27. Kaedryn
Kaedryn
Dinner arrives soon after, carried to the landing and brought in to the dining area by Soren himself after he inspects every dish with the kind of thoroughness that makes the innkeeper sweat through his collar.
Stew thick with root vegetables and beef.
Fresh bread. Butter. Apples baked with honey and spice. Juice instead of wine.
Soren adds a bowl of broth despite my look, then points the spoon at Adelina. “Start with the stew. The broth is there if the rest is too heavy.”
She stands at the table, and we all wait until she sits. That is when I realize she’s more accustomed to being commanded than accommodated. When everyone pauses for her choice, she seems lost, a room waiting for her comfort apparently less natural than one demanding obedience.
“Sit, Adelina,” I say as gently as I can and pull out the chair for her.
Once she does, I sit. Sylas follows, then Soren. The others remain outside, though I send plates down for them because starving my men in the name of vigilance would only make them miserable. Besides, I pride myself on ensuring my men are cared for.
Adelina picks up her spoon. I expect another performance, tiny bites and careful movements.
I expect her to eat only enough to fulfill the letter of her promise while avoiding the spirit of it.
But she eats, slowly at first. Then she eats with more steadiness, half the bowl of stew, bread with butter, and then more stew.
She drinks the juice and even accepts a small portion of the baked apples when Sylas pushes the dish toward her and tells her southern apples are better, but northern cooks use more spice because they need to compensate for the weather.
That earns him the smallest breath that might almost be amusement, a ghost of a laugh.
It’s the most I have seen her eat since I met her.
The sight should satisfy me. But it worries me in a new direction, because hunger this deep doesn’t come from one missed meal.
It comes from too many days of not being able to eat, or not being allowed to, or being too terrified to keep anything down.
Soren notices too. He says nothing until she sets her spoon down and folds her hands in her lap. “Better,” he says.
She looks down. “I kept my promise.”
A strange sentence. A prisoner’s sentence.
I keep my voice even. “Yes. You did.”
Soren reaches into his satchel and removes a small dark vial. Adelina’s face drains of what little color the food brought back, and I think she’s going to be sick.
Every man in the room sees it and freezes.
Soren sets the vial on the table rather than moving toward her with it. “Sleeping draught,” he says, his tone even. “Nothing else. Valerian, moon mint, and a little southern lavender. You need rest, Princess.”
Her eyes remain fixed on the vial. Her breathing has changed.
Shallow. Uneven.
Damn it.
“It won’t hurt you,” I say.
Soren’s tone stays calm. “You don’t have to take it.”
Part of me wants to order it, because she needs sleep. Pain has hollowed her out and she has not rested properly in days, maybe weeks.
Adelina’s fingers curl in her skirt. “Will it make me unaware?”
Soren considers the question with more care than most men would. “It will make you sleep. You may be difficult to wake for a few hours, but not impossible. It will not trap you.”
Her eyes flick to me. The fear beneath the question of what can happen when she can’t protect herself.
I lean back slightly, giving her more space. “No one will enter your room without your permission. Only me, or Soren if there is a medical need or an emergency.”
She watches me, her eyes flicking to the door.
“You will not be locked in,” I add.
Her throat moves before she asks, “I don’t have to take it?”
“No,” Soren says.
A long silence follows. Then she reaches for the vial. Her hand trembles before she steadies herself and uncorks the tonic. She drinks it in one swallow, grimacing at the taste.
Soren gives her a cup of water. “Good. You should lie down before it takes hold.”
She rises too quickly, then catches herself on the back of the chair. I stand at once, grabbing her arm to steady her. She looks at my hand before she looks at me.
“Can you walk?” I ask.
“Yes.”
I let go but watch as she walks to the bedchamber, every step careful but steadier than before.
She pauses at the doorway. “Your Highness?” Her hand rests lightly on the frame. She looks smaller without the performance of court around her. “Freya,” she says again, the name apparently all she can bear.
“I will find out.” I nod.
Her shoulders lower by a fraction. “Thank you.” Then she disappears into the bedchamber.
Soren waits until the door is mostly closed before he looks at me. “You handled that badly and then well.”
Sylas snorts. “High praise.”
I glare at both of them.
Soren is unmoved. “She’s afraid of being drugged.”
“I saw.”
“She’s afraid of being touched,” Sylas adds.
“I noticed that too.”
“And she is in pain,” Soren says. “The way she sits, the way she breathes, the way she protects her back without touching it. No visible wounds, but that doesn’t mean much if magic was involved.” His expression hardens. “Something’s wrong.”
“Yes,” I agree.
“Wrong enough that I want to examine her when she trusts one of us enough not to panic at the suggestion.”
“That may take longer than we have.” The thought sits heavily between us.
When I check the bedchamber a short time later, the lamp is turned low and Adelina is asleep on her side, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, the other curled around the edge of a shawl.
Her travel gown is still on, boots placed neatly beside the bed, silver hair loose from its uneven braid and spilling over the pillow.
When I look closer, I see she is hugging her satchel to her chest.
She looks young in sleep. And she is. At fifty-one years old, she is barely an adult by fae standards, and far younger than my one hundred fifty and her brother’s one hundred twenty.
There is a story there, about the age gap in siblings. It’s not entirely common. Most fae have their children close together so that they will experience childhood together. But that was not the case with Adelina and Varek. And there definitely isn’t a brother/sister bond.
Sylas, Evander, and I might have gotten on each other’s nerves, but we loved each other. Aside from some scuffles during childhood, Evander never held his title as heir above us.
I shake my head to clear the memory. This is no time to grieve the past. Instead, I watch Adelina sleep and stand in the doorway for too long.
Sylas comes up beside me, then stops short when he sees her. “Stars, that was fast.”
I close the door halfway again, leaving enough space to hear if she wakes.
Then I turn back to the sitting room, where Rowan, Merritt, and Kellan have joined us.
The room feels smaller with all of them inside, but I need the doors guarded and the truth hunted, and these are the men I trust with both.
I keep my voice low. “We need information on Freya, Marra, and Vera. Freya was Adelina’s nurse. Marra and Vera were her chambermaids.”
Kellan’s brows draw together. “Aside from the old nurse, do we know if they were arrested?”
“No.”
“Likely,” Merritt says grimly. “If Varek has half a brain and twice the cruelty.”
Adelina’s sleeping face flashes in my mind.
“Find out,” I say. “Find out what happened to Freya after she was taken from the room.”
“If Varek slapped the nurse with us as witness, it’s possible she’s been tortured or executed,” Sylas says.
Rowan crosses his arms. “Dravaryn channels are locked down. Anything official will be useless.”
“Then do not use official channels,” I say.
Sylas leans against the table. “Freya’s network might already be moving them.”
“If Freya is alive,” Soren says. “But if she hid the princess, she may have hidden the other women knowing how the king and queen would react.”
The room goes quiet.
Kellan looks toward the bedchamber door, then back to us. “We have to find out.”
“Yes,” I say.
Merritt scratches a hand over his beard, thinking. “I may know how.”
All eyes turn to him.
He looks mildly offended by the attention. “What?”
“You may know how?” Rowan repeats. “You waited until now to mention this?”
“I waited until I knew what we were looking for.” Merritt lowers his voice further.
“There was a stable hand back at the northern manor before we ever reached Varek’s court.
Old soldier. Bad knee. He talked too much after a drink and hated the king more than he feared him, which is rare.
He said if someone ever needed truth out of the capital, not rumor, they sent a message through the candle sellers near the east gate of the city. ”
“Candle sellers?” Sylas asks.
“Temple candles. Funeral candles. Prayer candles. Every household buys them. Servants carry them. Guards ignore them because no one wants to be the bastard who searches a widow’s offering.”
Rowan’s mouth curves. “That is clever.”
“It gets better. He said the old royal household used the same route before Varek replaced half the servants. If Freya moved information in or out of that castle, she may have used it.”
My attention sharpens. “Can you reach them from here?”
“Not directly. But there is a shrine three miles south of here that sells northern votives to travelers. If the network reaches this far, they will know the mark.” Merritt pauses. “I can go alone tonight.”
“No,” I say.
His brow lowers.
I continue, “You take Rowan.”
Rowan nods at once.
Merritt grunts. “Fine. But he is not allowed to charm anyone. It makes people suspicious.”
“I’m charming by nature,” Rowan says.
“You are irritating by nature,” Merritt retorts.
Kellan steps forward. “I can go too.”
“You stay,” I say.
His expression falls.
“You nearly spooked her on the ridge because you moved when I told no one to move.”
His face goes pale. “I know.”
“This is not punishment. It means tonight you learn stillness.”
Merritt mutters, “Fuck. That’s worse than punishment.”
Kellan straightens anyway. “Yes, Highness.”
Soren points toward the adjoining door. “I will stay here. If she wakes in pain, I need to be close.”
“Good.”
Sylas looks at me. “And you?”
“I will stay in the room with her.”
No one argues.
Merritt and Rowan leave within minutes, cloaks drawn, weapons hidden beneath travel wear rather than displayed openly.
I send two guards to shadow them at a distance without interfering.
If there is a network still watching the old roads, I want information, not fear.
If Dravaryn agents are watching too, I want bodies left alive long enough to answer questions.
The inn quiets around us.
Soren takes the adjoining room but leaves the door cracked. Kellan stations himself in the corridor outside with the rigid determination of a man who intends to become a statue if that is what duty requires. Sylas stays with me longest, sitting by the fire with a cup of tea he does not drink.
“You are not wrong to use Freya as leverage if it made her eat,” he says eventually.
I look at him.
He shrugs. “You’re thinking it.”
“I told her I would look regardless.”
“Yes. After you made the bargain.”
“I needed her to eat.”
“I know.”
“And?”
“And you’re not Varek because you used pressure badly once while trying to keep her alive.” His gaze sharpens. “But if you don’t learn the difference quickly, she will never know it.”
I say nothing.
He stands. “Sleep if you can.”
“I will.”
“You won’t.”
“No.”
He sighs. “At least lie convincingly.”
Sylas leaves for the adjoining room, and the sitting room settles into firelight and quiet. Snow taps faintly against the windows. The inn creaks in the wind. Somewhere downstairs, a door closes and a man laughs too loudly before being hushed.
I wait until the fire has burned lower, until Soren’s movements in the next room go still, until Adelina has been asleep long enough that the draught should keep her asleep. Then I step into the bedchamber. I tell myself I’m checking on her. It’s not the whole truth.
The room is warm, the lamp turned low. Adelina has not moved much, though at some point her hand has tightened in the shawl until the fabric gathers in her fist. Her breathing is steadier now.
Not peaceful, but deeper than before. The faint crease between her brows remains, and once, as I stand there, her mouth trembles around a sound that never fully forms.
I should return to the sitting room. Instead, I sit on the edge of the bed, close enough that if she wakes afraid, she will not wake alone. The mattress dips slightly beneath my weight. She does not stir.
For a long while, I watch the firelight move across the wall and listen to her breathe.
I think of the temple bells and her begging me to let her go. Of Varek’s whisper. Of her asking for Freya instead of herself. Of my father saying, “one woman,” as if that made the burden smaller.
The pull beneath my ribs eases for the first time all day, not gone, not satisfied, but quieter with her near and resting. I lean back against the carved headboard, intending only to close my eyes for a moment.
Just a moment.
The last thing I see before sleep takes me is Adelina’s hand wrapped around the shawl, holding on even in dreams, afraid everything she loves will be taken.