31. Adelina #2
I remain on my knees. Wait. Do not move too soon.
No one speaks at first. Then Sylas exhales and curses. “Fucking hell.”
A chair shifts. Someone sighs. Soren says something under his breath that sounds far less civilized than I expected from a healer.
Rowan mutters, “That was ugly.”
A hand reaches toward my shoulder. I jerk away so sharply I almost fall sideways.
Sylas freezes with his hand suspended between us, face paling. “I’m not going to touch you,” he says quickly.
“I-I’m sorry, Your Highness,” I reply.
He lowers himself slowly, carefully, crouching several feet away so that his face is closer to mine without his body looming over me. “You have nothing to be afraid of.”
I stare at the floor. The polished wood blurs. He sounds like he means it. They always sound like they mean it until they don’t.
“Kaedryn was being an ass,” Sylas says, voice tight with anger. “A massive, royal, self-important ass. You were hurt. You almost died. He was scared and furious, and because he has the emotional instincts of a locked armory, he made that your fault. It isn’t.”
Anger is anger. Power is power. A man can regret striking after the blow lands. That does not change the bruise.
Soren crouches too, farther to my other side. “Princess, can you stand?”
If I can’t, they may decide I am more trouble than I’m worth. “Yes,” I whisper.
No one moves toward me this time. Slowly, carefully, I push myself upright. My knees ache. My muscles twist where the bruises pull. Nausea churns in my gut. My hands shake so badly I fold them together before anyone can notice, though of course they already have.
Sylas rises with me but keeps his distance. “Do you want to sit?”
“M-may I go back to my room, p-please?” I ask.
Sylas stiffens. “Of course.”
I nod once, and then force myself to walk. No one stops me. That surprises me so much I nearly look back. I do not risk it.
I reach my room, step inside, and close the door behind me. I stand there with my back to the door, breathing too fast, one hand clamped over my mouth to keep the sound inside. Then my knees weaken, and I fall to the floor, folding into myself before the first sob can escape.
I have learned how to cry silently.
I crawl to the bed because standing feels impossible now, dragging my satchel close with shaking hands. I open it only far enough to find Freya’s shawl, and the moment my fingers close around the soft gray wool, something inside me crumples.
I pull it against my chest.
It still smells faintly like her. Wool, smoke, lavender, and the little herb sachets she used to tuck between my folded gowns. I can almost feel her hands around mine, warm and firm, telling me to breathe, telling me I’m not what they say I am.
A sound slips out of me before I can stop it. I bite down on the shawl to silence the next one.
“I tried,” I whisper into the fabric. I squeeze my eyes shut until more tears slip free.
But trying did not get me to the temple.
Trying did not save Freya.
Trying did not stop the Varrow.
Trying did not make Kaedryn believe me.
And now there is nowhere left to run.
The ship rocks beneath me, steady and indifferent, carrying me farther from Dravaryn and closer to Elyrion, but the distance does not feel like escape. It feels like being moved from one locked room to another.
When will Prince Kaedryn decide that shouting is not enough? When will my silence offend him too deeply? When will my fear become disobedience, my ignorance become defiance, my weakness become something that must be corrected?
My brother used a whip.
What will Kaedryn use? His shadows?
I curl tighter around the shawl, hating myself for the thought and unable to stop it.
He has not struck me. He has not raised a hand.
But my brother did not begin with the worst punishments either.
Cruel men rarely reveal the bottom of their cruelty all at once.
They teach you the shape of the cage first. They let you learn where the walls are. Then they punish you for touching them.
And Kaedryn already sees me as a problem.
A runaway. A liar. A selfish girl who freezes while men die. A princess who caused trouble, endangered treaties, and made herself inconvenient when kingdoms needed her to be useful.
Another pawn.
That is all I have ever been.
A piece moved from one side of the board to the other.
I was a sister when Varek needed sympathy, a bride when he needed leverage, a cause if I died in the South, and a burden if I lived and was rejected.
Now, to Kaedryn, I’m an obligation wrapped in silk and failure, a woman he did not choose but must control because peace demands it.
I survived Dravaryn because of Freya. Because there was a garden. Because there were books, sketches, rituals, quiet kindness tucked into the seams of terrible days.
But there is no Freya in Elyrion. There is no garden that belongs to me. No hidden trapdoor. No one who loves me.
There is only a prince whose anger makes me kneel. Only a sensation I do not understand pulling me toward a man I am terrified to trust. Only another kingdom waiting to decide what I am worth.
Now, all I have is her song.
She used to sing it low, under her breath, her thumb moving over my hair until the cold let go of me enough to sleep. I do not have her voice. I do not have her hands. I have the words, and tonight the words are the only thing that will hold me.
“When night meets light,” I whisper into the wool, “and sea meets stone...”
My breath steadies on the next line the way it always did in her lap.
“...the fate of all kingdoms will change.”
I never knew where she learned it. I never asked. I thought it was only a lullaby, a soft nothing sung to a frightened child because the sound mattered more than the meaning. I say it again, quieter, until the shape of it loosens something behind my ribs.
Night and light. Sea and stone. It means nothing. It has always meant nothing. It is only Freya's voice living on in mine, the one warmth I could carry out of that place.
I fold myself tighter around the shawl, and let the ship carry me south.