39. Kaedryn #2
Adelina does not move. That is the problem. She should be relieved. Angry. Embarrassed. Anything. Instead, she sits there with her hands folded and her eyes lowered, my correction only confirming she could not manage the moment herself.
The dinner crawls on. Another noble asks whether she has begun learning Elyrion household structures.
Adelina answers that Queen Elowyn has been gracious and she has been provided with all the tools to ensure she is knowledgeable.
Someone comments that a northern household must be difficult to replace.
She says she is grateful for the attendants assigned to her.
A councilor’s wife asks whether she finds southern music too elaborate.
She says it is lovely. Edrin jokes that perhaps Prince Kaedryn’s household will benefit from such a quiet bride, since the crown prince has never enjoyed unnecessary noise.
The table laughs politely. Adelina smiles, a perfect, faint, court-approved curve of her lips that is forced.
Something in me pulls taut.
“She is quiet,” Sylas says before I can speak, his tone pleasant enough to draw every eye. “Not absent.”
The laughter dies.
Edrin’s brows lift. “I meant only that the princess seems graceful.”
“Then graceful would have been sufficient,” Sylas says.
My mother’s mouth remains perfectly still. Adelina stares at her untouched plate.
I want her to say something. Anything.
I want her to lift her head and remind them who she is. I want her to use the rank she was born into and what will soon be hers through marriage. I want her to make them regret deciding softness means weakness.
Instead, she says, “It’s all right.”
It’s barely audible. To who, I do not know. But I hear it, and the wrong part of me hears surrender.
The final course arrives, small honey cakes with cream and berries. Adelina does not touch hers. When my mother catches my eye, I know she has seen enough. My father signals for the music to shift, and the meal ends earlier than protocol prefers but late enough that no one can call it insult.
Everyone rises. The nobles offer bows and curtsies. A few compliments. A few words of welcome. Adelina accepts them all with that same soft, polished grace that makes me want to shatter something because no one else seems to understand it is not calm.
It’s disappearance.
Lady Vaelis pauses before her. “I hope Elyrion proves a gentler home than your last, Princess.”
Adelina’s face goes pale. The words are almost kind, but beneath them sits knowledge. Curiosity. The court scenting blood under silk.
I step beside Adelina before she has to answer. “Elyrion is her home now,” I say. “Gentleness will not be left to hope.”
Lady Vaelis lowers into a quick curtsy. “Of course, Prince Kaedryn.”
Adelina’s fingers curl at her sides. I offer my arm again once the last of the guests begin moving toward the reception chamber. This time she takes it immediately. That bothers me more than if she had refused.
My mother catches my eye across the room, warning clear in her face.
Do not.
I don’t know if she means do not frighten Adelina, do not follow the anger, or do not mistake tonight for failure.
All three, probably.
I incline my head to my parents, then guide Adelina out before another noble can approach. Sylas starts to follow, but I give him one look over my shoulder.
He stops. He doesn’t like it, but I don’t give a shit. This is between me and my future wife.
The corridor beyond the hall is quieter, lit by tall glass lamps that throw silver patterns over the floor. Adelina walks beside me, each step measured. Her hand rests on my sleeve, cold through the fabric. She says nothing.
I should say something gentle. My mother would. Sylas would. Even Soren, blunt as he is, would likely find the right question or statement.
I have spent my life learning to see weakness in enemy lines, to close gaps, to strike before hesitation becomes death. I have not learned what to do when the weakness is fear, when the gap is silence, when striking only proves every lesson her brother taught her.
By the time we reach her wing, my anger has found the wrong shape. I recognize it, but I still cannot stop it quickly enough.
Linnea and Mirelle rise the moment we enter her sitting room. Adelina withdraws her hand from my arm and folds it with the other in front of her gown.
“Leave us,” I order.
Linnea hesitates. Adelina’s eyes drop.
“Stay in the next room,” I add, sharper than I intend.
The maids curtsy and retreat, closing the bedchamber door only halfway.
Adelina stands near the hearth, the silver-blue light from the lamps catching in the embroidery of her gown. She looks exhausted and smaller than she did when I first saw her dressed for dinner. Her beauty has become something fragile beneath the weight of all that composure.
I should stop. I should let her rest.
Instead, I say, “You cannot do that again.”
Her spine straightens. “What did I do wrong?” The response is so immediate, so trained, that it should soften me.
It makes the anger worse because I’m angry at the training, and she’s the only one in front of me.
“You let them take pieces from you. One question at a time. One little insult at a time. And you sat there, enduring it instead of answering it.”
Her face stills. “I did not wish to offend your nobles.”
“They were offending you!” I snap.
“I thought responding would make it worse.”
“Silence made it easy.”
The words strike.
Her hands fist once, then go still again. “I see,” she says.
No anger. No defense. Just that awful quiet.
I drag in a breath, but it does nothing to cool the words already rising.
“You are not a minor court lady. You are not some northern hostage waiting to be released. You are the future queen of Elyrion. If you sit there and let every ambitious noble with a sharp tongue decide you can be handled, you will spend the rest of your life being carved apart by people who know you will thank them for the knife.”
Her eyes lift then. I see the hurt before she hides it. “I was trying to be respectful.”
“I know.” I don’t say it kindly enough.
Her mouth trembles once before she controls it. “Then I don’t understand.”
“You need to grow a backbone, Adelina, or you make us look weak!” I shout.
The room goes silent. The words are cruel, too close to Varek’s cruelty.
And too late to call back.
I hear what I have done. I told her she is a thing that makes us look weak. A liability to be managed. The exact shape her brother carved her into and called her by. I have spent days swearing I’m not Varek, and I have just handed her the same verdict in my own voice.
Her face empties like every living thing inside her steps back from the window and closes the shutters. I know that look now. I put it there once already. I feel the flash of hurt through the bond before that too goes silent.
Still, she lowers her head with perfect grace. “Yes, Prince Kaedryn. I’ll do better at the next dinner. I’m sorry I didn’t meet your expectations.”
Guilt cuts through the anger at last, sharp enough to make me step toward her. She does not move away because she has already retreated somewhere I cannot reach, braced for the next harsh word, the next criticism.
“Adelina.”
Her hands fold at her waist. Her shoulders are square. Her head is bowed. She is the image of obedience. “Yes?”
I have no idea what to say, not anymore. She has turned my rebuke into another rule, and I know if I try to explain, I may only give her another one.
The door to the bedchamber creaks behind us. Linnea stands there, pale and tense, but she does not speak. She has better courage and respect than most of the nobles downstairs.
Adelina notices her and turns slightly. “I’m tired. I would like to change now, if I may.”
“Of course,” I say through gritted teeth before my anger can get the best of me again. “We have another appearance tomorrow. Get some rest.”
She curtsies to me, in her own rooms, after I have just told her to grow a backbone.
Then she turns and walks toward Linnea with the same smooth composure she wore all evening.
I stand in the sitting room until the bedchamber door closes behind her. Only then do I realize my shadows have gathered along the floor, restless and dark. I draw them back. Too late. Always too late.
From the corridor, Sylas’s voice comes low and furious. “Well done.”
I turn. He stands in the open sitting room door, one shoulder against the frame, face hard in a way I rarely see.
“Not now,” I say.
“Oh, absolutely now. Have you lost your fucking mind?”
I move toward the door, anger stirring again because it is easier than hearing what I deserve. Sylas does not step aside. Behind him, the corridor is empty, the guards stationed farther down as ordered.
He lowers his voice. “She survived that room.”
“She surrendered to it.”
“She survived it,” he repeats. “And then you brought her back here and made sure she knew survival was not good enough. You expected her to erase decades of indoctrination in one dinner, and then chastised her like she had offended the crown.”
I stare at him. The words find every place guilt has already cut open.
“She has to learn,” I say, though it sounds weaker now.
“Yes,” Sylas says. “But if you keep teaching her with shame, don’t be surprised when all she learns is how to disappear here like I’m sure she did in that hell hole in Dravaryn.”
I look toward the closed bedchamber door. On the other side, there is no sound.
No crying.
No protest.
Nothing.
That silence is answer enough.