20. Kaedryn #2
My father studies me. Then, after a long pause, he says, “If Varek is fool enough to show his hand, you may act.”
That is the closest thing to permission I will get. It isn’t enough. It will have to be.
The light in the Astral Stone begins to thin, but my father’s voice comes through once more, quieter than before. “Kaedryn.”
“Yes.”
“Do not mistake rage for protection.”
The connection ends before I can respond.
The cabin falls dim. For several seconds, I remain with one hand on the table, staring at the fading moonlight inside the stone. The boat creaks around me. Rain taps the round window. Somewhere above, the wind shifts colder. We are crossing back into northern waters.
I feel it before I step out of the cabin.
The warmth goes first. The lingering lushness of Maralis drains from the boards, the air, the damp fabric of my coat.
One breath tastes of salt and tropical rain.
The next carries iron, frost, and winter sea.
The old climate line cuts through the world without apology, and Dravaryn reaches for us with cold hands.
I climb to the deck.
Adelina is still beneath the canopy. Someone has given her a dry blanket, but she has not pulled it around herself.
It lies over her shoulders like something placed on a statue.
Her hands remain folded in her lap, skin pale, posture perfect.
Too perfect. But now, her eyes are cast down.
The sight bothers me more after speaking with my father.
Sylas stands a few steps from her, arms crossed, expression darker than the storm. He looks at me as I approach, then jerks his chin toward the narrow passage along the side of the cabin. “We need to talk.”
I glance at Adelina. She does not react to my arrival, Sylas’s voice, or to the sudden cold cutting across the deck as we pass fully into Dravaryn’s reach.
I follow him. The side passage gives us a sliver of privacy between the cabin wall and stacked cargo ropes. Rain slicks the railing. The sea has turned darker, rougher, iron-gray beneath a sky heavy with northern cloud.
Sylas does not waste time. “I don’t like how she is acting.”
“I don’t like any part of this.”
“No.” His voice sharpens. “Acting is the wrong word. Something is wrong with that girl.”
I look back toward the canopy. From here, I can see only part of Adelina’s profile, pale and still, her gaze fixed on nothing. “She’s exhausted.”
“She was exhausted in the forest. She still fought. She was terrified on the temple road. She still begged. Now she is sitting there like someone cut the strings and left the body upright.”
My jaw tightens. “Shock,” I say, because it’s the simplest solution.
“Yes. And what caused it?”
“She was captured.”
“By you. After you promised not to take her back.”
The words hit harder because he does not soften them.
I turn fully toward him. “I’m aware.”
“Are you?” Sylas steps closer, rain streaking down his face. “Because from where I stood, she did not simply stop fighting because the binding held. She stopped fighting when you told her we were taking her back to Dravaryn.”
“I told her we would settle the matter there.”
“She heard her condemnation.”
“No one is killing her.” I clench my hands. I know exactly how this sounds. I hate it. The bond hates it.
Sylas’s expression changes to something worse than anger. Pity. “Sometimes death is mercy,” he says quietly. “Sometimes life is the fate worse than death.”
The words move through me like cold steel. I stare at him. He does not look away.
“Do not say that lightly,” I warn.
“I’m not.”
“She’s a princess. Varek is cruel, yes, but he’s not going to execute or hurt his own sister in the middle of a treaty.”
“I didn’t say execute.” Sylas looks toward the canopy again. “I said condemned. And pain isn’t always visible or lethal.”
My stomach knots. Rain hits the deck between us, steady and cold.
I think of her begging, of her going still. I think of every silent servant in Dravaryn, of Freya refusing to speak, of the old couple asking why they would help me if they were helping her, of the necklace shimmering at her throat.
“We return,” I say, though the words feel like stones in my mouth. I want nothing more than to simply take her to Elyrion and bypass her bastard of a brother.
Sylas’s gaze cuts back to mine. “There is always a choice. You just dislike the cost of the other one.”
“Do you suggest I take her south and hand Varek a political weapon? Give Zerath a fracture to exploit? Put Elyrion in breach before the alliance is even secured?”
“I suggest you stop pretending this is only about breach and ceremonies.”
“It’s about kingdoms.”
“It’s also about her.”
“I know that!” I snap.
I take a few breaths, and the storm is the only sound between us.
“Father says our hands are tied unless Varek reveals himself before witnesses. I don’t like it, but he’s right.”
Sylas laughs once, without humor. “And if Varek is clever enough not to?”
I say nothing.
His face hardens. “That’s what I thought.”
A wave strikes the hull, spraying cold water over the rail. Neither of us moves.
I know it every time I look at her and see that she has folded herself away somewhere my voice cannot reach.
I know it every time the thread beneath my ribs pulls toward her like it is trying to drag me out of my own decisions.
I have spent my life believing control is what keeps people safe, and today control put black strands around her wrists while she sobbed on a road to sanctuary.
But knowing does not change the map. It doesn’t erase armies or silence fathers or kings or empires. It doesn’t make Varek powerless.
The sight of her turns something inside me bitter.
“We keep her under our guard,” I say. “We allow no private access. We complete the formal transfer and leave.”
“And if Varek separates her from us?”
“He will not.”
“You hope.”
“No.” I look at my brother. “I will not allow it.”
Sylas studies me for a long moment, then nods once, the acceptance of a man who knows the argument cannot move farther without breaking something.
“Then you had better be right,” he says.
He leaves me there in the rain.
I remain at the railing as the boat drives north, Maralis warmth gone behind us, Dravaryn cold sinking deeper with every mile. The deck has grown quieter, the men more watchful. No one says it aloud, but everyone feels the difference in the air.
We are taking her back to a question none of us yet know how to answer.
I look toward Adelina again.
She is now staring at the horizon where the northern kingdom waits, and there is no fear on her face. That is what frightens me. Fear would mean she still believes something can change. This is something else.
I grip the rail until my knuckles ache. “We don’t have a choice,” I say under my breath.
The sea gives no answer. Neither does the pull in my chest. But I can’t stop the tension winding tighter inside of me that screams that I’m making a mistake, and Adelina will be the one that pays for it.