“What?” Adeline snapped.
Mareda tossed her hair, stood and smoothed out her skirt. “Nothing,” she said sweetly. “I’m entirely unsurprised that you’ll be joining us, Adeline. I suppose Mother invited you?”
Adeline looked away too quickly, and shrugged. She busied herself with tidying up her plate and cup.
“Well,” said Edward, in a bright tone that didn’t suit his generally grumbly demeanour. “That’s nice, then. We can all go together.”
The walk to the meeting room was mercifully short. A few of the Queen’s advisors were already seated; Adeline’s father raised a hand in welcome as she entered, and she hurried around to meet him, nearly sagging with relief as she dropped into the seat beside him. Mareda swept by, ignoring the empty seats either side of them, and walked the length of the table to settle near the top. Edward gave an uncertain nod to Adeline’s father, and followed his own daughter to the head of the table. Silas turned to face Adeline as they passed, one eyebrow raised in question.
She scowled.
“Mareda thinks I’m conspiring against her.”
She didn’t trouble to keep her voice down, and felt a sharp prickle of satisfaction to see her sister bristle far across the room and turn pointedly away in her seat.
“I see,” said her father. His voice was decidedly more hushed, and he drummed his fingers lightly on the table. “How so?”
Adeline glanced around.
The seats were filling as councillors filtered into the room. Grand-Aunt Johanna now sat across from them, but the table was wide and she was rather hard of hearing. Much more concerning was Captain Doran a few seats down. Though he faced away, he sat so rigid and still that she felt sure he was listening raptly to every word. Paranoia stroked at her nerves, and Adeline couldn’t help but recall the sharp glint in his eye that day in the courtyard, when she’d implied she was an official Heir.
“Later,” she muttered to her father.
The door of the inner chamber opened, and everyone shoved back their chairs and rose to their feet. King Cumhaill was the first to emerge, ducking slightly to pass through the doorframe. Adeline straightened; she hadn’t seen him since he left her stumbling into thin air in front of half the Queen’s courtiers. She fought the silly urge to smooth down the frizzy halo emerging from her hair, cursing herself for forgetting he attended these meetings. Then cursed herself again for caring, for a moment, what someone so stiff and sullen even thought of her hair.
Sebastian followed next and sat at the opposite side of the table, which happened to neighbour Edward. Adeline saw Edward’s calloused fingers, resting on the table, curl into a fist; Mareda’s small pale hand covered it gently, though it wasn’t clear whether she was hiding the reflex or comforting her father.
“Good afternoon, all,” said the Queen, gliding toward her chair at the front of the room. She sat, and all around the table the Council members followed suit.
The meeting was, for the most part, quite as ordinary as Adeline imagined. Her mother shared her attention around the table while Council members stood in turn and reported the issues or progress under their jurisdiction. Others chipped in with the occasional comment or question, but to Adeline it was all a foreign language. Aunt Johanna, Councillor of Coin, droned on about “the fifth and sixth tiers of ice merchant income tax”, and Adeline wondered how in the world one could be expected to follow any of this if they hadn’t spent the past few years in this room.
King Cumhaill, she realised as she stared idly around, seemed to have far less trouble focusing. He leaned forward with fingers steepled, brow tense, and listened to each of the speakers with the enthralled look of a young boy hearing a swashbuckling bedtime story. Adeline didn’t know how long she watched him before he noticed, but when the King eventually looked up and found her eyes on him, he quickly leaned back from the table and crossed his arms tightly, glancing away so quickly she could almost hear his neck crack with the force.
Well then.
He’s certainly made his mind up about me.
She smirked to herself, ignoring the slight stab beneath her ribs – just a stitch, from her morning training. Certainly not disappointment.
Captain Doran was the next to speak. As Councillor of the Gard, he would head the arrangements for the biennial Tourney, in which young initiates violently battled for a place on the Queen’s personal Gard. He spoke about the bloodsport with audible relish. Having built his career on the Caldbonian battlefield, it was widely suspected that Captain Doran would create opportunities for bloodshed where they did not exist before. Adeline didn’t have to suspect, of course; she’d seen it first hand.
The excited gleam in his steely eye made her feel a bit sick, really. She looked away on impulse, only to find Mareda watching her with pursed lips.
For fuck sake.
Adeline rolled her eyes at her sister, reading exactly what that look meant. It was traditional for any prospective Heir to take part in the Tourney as a matter of ceremony – a symbolic demonstration of their strength for the world to see. Mareda would participate; Adeline, despite what her sister believed, would not.
“Thank you, Captain Doran,” the Queen was saying, while the Captain took his seat. “Now before we go, there’s one more thing we ought to address.”
The Queen turned an encouraging smile on King Cumhaill, and there was a quiet chorus of shuffling as the Council members leaned forward in their seats.
The King looked around at them all, and as his eyes passed Adeline, she grinned a sharp grin right back at him. He quickly looked away, and she smiled even wider.
Petty, so petty.
She wasn’t sure if she was chastising herself or delighting in the savage pleasure of getting under his skin.
The distraction it provided her.
