No crown can take you once you claim sanctuary at the Sea Temple. Not Dravaryn. Not Elyrion. Not any king who thinks a signed paper matters more than sacred law.”
My hands tremble around the map. “And if I don’t reach it?”
“You will.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I’m willing to give you.”
I almost laugh again, and this time it breaks halfway into a sob.
Freya moves quickly. She pulls supplies from places I’ve walked past for years without seeing them.
Coins from beneath a loose hearthstone. Vials from behind the vanity panel.
Dried fruit, pain herbs, a folded square of linen, a tiny tin of balm, and a narrow knife she slides into a sheath inside my boot before I can protest.
“I don’t know how to use that,” I whisper.
“Then pray you don’t need to. If you do, sharp end away from you.”
A laugh escapes me despite everything, wet and terrified.
Freya’s mouth trembles for one second before she steadies it. “Good. You’re still in there.”
She presses a small silver compass into my palm. It warms as soon as I touch it, the needle settling toward the east. “Don’t use magic unless you must. Yours is subtle, but it can be felt if someone is close enough.”
“My wings?”
“Necessary. Stay in the cloud cover. If the sky pales before you reach the watch house, land and wait.”
“I’ve never flown all night.”
“You won’t think about the whole night. Only the next mark.”
She takes the map back, folds it once, then opens the small leather book to the first page. “Look.”
I look. My mind, panicked as it is, still catches the shapes.
Inked lines. Symbols. Directions. A sketch of the castle wall from above, the tunnel exit, three ridgelines, a river shaped like a hook, an abandoned watchtower where I’m meant to rest only if the sky is clear.
Page after page. Route after route. Names I’ve never spoken but somehow feel like they’ve been waiting for me.
Freya turns each page only when I nod. She’s always known how my mind works, how I remember what I see even when I wish I could forget.
Portraits. Maps. Pages. The exact placement of candles in a room.
The number of steps from my bedchamber to the garden arch.
The shape of Selvara’s smile when she lies.
By the time she closes the book, the route is inside me.
“Do you remember?”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“Tunnel east to the lower ravine. Exit beneath the dead pine with the split trunk. Call my wings only after I’m clear of the ravine.
Fly east by the winter star until the river bends south.
Don’t follow the river yet. Cross it. First checkpoint is an old watch house hidden behind black pines.
” I close my eyes and keep going because if I stop, I’ll feel too much.
“Ask for Mistress Hedda. If she isn’t there, leave before entering.
If the door bears a blue ribbon, it’s safe.
If it bears green, continue to the mill at the second mark.
If there’s no ribbon, don’t stop there.”
Freya exhales. It sounds almost like a sob. “Good girl.”
The words nearly break me.
I open my eyes. “Who prepared this?”
She doesn’t answer right away.
“Freya.”
She reaches for the bag on the bed, a weathered leather satchel lined with waterproof cloth, and begins placing the book, the map, the documents, and two wrapped bundles inside.
“Those who wish to protect you, Princess.”
I stare at her. “Who?”
Her eyes lift to mine. “People who loved your mother. People who served your father before your brother taught the court to be afraid. Some are servants. Some are merchants. Some are nobles who still know the difference between loyalty to Dravaryn and loyalty to Varek.”
The room blurs. All these years, I thought there was only Freya. Only this room. Only the garden.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because secrets are safest when fewer hearts have to carry them.” She steps close and fastens the satchel across my body beneath the cloak, adjusting the strap so it doesn’t pull against my back.
“And because hope can be dangerous when it has nowhere to go. I didn’t want to burden you with any of that unless I was certain. ”
A sound moves faintly beyond the corridor. Not footsteps near the door. Farther away. A low echo of voices, then silence.
Freya freezes. Then she grabs my hand. “Now.”
She pulls me toward the center of the room, toward the thick rug spread across the stone floor near the hearth. It is old, blue and silver, one I have stepped over every day for as long as I can remember. Freya drops to her knees and shoves one edge back.
Nothing is there. Only stone. For half a second, wild despair claws up my throat.
Then Freya presses her thumb into a small imperfection near the carved border, twists something I can’t see, and the stone gives a soft, grinding click.
A seam appears. Freya hooks her fingers into the edge and pulls. A trapdoor lifts from the floor, revealing a narrow darkness beneath. Cool air rises from it, damp and old, carrying the scent of earth, stone, and distance.
“Your mother showed me this passage,” Freya says, “long before you were old enough to remember her. She never trusted this house not to turn on her children.”
I step back.
Freya looks up at me. “Adelina.”
“What if I fail?”
She rises so quickly that I stop speaking.
“You’ve spent your life being told what you aren’t strong enough or brave enough.
Lies, every one, told by people who needed you small.
” Each word is clear and fierce. “Surviving this place was not failure. And leaving is not failure either. It is the bravest thing you have ever done.”
My mouth trembles. “I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to leave you. They will punish you. I can’t let that happen! I’m young. My body can still take it.”
Her face crumples for the first time. Then she gathers me into her arms. The embrace is fierce, almost painful, and I cling to her like a child, my hands fisting in the back of her dress.
She smells like lavender, smoke, and the bitter herbs she has steeped, crushed, and pressed into my skin since I was small.
She feels like every safe moment I have ever known.
“I should have gotten you out sooner,” she whispers against my hair. “And I have to give you this one chance at freedom.”
“No.”
“Yes.” Her hold tightens. “I’m getting you out now.”
A sob breaks loose before I can stop it. “Come with me.”
“I can’t.”
“Freya.”
“I can’t,” she repeats, though her voice shakes. “Someone must delay them. Someone must make it look as if you’re sleeping long enough for the trail to grow cold. Someone must be here when they come.”
“They’ll hurt you. Please! I can’t do that to you!”
Her hand moves over my hair, smoothing it as she did when I was small. “I’m old enough to have earned a few bruises.”
“That’s not funny.”
“No,” she says softly. “It isn’t. You have to make a choice, Adelina. You can stay, risk your brother’s wrath, risk becoming Prince Kaedryn’s wife, or you can choose to leave, renounce your titles, and live a simple life at the temple.”
“If I stay, you are safe,” I murmur.
“I’ve been safe for over forty years while I stood by and watched those monsters beat you. It’s your time to choose yourself. I promise that I will do everything in my power to come to you. Now choose.”
I pull back enough to look at her. “I’ll come back for you.”
Her eyes fill. “No, little love. You will live and let me come to you when the time is right.”
She cups my face again, thumbs brushing away tears I didn’t realize had fallen. “Be brave.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Yes, you do. You’ve been brave every day. Tonight you only have to be brave in a different way.”
The distant sound comes again, closer this time.
Freya turns toward it, then back to me. “Do you remember everything?”
I force air into my lungs. Force my mind to the map, the book, the route glowing behind my closed eyes. “Yes.”
“The destination?”
“The Celestial Sea. The Sea Temple.”
“And what do you do when you arrive?”
“Claim sanctuary.”
“Good.”
She kisses my forehead, then my cheek, and then my hand, the way she did before sending me into the meeting chamber, except this time her lips tremble against my skin.
“Go in peace, Adelina Leora.”
Peace.
Impossible word.
Holy word.
Her hands move to my shoulders. For one breath, I think she will pull me close again. Instead, she turns me toward the opening and pushes.
I take a deep breath. If I stay, I only trade one cage for another. I catch the edge of the ladder with one hand and stumble onto the first narrow step below. Darkness opens around me, cold and damp and endless. I look up, panic rising so fast I nearly climb back out.
Freya’s face hovers above me, framed by lamplight.
“Freya. I love you.”
“I love you too. Now run.”
Then she shuts the door.