41. Adelina
Adelina
Morning finds me at the desk.
My cheek is pressed against the open page of Court Observances and Royal Precedence of Elyrion, one arm folded beneath me, the other still curved around the pen I must have been holding when my body finally stopped obeying.
The lamp beside me has burned low, the flame small and blue at the center, and the fire in the hearth is nothing but a bed of dull red coals.
I don’t know where I am.
Then my back throbs. My neck protests. My fingers ache.
And memory returns with a cruel sort of order.
Dinner.
Prince Kaedryn’s voice.
“You need to grow a backbone, Adelina, or you make us look weak!”
The words settle into the room before I can even lift my head, waiting for me, having kept watch while I slept. I push myself upright too quickly, and the world tilts.
Ink smears along the edge of the page where my sleeve dragged through a half-dried line. My stomach twists with hollow nausea. The room is pale with early light, the curtains still drawn but glowing around the edges. Somewhere beyond the bedroom door, voices murmur in the sitting room.
Female voices.
One of them belongs to Queen Elowyn.
I jolt to my feet before thought catches up.
The chair scrapes back. My right foot catches the desk leg hard enough that pain sparks through my toes, sharp and ridiculous and somehow the final insult my body can manage.
I gasp, stumble, and catch myself against the table, nearly upsetting the inkwell.
The bedroom door opens at once.
Queen Elowyn steps inside in a gown of soft green, her hair pinned loosely at the back of her neck, no crown, no heavy jewels, only the quiet presence that makes rooms feel less hostile without making them less important. Linnea hovers behind her with worry all over her face.
“Adelina,” the queen says, already crossing toward me. “Don’t curtsy. Please, by the stars, do not curtsy while you are tangled in a desk and possibly missing a toe.”
I freeze halfway into the motion. My foot throbs. The pain is small, but tears sting my eyes anyway because the rest of me is so tired that even small pain has nowhere to go.
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”
Queen Elowyn stops a few steps away, close enough to help, far enough that I don’t have to step back. Her attention moves from my face to the desk, to the books stacked around me, to the page of copied protocol beneath my hand.
Then her expression changes. “You slept here?”
I look at the papers. The ink. The smudged line. The marked passages. The proof of my failure to be ready enough. “I was studying.”
“That is not what I asked.”
My throat closes, and I’m unsure how to answer, or what answer is safest. So I choose the simplest one. “I must have fallen asleep.”
Linnea makes a quiet, wounded sound behind the queen.
I lower my gaze.
Queen Elowyn’s breath leaves her slowly. “Child.”
I straighten despite the ache in my back and the throbbing in my foot. “I will be ready for the appearance today.”
Something in the queen’s face hardens, not at me, but around me, placing herself between me and something I cannot see. “I did not come to ask whether you were ready.”
I look up before I can stop myself.
She gives me a small smile, though it does not quite reach the worry in her eyes. “I came to tell you that you did well last night.”
The words do not fit. They enter the room and land wrong, like a key in the wrong lock.
“I did not,” I say.
“You did.”
I stare at her. She studies me, then sighs.
“And Lady Ceronna was insufferable. Truly. That woman can make a compliment feel like being pinched with jeweled tongs.”
A faint sound catches in my throat.
The queen’s mouth curves. “You noticed too, I hope.”
If I agree, I insult a southern noblewoman. If I disagree, I imply the queen is wrong. If I say nothing, perhaps that is safest, but even silence betrayed me last night. My fingers twist in the fabric of my nightgown.
Queen Elowyn sees me trying to choose. The smile fades. “There is no correct answer I am testing you for,” she says gently.
I look back at the papers. There is always a correct answer. There is always a wrong one.
There is always someone watching to decide which is which after I speak.
“I only meant,” she says, softer now, “that court dinners are difficult even when one has grown up surrounded by them. You were watched too closely. Spoken to carelessly. And you endured it with more grace than most of those people deserved.”
The pressure in my chest becomes painful. “His Highness did not think so.” The words slip out before I can stop them.
The room goes quiet. Linnea lowers her eyes.
Queen Elowyn’s expression shifts again, this time into something quieter and more direct. “No. I imagine he did not make that easy for you to believe.”
Heat crawls up my neck. “I should not have said that.”
“You may speak of what my son said to you.”
My hands go still. No. That can’t be true.
The queen moves to the chair beside the desk and lowers herself into it, not like a sovereign summoning confession, but like a woman settling in for a conversation she does not intend to rush.
“I know what happened after dinner.”
My stomach drops. Of course she knows. Everyone knows. The maids heard. The guards may have heard. Sylas will know. The king may know. The whole castle will know by noon that I displeased the prince again.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“No.” Her voice is firm enough that my mouth closes. “You will not apologize to me for being wounded by words that were meant to cut.”
My breath snags.
She leans forward slightly, hands folded in her lap. “What Kaedryn said was wrong.”
The room seems to tilt.
Wrong.
The word feels dangerous even in her voice.
“He is the crown prince,” I say.
“He is also my son, which means I’m particularly qualified to tell you when he is being an ass.”
My eyes snap to hers. The queen’s face remains perfectly composed except for the tiny lift of one brow. For a moment, the shock is so complete I forget to be careful.
Then she smiles, faintly. The sound that leaves me is small, cracked, and quickly swallowed, but it might have been a laugh if I had more strength.
“There,” she says, quiet. “I wondered if that would work.”
I look down at my hands, embarrassed by the warmth that touches my face.
She lets the moment breathe. Then her voice changes, gentler but no less honest. “It does not excuse him, but there are things you should understand. Kaedryn has been shut off since Evander died.”
The elder prince. The first heir.
The brother who was meant to rule.
The ghost who lives in every title Kaedryn now carries.
Queen Elowyn looks toward the window, and for a heartbeat, the queen falls away, leaving only a mother with an old grief she has learned to wear without letting it devour her.
“Evander was warm in ways Kaedryn never found easy. He laughed more. Trusted faster. Made people feel seen without trying, but Kaedryn was still far more open than he is now.” Her mouth trembles, but only slightly.
“When we lost Evander, something in Kaedryn locked. He stepped into his brother’s place before any of us were ready to ask it of him, and from that moment forward, he began treating tenderness like a weakness he could not afford. ”
I listen because a part of me wants to understand him.
Because another part of me is afraid understanding him will become another reason to excuse pain.
The queen’s eyes return to mine. “He is afraid of letting people in. Afraid of losing control. Afraid that if he cares too much, he will fail at what duty demands of him. And with you…” She exhales softly. “With you, he feels more than he knows what to do with.”
That cannot be right.
Prince Kaedryn feels anger toward me. Suspicion. Frustration. Perhaps guilt, sometimes, when he remembers himself too late. But more than that?
No.
Men like him do not feel too much for women like me. They are inconvenienced by us. Responsible for us. Burdened with us.
“He thinks I make him weak,” I say.
The queen’s eyes soften with such immediate sorrow that I wish I had not spoken.
“Perhaps,” she says. “But only because he does not yet understand that care is not weakness.”
I look away.
Care. The word is worse than kindness.
Kindness can be polite. Care has roots. Care can be threatened, cut, held hostage.
Care is Freya.
Care is Marra and Vera.
Care is everything Varek knows how to hurt.
My stomach twists again, harder this time. The edges of my vision dim for a second, then clear. I blink and grip the side of the desk.
Queen Elowyn notices immediately. “Adelina?”
“I’m fine.” The answer is out before the dizziness fully blooms. I try to straighten. The floor shifts under me.
The queen stands. “Linnea, get Maelin.”
“No.” I push away from the desk too quickly, and the room tips violently. “No, please. I’m only tired.”
Queen Elowyn reaches toward me, then stops herself before touching. “Sit down.”
“I’m all right.”
“You are gray.”
“I will be ready for the event.” The words come too fast.
The queen’s expression sharpens. “The event can wait.”
“It cannot.” My voice breaks despite my best effort. “Please. I will attend. I will not fail today.”
Her face changes like I have struck her.
My knees weaken. For one breath, I am standing. For the next, I am not. The desk slips from beneath my hand. Light smears across the room. I hear Linnea gasp, hear the queen say my name, and then strong arms catch me before I reach the floor.
Queen Elowyn’s.
She lowers me into the chair with surprising strength, one hand behind my shoulders, the other steadying my elbow without gripping. My heart races in my chest. I’m mortified, dizzy, and suddenly too hot.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Hush.” The queen’s voice is not sharp, but it leaves no room for argument. “Breathe.”
“I’m fine.”
“You nearly fainted.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“I can still attend.” The desperation in my voice humiliates me more than the weakness.
Queen Elowyn crouches in front of me, not caring that her gown pools across the rug. “Adelina, look at me.”