She dropped the page without reading any further. Her knuckles found her chest and kneaded hard between her ribs. Her breath was trapped. She sank back into the cushions and screwed her eyes shut, because she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t read her mother’s final words to her.
The door was creaking open on that part of her brain, the dark and cramped little room in her mind where she’d shoved all those thoughts she didn’t want to look at.
If she read that letter, she would have to open the door to all of those thoughts, every last one.
She didn’t want to think.
She wanted to cry.
Adeline wanted to cry for all she’d lost; for the mother who had wanted to love her, and the sister who had wanted to trust her, and the man who had wanted to stay with her. She wanted to cry until she could breathe again, cry until she could sleep.
But the tears wouldn’t come.
She had only echoing, aching emptiness and the pain that came in place of her lost breath. Adeline folded the letter in one hand and wrenched the sheets back with the other, stumbling desperately to her trunk to rip out a neatly folded robe.
It was stupid, so stupid, but as she was intent onnotthinking right now, stupid was all she had. So, Adeline pulled on her robe, stuffed the letter in her pocket, and slipped out the door to find the only person she knew would want to hold her as badly as she needed to be held.
Chapter 46
Kai
Kai was swimming, at long last. He hadn’t realised how tight and wrong his skin had felt until he sank his shoulders into the water and a cool rush of relief washed over him. The ocean water in Dhalias was blue as the sky above, and clear as glass, and he glided through the waves like a bird among the breeze. But when he ducked his head and let his Merrow instincts take over, he couldn’t breathe. The seawater stung, and he could feel the salt clinging to the edges of his gills, crystallising and clogging them until his throat ached. He thrashed, trying to propel himself upwards with a mighty kick of his legs, but they were pinned against – against –
Adeline screamed.
Kai rose to the surface all at once, emerging not from the ocean but from a dream. Here, in his bed, his throat still ached and his gills fluttered weakly against the rough, broad palms wrapped tight around his neck, hands that belonged to a hooded, faceless stranger who loomed over him in the dark. He thrashed harder, the sudden surge of adrenaline from his dream lending him a split second of strength, just enough to buck the assailant halfway off his body and roll to the far side of the bed before he was caught once more by an arm against his throat.
“Fuck sake, you didn't give him enough. You said he’d be out for hours,” a strained voice grunted above his head.
From this angle, he had a clear view of Adeline, trembling in her nightgown on the floor, another hooded figure holding her down with a dagger to her throat.
“Stop,” he croaked – or tried to. He must have made enough noise, however, because Adeline’s attacker looked up, their face still cast in shadow.
“It’s nothing personal.”
He didn’t recognise the vaguely amused voice –didn’t know if the comment was directed at himself or Adeline.
His head swam. The arm against his throat tightened, a deathly, stifling embrace. Adeline was quietly sobbing on the floor, and he fought, he really did. He fought with his whole body, even widening his eyes as the edges of the room started to blur and dissolve, as though that would stop him from sinking into the nothingness. Then Adeline’s cries started to fade too, and he could almost believe he was back in the suffocating waters of his dreams, the world above muffled and distant.
Clang.
The sound rang, jarring and reverberating against the inside of his skull as a sudden rush of air swept into his lungs. A shout and a crash followed, and then the sound of scrambling, and Adeline was hauling him upright, dragging him into her lap.
“Call for my Gards – no wait, don’t! Ger, call for Ger! Meet us in my father’s quarters.”
“Adeline –”
He could barely croak out her name, but she stroked his hair back and shushed him, her own voice cracking.
“It’s alright. Can you move?”
He nodded. The room was coming back into focus. The pins and needles in his arms were fading, and he could feel Adeline’s cool fingers around his wrists as she eased him to the edge of the bed and up to his feet.
A cloaked man lay half slumped on the bed behind him, an ornate silver breakfast tray discarded near his head. A mess of fruit and porridge and shattered dishes was splattered across the floor and walls, like it had been flung from the tray at speed.
“Was this Simon?” The words rasped out, and Adhlas above it hurt, but he pushed past it. “Simon attacked them?”
Adeline hugged her arms around herself, but she nodded. “He hit that one on the bed with the tray. The other jumped up at the noise, but he let go of me and I managed to trip him over. He hit his head. I think he’s just passed out. I hope they’re both just passed out.”
