18. Kaedryn #3
“That was indigestion,” I retort.
Sylas’s mouth curves, but it fades quickly. “What did he say?”
“Bring her in before her flight becomes a rebellion.”
Merritt, close enough to hear, lets out a low whistle. “Bit late for that.”
I glare at him.
He does not retreat. “Maybe not a rebellion with banners and blades. But people are choosing sides. Quietly. They chose before we crossed the sea.”
“They are choosing against Varek,” Soren says.
“And for her,” I add.
We keep moving.
By dawn, the land begins to rise again. Marsh gives way to firmer ground, then to stone roads older than any border marker, worn smooth by centuries of pilgrims walking south toward the temple.
We stay off the main path, keeping to the groves and low walls that run beside it, but the closer we draw to the city, the more difficult concealment becomes.
People are everywhere.
Pilgrims. Temple novices with baskets of white flowers.
Merchants along the outer roads. Guards in three different colors, Maralis city watch, men from Dravaryn sweating in winter armor, Elyrion watchers keeping their distance.
Others I cannot place. One man’s smile sits wrong on his face, but when I look back, he has turned away.
That alone is enough to tighten every instinct I have.
The city itself rises from the coastal slope in pale stone, weathered wood, and flowering vines, wrapped around the road that leads to the Sea Temple’s outer causeway.
Bells ring somewhere ahead, low and resonant, their sound carried on wind wet with salt and tropical rain.
Beyond the rooftops, glimpsed only in broken pieces between buildings and trees, the Celestial Sea shines under the morning light.
And farther south, barely visible through mist, white towers rise from the sacred shore.
The Sea Temple.
My pulse slows. She’s here somewhere, and far too close to the temple. If Adelina reaches those steps, everything changes.
“Spread carefully,” I say. “No drawing more attention than we already are. Rowan, west approach. Soren, stay with me. Sylas, take the upper market road with Kellan. Merritt, watch the temple road and any side routes toward the causeway.”
Kellan’s eyes flick toward the distant white towers. “And if she’s already inside the temple?”
“Then we’re too late.” The words sit like a stone in my stomach.
No one asks what happens then. They already know.
The city is loud after days of forest and marsh. Too loud. Wheels on stone. Bells. Voices. Gulls. Temple chants rising and falling like breath. The smell is salt, bread, wet wool, flowers, animals, smoke, and too many people pressed into a place built for reverence rather than pursuit.
Every pale hood is Adelina. Every small figure turns my attention. Every flash of silver fabric catches in the corner of my eye and vanishes before I can see whether it was hair, jewelry, or only sunlight on water.
I move south through the outer market, past stalls of prayer candles and carved shells, through a crowd of pilgrims tying yellow ribbons around their wrists before walking the final road.
Soren stays close at my shoulder, his gaze never still.
We don’t look like hunters, not openly. That would be foolish here. But people move aside all the same.
Perhaps some instincts are older than politics. Armed men do not need to announce themselves to be recognized.
The bond slams against my chest near a stone archway draped in white cloth and flowering vines.
I stop, my hand pressing against my racing heart.
Soren stills beside me. “What is it?”
I scan the crowd. At first, there’s nothing. Then a woman in a dark sea-cloak steps from a side lane across the square.
Small. Hood drawn low. A pack against her back.
Adelina.
She moves differently now. Stronger than before. No limp. No falter. Whatever healer had taken her in knew their work. But I know the rhythm of her anyway. I know it from the council chamber, from the dining hall, from the forest ridge where she looked back at me with fear and betrayal in her eyes.
The crowd shifts between us. For half a second, I lose sight of her. Then she reaches up to steady her hood as a child bumps into her, and the fabric slips just enough for pale silver hair to catch the humid light.
The world narrows.
My anger rises first, hot and immediate, because there she is.
Alive. Healed. Moving toward sanctuary while men tear two kingdoms apart looking for her.
While treaties strain, soldiers gather, my father’s command burns through Astral Stone, and Varek’s control, whatever shape it truly takes, becomes a political fire spreading faster than any of us can contain.
She is so close to winning. So close to making every risk, every lie, every moment of this chase irreversible.
Then she turns just slightly as if the same thread that has dragged me across forests, marsh, and sea wind has finally pulled too hard for her to ignore.
Her eyes find mine across the square.
The pull snaps taut.
The world around me stops.