40. Adelina
Adelina
The door closes softly behind him without slamming or the sharp crack of wood against stone that would give me something to flinch from. Just a quiet click, almost polite, and somehow that is worse because the room does not change after he leaves.
The fire continues to burn low in the hearth. The lamps still glow. The books on Elyrion customs sit in a careful stack on the table where I left them before dinner, their marked pages waiting like accusations.
Linnea and Mirelle stand in the sitting room, both of them too still, too pale, too aware that they heard enough to know I have failed again.
I keep my hands folded at my waist. I don’t move until I know my face is calm.
Do not let anyone see the moment the blow lands.
If they see it, they may pity you, and pity is only another way people look too closely.
Or worse, they may report it. They may try to fix it.
They may make it bigger than it already is, and I have learned that small pain is survivable.
Pain only becomes dangerous when other people start deciding what it means.
“Your Highness?” Linnea asks. Her voice trembles.
I turn toward her with the same measured grace I used in the dining hall, the same grace that did not keep nobles from pressing me. The same grace that once again failed to meet my future husband’s expectations.
“I would like to be alone,” I murmur.
Mirelle’s fingers curl around the edge of her apron. “Princess, perhaps we should help you change first.”
“No.” The word comes too quickly, so I correct it before it becomes another mistake. “Thank you. I can manage.”
Linnea’s eyes shine. “We can stay in the sitting room.”
“I would prefer privacy,” I reply.
They hesitate because Prince Kaedryn’s voice still echoes in this room even though he’s left.
I can hear him speaking with his brother’s now, probably discussing how I have failed to be what a kingdom requires.
I look at Linnea and Mirelle. “Please.”
They curtsy, both of them trying not to look as helpless as they feel. Linnea pauses by the door to my bedchamber, her hand resting against the frame. “We will be just outside if you need anything.”
I nod and they leave, closing the door between us with the same care Prince Kaedryn used.
For several breaths, I stand exactly where I am.
My back aches from the long dinner, a deep invisible burn beneath the skin, worse now that I’m alone and no longer spending every breath convincing my body to hold itself upright.
The bodice of the gown presses against my ribs.
The pearls woven into my hair pull at my scalp.
The circlet feels too heavy, though it is delicate enough that another woman might forget she wears it.
Another woman. A woman who knows how to sit at a table and answer questions without making herself smaller with every word. A woman who can be praised without feeling like a trap has opened beneath her. A woman who knows what it means to stand for herself.
My throat closes.
“You need to grow a backbone, Adelina, or you make us look weak!”
The words return in his voice, cold and sharp and tired.
I press my fingers against the edge of the dressing table until the carved wood bites into my skin.
Is that what survival looks like from the outside? A lie?
I close my eyes, but the room does not disappear. The dining hall waits behind my lids. The faces. The glittering glasses. The way every question seemed to have teeth hidden behind its smile. The way I tried to choose the safest answer and somehow made my situation worse.
If I speak, I am wrong. If I stay silent, I am wrong. If I choose, my choices have consequences. If I defer, I make his house look weak.
Nothing is ever enough. Not obedience. Not restraint. Not beauty. Not silence. Not effort. Not pain swallowed neatly behind a pleasant face.
I open my eyes and look at myself in the mirror. I don’t recognize the woman staring back. I look like a princess. I look like exactly what they all keep insisting I am.
So why does it feel as though there is nothing inside the shell?
I lift my hands to the circlet first. My fingers shake as I remove it.
The delicate metal catches in my hair, and pain pricks my scalp.
For one second, frustration rises so sharply I nearly tear it free.
I stop myself. I work it loose slowly, carefully, because even alone I cannot seem to do anything without measuring how much damage it may cause.
The circlet goes onto the dressing table. Then the earrings. Then the necklace.
Each piece lands with a faint sound against polished wood. The sounds of a life being taken apart one ornament at a time.
The laces at the back of the gown are harder.
I reach behind myself and hiss when the movement pulls across the ache in my back, and I have to bite my lip to keep from crying out.
My fingers find the first knot, then the second, working them loose by touch because I will not call Linnea or Mirelle.
I will not let anyone watch me come undone.
The fabric loosens slowly. By the time the bodice gives, my arms are trembling and sweat has gathered at the base of my neck.
I breathe through it, then slide the gown down over my hips and step out of it carefully, because it’s not my dress and I have no right to ruin southern silk simply because my hands want to shake.
I fold it over the chair. Then I stand in my shift before the mirror, thinner than the gown allowed anyone to see, my shoulders too tense, my skin pale where Freya would have warmed it with powders and oils.
My back burns. My stomach twists. My head aches from the weight of the evening, the lights, the voices, the effort of remaining composed while every part of me begged for the room to end.
I take the nightgown from the wardrobe and pull it over my head before I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at the books across the room.
Another appearance tomorrow. Prince Kaedryn said it at the door.
My hands curl in the nightgown. A thought opens quietly inside me. Just a small dark door I have known was there for years and have never allowed myself to look at directly.
What if I did not have to keep doing this?
The room seems to still around the thought. My breath catches, but no one is here to notice.
What if there were no dinner tomorrow? No wedding.
No southern crown. No northern king. No brother across the sea with Freya’s name in his hand.
No prince looking at me as if I am a locked door he is tired of trying to open.
No more rules I cannot keep straight because every person wants a different version of me and every version is wrong.
What if I could simply stop?
The thought is not peace. I thought it would feel peaceful if I ever let myself truly consider it. It does not. It feels like standing at the edge of a cliff above a frozen lake and wondering whether the water would be kinder than the rocks.
My chest tightens until breathing hurts. I press one hand to the hollow beneath my ribs.
Would anyone truly mourn me?
Freya would. The answer comes at once, sharp enough to cut.
Freya would break.
If she is alive.
If Varek has not already broken her.
The thought folds me forward, and for a second I can’t hold the tears back. They slide down my face silently, hot and humiliating. I press my hand to my mouth, trapping every sound before it can escape.
Freya would mourn me.
Marra and Vera might.
Queen Elowyn, perhaps, in that gentle way of hers that I still do not understand.
My brother would rage because I had stolen usefulness from him.
Selvara would smile behind a black veil.
Prince Kaedryn would be angry.
At me. At the inconvenience. At the weakness. At the way I had found one final choice and made it badly.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
Maybe he would not think that. Maybe he would stand there with that carved-stone face and say nothing at all. Maybe nothing at all would be worse.
Another tear slips free. I wipe it away with the heel of my hand, hard enough that my skin stings.
Enough.
I’m tired. That’s all. Tired and hurting and overwhelmed. Exhaustion is making the dark door look like an exit when it is only another way my brother wins.
If I disappear from this life, Varek will use my absence. Freya will still suffer. Marra and Vera will remain in his reach. Elyrion will still need a treaty. Zerath will press from the east. My body would become another document men argue over, another accusation, another excuse for war.
Even my death would not belong to me. The realization is so bitter I nearly laugh.
Not even my ending would be mine.
I lower my hands slowly. The room swims, then steadies. I look at the books again.
Protocol. Customs. Court observances. Wedding rites.
If life requires that I remain, then I know how to remain.
I stand. My legs tremble, but they hold.
I cross to the table and pull the top book toward me.
The page marker rests where I left it, tucked between sections on formal introductions before witnessed court assemblies.
Tomorrow brings another room and another chance to be less wrong than I was tonight.
So I will learn.
I will learn every greeting, every title, every order of precedence. I will learn when to speak and when not to. I will learn how deep to curtsy, how long to hold a look, how to let sharp words slide over me without leaving visible marks.
I will become what they need.
No, not what they need. What they cannot fault.
A perfect doll.
Dolls do not ask for gardens. Dolls do not walk into traps for the women who loved them. Dolls do not disappoint princes by having no backbone.
My vision blurs again, but I blink until the words sharpen. I take a fresh sheet of paper and dip the pen in ink. My hand steadies as I begin copying.
When attending a formal court meal as a royal consort or betrothed, the lady must observe the rank of the table before initiating conversation.
Line after line. Rule after rule.
My back aches. My stomach twists. My head throbs.
I write. If I stop, the dark door waits. If I write, there is only the next word. That is survivable.
A knock sounds from the bedchamber door. My hand freezes. “Princess?” Linnea asks from the other side.
I stare at the page. The ink glistens wet and black beneath the lamplight. I don’t respond.
“Do you need anything?” she asks through the door.
The question settles over me, impossible and kind and dangerous. I close my eyes. Need is the worst kind of hunger. “No,” I say, and my voice does not break. “Thank you.”
A pause. Then, quiet, “We are here.”
After a moment, her footsteps retreat. I write until my fingers ache. I write until the fire burns low. I write until the girl in the mirror becomes only a pale shape beside the lamp, and even she looks less real than the words on the page.
Tomorrow, I will be ready.
Tomorrow, I will not fail.
Tomorrow, I will sit where I am placed, speak when required, eat what I can, smile if they expect it, and make no choice that can be turned against anyone else.
Tomorrow, I will be perfect.
And if perfection is still not enough, then I do not know what will be.