50. Kaedryn #2
Simple, but still too close to a command. I correct myself before the shadow of it reaches her face.
“You may sit,” I say. “I will delay anyone who objects.”
That earns me another small, uncertain look. Progress should not feel so much like bleeding.
The meal is long, formal, and nearly intolerable.
Not because of the food, though the kitchen has produced enough courses to feed a minor army.
Not because of the speeches, though three nobles manage to say nothing in remarkable amounts of time.
Not even because the Dravaryn envoy watches Adelina with a fixed smile that makes my shadows curl under the table until Sylas kicks my boot hard enough to warn me.
It is intolerable because Adelina fades beside me, slowly and so carefully I know few others see it.
She answers when spoken to. She accepts congratulations.
She remembers every title, every rank, every appropriate turn of phrase.
She smiles faintly when my mother draws her into conversation and inclines her head when my father thanks the Maralis witnesses.
But the longer the evening stretches, the more her hand stills in her lap, the more her shoulders tighten beneath the bridal fabric, the more her gaze drifts toward the empty space beyond the windows where the garden should be visible if night had not turned the glass dark.
I have taken that from her. Restricted. Secured. Protected. Words are useless things when the result is the same.
The first course is set before us, a delicate soup with sea herbs and pale root vegetables. Adelina lifts her spoon, tastes enough to satisfy anyone watching, then sets it down.
I wait. She does not lift it again. I turn slightly, and pretend I am reaching for my own cup, and move the small dish of salted bread closer to her plate.
Not too obvious. Not a command. Her eyes drop to it.
Then to me. I keep my attention on Lord Edrin across the table, who is speaking about trade tariffs with all the charm of damp wool.
After a moment, Adelina takes a piece of bread. I breathe for the first time in what feels like minutes. Ridiculous. A piece of bread should not matter this much.
She eats half.
The second course is fish with sweet greens. She does not touch it. I ask a servant for lemon water, then place the cup within reach of her hand.
“Thank you,” she murmurs.
“Too much wine in the room,” I say quietly. “The lemon helps.” It is not entirely true. It is true enough.
She drinks.
Later, when the roasted vegetables come, I say, “The small blue ones are mild.”
Her eyes flick to mine. I hold it for only a second, then return to my plate. No order. No expectation. Only information. After a pause, she tries one and then eats all of it.
My mother catches me watching and gives me a look that manages to be approving and unbearably sad at once. I look away first.
The reception drifts on. At some point, my father announces the formal crowning will take place after the final blessing, a symbolic recognition of Adelina’s place as crown princess of Elyrion. A crown of rule worn by brides entering the royal line.
Adelina goes still.
I lean closer. “It is ceremonial.”
Her voice is barely sound. “I forgot about this.”
“It won’t be long. Then we can retire.” I take her hand in mine.
She takes a deep breath and nods. “Okay.”
I almost tell her she does not need to wear it long. That my mother will remove it before she retires. That crowns are tools, not chains, though the distinction is poor comfort when the metal rests on your head.
Instead, I say, “If it becomes too heavy, give it to me.”
The final blessing approaches near midnight.
By then, the reception hall has softened into the strange, dreamlike haze that follows too many candles, too much wine, and too much ceremony.
The nobles have relaxed into conversation.
The musicians play lower now, the songs less formal.
Servants begin preparing the ritual table at the far end of the hall, where silver bowls of water, moon oil, and crushed starflower are arranged beneath a canopy of green and navy silk.
My mother takes Adelina with her to the blessing table.
It is custom. The queen welcomes the bride into the royal household before the last public rite, placing moon oil on the bride’s brow and speaking the first household blessing.
My father stands near the dais speaking with the Maralis witnesses.
Sylas is beside me, quieter than usual. Maelin and Soren have both drifted closer to the edge of the room, tired but watchful.
I want to go with my mother and wife, but protocol says I wait until the household blessing is complete. I hate protocol.
Adelina stands beside her near the far end of the hall, candlelight shimmering through her veil, bare wrist visible where her sleeve falls back. My mother says something that makes Adelina smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
The bond hums softly. Tired. Hurting.
Her, I realize.
The exhaustion sits at the edge of it like a dimming light.
I turn to Sylas. “After this, she retires.”
“No argument from me. Anyone else in her position would have fallen over already.”
“Anyone who protests can speak with Father.”
“Or Mother.”
“Mother may be less merciful.” I smirk.
Sylas’s mouth twitches. Then his eyes shift past me. His amusement vanishes.
I feel it a heartbeat later. Wrongness. The hairs on my neck stand in warning.
A servant near the blessing table steps out of rhythm.
In a hall full of trained movement, the smallest wrong step becomes thunder.
He wears ceremonial gray, head lowered, a silver cloth folded across both hands.
Nothing about him should draw notice. Servants move constantly during receptions.
Cloth, cup, tray, bowl. But his weight is wrong in a way only my instinct and experience can explain.
And he is not the only one.
I see them all in the same breath, the way you see lightning strike before you hear the thunder.
A second gray-clothed figure near the musicians’ balcony.
A third along the eastern colonnade. A fourth and fifth rising from among the seated nobles where no servants should be at all.
More along the walls. Too many. Spread across the hall so that no single point of it can be defended without leaving another open.
Someone designed this attack to overwhelm us. Someone knew the shape of this room, the wards that slow magic at the ceremonial space, the distance between where I stand and where my mother blesses my wife.
The hall erupts.
It happens everywhere at once. Blades come free of cloth and sleeve and the false folds of servant’s gray. A noblewoman screams as the man beside her rises with steel in his fist. The musicians’ song shatters mid-note. Somewhere a table goes over, silver and crystal exploding across stone.
My shadows surge along the floor in every direction at once, splitting, fracturing, racing toward a dozen threats instead of one. But shadow divided is shadow weakened. I feel the cost of it the instant I release them. My power is spread thin across the hall, reaching for too much ground.
I am not the only one moving.
Sylas is already drawing, his ceremonial blade clearing its sheath as he steps toward the nearest attacker with none of his usual ease left in his face.
Merritt and Rowan break from the wall, blades out, roaring orders that cut through the panic.
The royal guard surges from the edges of the hall, steel ringing, bodies slamming into bodies.
Soren shoves a knot of nobles back toward the doors.
Kellan’s voice booms somewhere near the eastern arch.
For one churning moment, the reception becomes a battlefield, every trained body in the room turning at once toward a threat that came from too many sides. It is not enough. There are too many, too fast, too well placed.
The figure near the nobles lunges toward Sylas.
The blade comes for my brother’s side, and instinct turns me before thought can.
My shadows snap back toward him, toward the threat I can see, the one within reach.
I catch the attacker’s arm. Steel still grazes Sylas’s ribs, a bright line of red blooming through hunter green, and he grunts, staggering, one hand flying to the wound even as he drives his own blade up into the man who cut him.
Every shadow I own is wrapped around the fight in front of me. That distraction is all it takes. While I turned, while I chose, another gray-clothed servant near the blessing table moves.
The man’s hand twists inside the cloth. Steel flashes.
Everything slows.
Adelina turns her head. She sees the blade.
She does not move. My shadows streak toward her, but they are scattered now, tangled in a dozen fights across the hall, the rest too far, the distance too great, the room full of struggling bodies, wards around the ceremonial space slowing magic by design because ancient rites fear interference from power.
I feel the drag and snarl a command into the space between us.
“Adelina!” I roar. “Move!”
She freezes before survival can take over.
My mother does not hesitate. She yanks Adelina back and steps between her and the blade. I see the moment before it happens. The assassin’s arm extends. My mother’s hand lifts. Adelina’s veil sweeps sideways as Mother yanks her out of the way.
My shadows reach the assassin’s ankle just as the blade strikes my mother, plunging into her ribs.
“ELOWYN!” My father’s voice tears across the room.
My shadows explode. The assassin goes down under a mass of shadow so dense I hear bone crack before Merritt reaches him. Nobles stumble and shriek. Glass shatters. A table overturns. Silver bowls strike the floor, ringing like bells beneath water.
I am already moving. Across the hall. Through bodies. Through panic.