42. Kaedryn
Kaedryn
The appearance should have been simple.
A ceremonial review. A few signatures. The presentation of wedding artifacts no one in the room truly cares about beyond what they represent.
Elyrion’s court likes tradition, and my mother knows how to make tradition feel like gentleness when she wants to.
Today, she arranges the entire chamber around Adelina without ever making it look like that is what she has done.
A chair is waiting for her beside my mother. Water sits within easy reach. A plate of plain bread rests near the tea service, half-hidden among more decorative offerings.
The whole thing is subtle enough that the court sees only royal preference. I see strategy.
Adelina sees nothing, or pretends she does not.
She enters beside my mother in pale blue, her silver hair pinned with small green stones, her face composed enough that half the room probably thinks she slept peacefully and rose eager to fulfill her duties.
I know better now. I know she was found asleep at her desk, surrounded by copied customs, after nearly writing herself into collapse because I gave her another reason to believe perfection is the only way to survive me.
She does not look at me when she enters. That is probably wise. My mother does. Once. A single glance cold enough to flay skin.
Sylas stands two places down from me and murmurs, “I told you she was mad.”
“Not now.”
“Coward.”
I do not dignify that with a response.
The event passes without disaster, though I feel each minute of it like a blade held flat against my ribs.
Adelina sits where my mother places her.
She answers when addressed, not too much, not too little.
She accepts tea. She takes two careful bites of bread after my mother nudges the plate closer.
Her face never changes, but I see the faint tremor in her hand when one of the Dravaryn envoys asks whether she has found Elyrion’s customs difficult.
My mother answers before Adelina can. “Every court has its sharp edges. Fortunately, Princess Adelina has handled ours with more grace than most born to it.”
The envoy lowers his head.
Adelina’s lashes flicker. I watch her for the rest of the appearance and hate how well she vanishes while sitting in full view.
When it finally ends, the room breaks apart in courtly clusters.
My father draws the Dravaryn envoy into a conversation that looks polite and feels like a warning.
Sylas intercepts Lord Edrin before the man can wander in Adelina’s direction.
My mother turns to Adelina and says something too low for me to hear.
Adelina nods.
Then my mother looks at me and gives me a look I am all too familiar with. A command without words.
Be nice.
I cross the chamber before I can think myself out of it.
Adelina notices me only when my shadow reaches the edge of her skirts. Her hands fold at once. Her chin lowers. “Prince Kaedryn.”
Not Your Highness. It should not feel like victory. It does, though the victory is a miserable little thing.
“I was thinking a walk in the garden might be nice. Mother said you might enjoy checking on your orchids.”
Her eyes flick briefly toward the queen. “If you and Her Majesty wish it.”
“I’m asking what you wish, Adelina,” I say.
The stillness overtakes her face, the careful way she pulls herself inward, preference a trap she has already stepped into too many times.
Behind her, my mother’s eyes narrow at me.
I correct course before she verbally removes my head in front of half the court. “The eastern garden is quiet in the evening,” I say. “And close enough that Maelin cannot accuse me of dragging you across the castle.”
That earns the smallest reaction. Something in her face shifts. “The garden?” she asks.
“Yes.”
Her fingers press once against her skirt. “I would like to see it.”
“Then we’ll walk.” I offer my arm.
She hesitates before placing her fingers on my sleeve. They are cool through the fabric, light enough that she could withdraw them without resistance. I let them stay that way. No hand over hers. No pressure. No claim.
My mother watches us leave with the expression of a woman who has decided mercy is best but that she will hunt me down if I ruin this.
The corridor outside the chamber is quieter, sunlit and pale, with rain-bright air drifting through the open arches.
The eastern garden waits beyond a series of glass doors and a covered walkway where climbing vines twist over white stone pillars.
As soon as we step outside, the air changes.
It smells of damp earth, lake wind, and petals warmed beneath the filtered setting sun.
Adelina’s fingers shift on my sleeve. I look down, but she is not looking at me.
She is looking at the flowers.
For the first time all day, her face is not empty. Something in her has leaned toward the garden before she could stop it.
I slow my pace. “The starbloom lilies open at night,” I say, nodding toward a shaded bed where tall silver-blue lilies lift their closed petals beneath a stone arch.
“They look plain in daylight, but under moonlight, the petals catch every bit of silver and blue. My mother insists they make the whole garden look as if the sky fell into it.”
Adelina studies them. “They are beautiful even closed.” The words are quiet, almost accidental.
I look at her. She realizes she has spoken and lowers her eyes. I keep walking before she can apologize.
“Those are tideglass orchids.” I gesture toward a slope that descends toward the lower terrace.
Pale blue-white orchids grow among slick stones and low coastal grasses, their petals thin enough for sunlight to pass through.
“They grow wild along the sea cliffs. They survive salt wind better than most flowers.”
Her attention catches there too. “They look delicate.”
“They’re stubborn.”
A breath moves through her. This time, I think it might almost be amusement.
We follow the path beneath a line of ancient trees where tiny blue blossoms cascade from climbing vines, spilling down bark and stone like pieces of evening caught in leaves.
“Silvervine bloom,” I say. “The fragrance is stronger at dusk. Calming, supposedly.”
“Supposedly?” One of her eyebrows raises, and damn, it’s the most adorable thing I have seen in a long time.
I shrug. “It has never worked on Sylas.”
This time, the sound that leaves her is unmistakable. Soft. Brief. Gone too quickly. But a laugh. She stifles it with her free hand against her mouth.
We move deeper into the garden, past the dawnveil orchids my mother favors, their pale pink-white petals open in the warmth, translucent beneath the sunlight. Adelina pauses beside them.
“These close when threatened?” she asks.
I glance at her. “You know them?”
“I read about them.” Her fingers hover near one petal without touching. “They reopen in sunlight or safe magic.”
Beyond the dawnveil bed, under a curved arch of pale stone and climbing greenery, sits the shaded plot my mother had prepared for Adelina’s ice orchid seeds.
It’s set apart from the rest, protected by fine silver netting that softens the sunlight and keeps the soil cool.
It is removed only in the evening. Crushed river stone glimmers across the surface, mixed with damp moss and dark earth.
Adelina stops. Everything in her goes still. Then she releases me and takes one step toward the bed, then another, drawn to the garden that is calling to her. She kneels beside the soil, careless of her pale skirts, and presses her fingers into the dark earth.
For a moment, nothing happens. Then her breath catches.
I see it then. A tiny silver-green sprout, barely visible beneath the arch’s shadow, pushes through the soil near her hand.
Adelina’s fingers spread around it, not touching the stem, only the earth nearby. Her whole body leans toward that small living thing. The court-perfect line of her shoulders eases. Her head bows. A loose strand of silver hair falls against her cheek.
“It sprouted,” she whispers. The words are so full of wonder they almost feel private. Her magic moves before I understand what I am seeing.
It’s quiet and gentle. It slips from her fingers into the soil as a silver shimmer. The air above the bed cools. The moss brightens. The tiny sprout trembles.
Adelina does not seem aware of anything but the plant.
The sprout inches higher. Slowly. Delicately.
A second leaf uncurls, pale silver at the edge, then another.
The stem lifts between her hands, answering something it has waited a long time to hear.
She inhales, and the plant rises with her breath.
Then a bud forms. It is impossibly small at first, tight as a pearl, silver-blue and closed against the world.
Adelina’s fingers sink a little deeper into the soil.
The bud opens. One petal. Then another. The ice orchid blooms beneath the southern sun. It’s fragile, silver-blue with a faint lavender heart, its petals glimmering as though frost has learned how to become light.
Adelina smiles. Not the polite curve she gives the court, but a genuine smile. Small, trembling at the edges. It transforms her. For one breath, she does not look like a treaty or a frightened princess. She looks young. Alive.
The force of wanting hits me hard. I want to see that again. I want to be the one who puts that look on her face instead of the one who keeps wiping it away.
Adelina looks up then and catches me staring.
The smile falters. She starts to rise too quickly, and I move without thinking, one hand half-lifting. She goes rigid, bracing.
I let my hand fall. I hate watching her flinch from me. “You do not have to hide it,” I say.
Her eyes drop. “Forgive me.”
“No.” It comes out too hard. I gentle it. “No. Do not apologize. That was remarkable.”
Her brow creases. “It’s only an orchid.”
“It’s not.”
She says nothing, but she does not look away either. The bracing has gone out of her shoulders. She is watching me the way she watched the flowers a few minutes ago, like something she is not sure she is allowed to want.
That look undoes me more than the smile did.
The flower trembles in the faint breeze between us. I step closer, slow enough that she could step back. She does not. Her breath shifts, quicker now, but she holds her ground and allows me closer. I tip her chin up with two fingers, light, ready to feel her pull away.
She doesn’t.
“The only time I want you on your knees before me is among your ice orchids,” I say, “or in our bedchamber, with those perfect lips wrapped around me.”
Her throat bobs. Color floods her cheeks. “I don’t understand.”
“Have you been told what to expect on our wedding night?” I tilt my head.
She nods.
“Words, Adelina,” I correct her. “Please.”
“Yes. Queen Selvara said my duty as a wife is to please my husband and bear his heirs.” Her cheeks flush deeper.
“And my duty as a husband is to please and protect you.”
“It is?” Her brow furrows.
That, more than anything, decides it for me. I want to offer her one thing that is only hers, something she can stop at any moment and that asks nothing in return.
I draw her to me, keeping my grip gentle so if she wants to pull away, she can. “What have you been told of what happens between a man and a woman?”
She flushes and dips her head. “I know the mechanics of it.”
“Has anyone ever touched you for your pleasure?”
Her eyes lift, wide and dark, and she shakes her head. “N-no!”
“Kissed you?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to?”