44. Adelina
Adelina
The message comes tucked inside a book on Elyrion table customs.
I nearly miss it because I’m too busy trying to memorize which side of the plate the crescent knife belongs on and whether the third toast at a formal dinner is answered by lifting the glass or inclining the head.
The book is heavy and old, bound in pale blue leather with silver corners worn smooth by other hands. I have spent the better part of the morning copying passages into my notebook because writing the rules makes them feel less likely to escape me, even though my memory is excellent.
Lines about dignity, rank, grace.
I wonder if that is all anyone sees when they look at me.
Stillness dressed beautifully enough to be mistaken for grace.
I turn the page too quickly, and something slips from the spine. A strip of gray paper falls into my lap.
I freeze. For several seconds, even my breath feels dangerous.
The sitting room is quiet. Mirelle is in the dressing room arranging ribbons for the next gown fitting. Linnea has gone to the kitchens because Maelin insisted I should eat something warm at midday, and Linnea has apparently decided broth counts as a personal mission.
I glance around before I look at the strip of paper.
Gray like winter bark or old stone.
My fingers tremble as I pick it up. There is no seal. No signature. Only a small mark pressed into the corner with colorless wax. A bare-branched tree cradling a crescent moon and a single star, its roots spreading beneath it.
The room tilts.
I close my hand around the paper and press it against my skirt before anyone can walk in and see.
The old root still lives.
A memory slams through me so fast I gasp.
“What frost cannot kill,” Freya had said, wiping my tears with her thumb, “it teaches to grow deep.”
I unfold the paper. The message is short, written in a script so fine it looks more like scratches than letters.
My throat closes. I press my free hand against my mouth.
The old root still lives.
We have continued moving. The road to Maralis closed, but roots do not travel by roads alone. The nurse’s last instructions were carried. Do not trust the ice king. Trust no northern gifts. Trust no message with black wax. If you stand before watchers, do not mistake silence for abandonment.
You are seen. You are not alone.
Burn this message after reading.
There is no signature.
My vision blurs and the letters swim into black lines. I blink hard and read it again. Then a third time, because the words change something in the room each time I read them.
The nurse.
Freya.
Freya’s last instructions were carried. Does that mean she is alive? Does that mean she sent them before she was taken? Does that mean the underground network is acting in her name because she cannot act herself?
My chest aches around the questions. Still, one fact remains, fragile and bright enough to hurt.
They have continued moving.
I fold the paper with shaking hands, smaller and smaller until it is no larger than my thumbnail. For one desperate moment, I want to keep it. I want to hide it in the lining of my satchel, to hold the proof close enough that fear cannot convince me I imagined it.
Burn this after reading.
I cross to the hearth. The fire is low, blue-gold over cedarwood, and I kneel before it with the folded paper pinched between my fingers.
I hold the message to the flame. It catches quickly.
The gray paper glows orange. Then the root mark curls black and disappears.
I keep watching until the last bright edge collapses into ash. Only then do I breathe.
The room feels different afterward. Safer would be too generous. Less empty, perhaps.
I feel conflicted. Do I still want to go to Maralis?
Of course I do.
Right?
I’m still kneeling by the hearth when voices drift through the partly open balcony door.
At first, I think they come from the garden below.
Then I realize the sound is closer, carried from the outer terrace that runs beneath the east wing.
Court ladies, perhaps. Their voices are light enough to mean they believe no one important can hear them.
“…much quieter than expected,” one says.
Another laughs softly. “After all the talk of her running to Maralis, I expected fire.”
“She is northern. Perhaps their fire freezes.”
“She seemed well managed at dinner.”
A third voice, older and smoother, says, “Prince Kaedryn is hardly a man who would tolerate public disobedience from his household.”
His household.
“I suppose that is reassuring,” the first voice says. “A runaway princess could have become an embarrassment. Instead, she is…docile.”
Docile. The word slides between my ribs like a thin blade.
“She barely spoke.”
“That may be wisdom. Or training. Or correction.”
“Either way, the crown prince seems to have her in hand.”
Their laughter stays quiet. Quiet laughter has always frightened me more than shouting. Shouting shows its teeth. Quiet laughter hides them behind fans and sleeves and perfectly shaped mouths.
I remain still until the voices fade. Then I rise carefully.
Well managed. Docile. In hand.
I look down at my own hands. They are clean. Pale. Empty.
The message is gone. The only proof that I’m less alone than the court believes has vanished because keeping it would endanger the very people who sent it.
Perhaps that is the shape my life will always take. Every sign of love must be destroyed quickly so it cannot be used.
I press my hands flat against my skirt and try to still them, but my thoughts have already slipped.
The garden. His shadows. The wall at my back that never came, because he put something soft there before I understood what he was doing.
Heat climbs my throat. I should be ashamed.
A proper princess would be. What happened beneath that arch was not duty, was not the cold arithmetic of a wedding night Selvara described as a thing to be endured for the sake of heirs.
It was something I wanted. Something I reached for.
I had said yes, and meant it, and the meaning had frightened me more than the act.
No one had ever asked what I wanted and then waited for the answer.
That is the part I cannot put down. Not the shadows, though I flush to think of them even now.
Not the way my body had come apart in a place anyone might have found us.
It was the asking. The do you want me to, and the patience in it, and the way he had watched my face the entire time like my yes were the only thing in the world that could move him.
I do not know what to do with that.
I press my fingers to my lips, where the memory of his mouth still sits, and for one traitorous moment I am not thinking of Maralis or escape at all.
I’m thinking of how the prince and his shadows ignited something inside me.
How I can feel the heat pooling low once more and I have to press my thighs together.
Of how good it felt when I came on his shadows.
How he called me a good girl and I liked it.
Then I remember the note curling to ash in the hearth.
I lower my hand.
A knock sounds at the outer door. I turn too fast. My heart slams once against my ribs.
Mirelle appears from the dressing room at the same moment, frowning. “Your Highness? Should I answer that?”
I fold my hands. “Yes, please.”
The knock comes again. Mirelle goes to answer, and I smooth my skirt, check the hearth with one brief glance, and step away from the ashes.
When the door opens, Kaedryn stands on the other side. The air in the room changes. It always does with him. The room moves around him, his shadows present even when invisible. The fire burns straighter. Mirelle goes still. Even I feel my spine respond before thought can decide whether I am afraid.
He is dressed less formally than he was at dinner, in a dark coat without silver embroidery, his hair slightly wind-touched. He must have just come from outside. His eyes move over the room quickly, assessing without seeming to search. Window. Hearth. Mirelle. Me.
Then his attention settles on my face. Something tightens in him.
I wonder what he sees. Ash on my skirt? The fear I gathered too slowly? The echo of laughter still sitting somewhere around my mouth?
“Princess,” he says.
I lower my head. “Prince Kaedryn.”
His eyes flicker at the title, but he says nothing about it. “My mother said you have been in your rooms most of the morning.”
“I was studying.”
“I assumed.” The words are dry enough that I glance at him before I can stop myself.
His expression remains serious, but there is the faintest shift at the corner of his mouth, there and gone before I can be certain it existed.
“The weather is clear,” he says. “The east garden is warm enough for lunch and tea. I thought you might prefer it to another tray in your sitting room.”
My fingers curl. The garden.
All I can think about is the ice orchid bed, the dark soil beneath the arch, the little wooden marker still blank because I have no name for something that may never grow.
Then sense returns. He is asking. At least, it sounds like asking. But he is still Kaedryn, and I am still me, and a question from a man with shadows at his feet can feel like a command even when he softens his voice.
“I would hate to disrupt your duties,” I say.
“You would not. I would very much like to have a meal with you.”
“Then…yes. Thank you.”
Mirelle looks relieved enough that I wonder what she and Linnea have been saying when I am elsewhere. Do they call me docile, in hand?
Kaedryn steps back, leaving the doorway open. “Bring a wrap for the princess. It is a bit chilly.”
Mirelle hurries to fetch one. I lift my satchel from the chair before I think better of it.
Kaedryn notices. His eyes drop to the worn leather, then lift back to my face. “You may bring it if it makes you feel better.”
Heat touches my cheeks.