He especially should not have let his voice fall so low, the words almost guttural, heavy in the air between them. What waswrongwith him? Worse still, he’d let his eyes drop to her lips,again, now slightly parted as she gazed up at him. Kai wanted to look away. Hehadto look away. But the slow dawning glow of her smile was too warm; too inviting. He wanted to know what else he could say to keep her looking at him just like that; wanted it so fiercely it shocked him.
And made him hate himself for having to fix it.
Ruin it.
Kai cleared his throat, and his mind along with it.
“It is an honor, after all.” He bowed stiffly, a poor attempt at clawing back some sense of decorum. “To have the company of an Heir of Eisalaan.”
There. Her smile dropped. Fixed – ruined. Adeline took a half-step back.
“I’m not an heir,” she said quickly.
And perhaps he’d overcompensated, blundering fool that he was, for he didn’t think he imagined the tension in her tone.
“I meant nothing by it, Your Highness –”
“Adeline.”
She sighed, but her stony expression melted as swiftly as it had set. She took a few more steps away from him and picked up her sword where she’d left it resting against a pillar, perhaps needing the distraction – a reason not to meet his eye. “It’s not you, I just – I’m not an Heiryet. I turn twenty-two this Winter. I don’t have the right to campaign until then.”
Kai frowned.
“You’re not yet of age?” Another mental note to tuck away, in his study of this new Eisalaan. “Your people used to mark adulthood by the eighteenth year.”
“Oh, we still do.” She smiled wryly, now tracing the rings of the sword handle, and still not meeting his eye. “But everything to do with the crownisdrippingin symbolism. Twenty-two is the age the Sorceress was when she died, so–”
Adeline cut herself off with a short, sharp wince, and screwed her eyes shut.
“Bollocks, that was incredibly thoughtless. I’m – I’msosorry.”
For a moment, he had no idea why she was apologising. But then Kai recalled, with a jolt, whothe Sorceresswas in their modern folklore. His heart sank, as slow and cold as though his body were the bitter depths of the Laune.
Avette, Avette, Avette.
His voice was so hoarse he might have emerged from the ice only moments ago.
“It’s quite alright.”
Kai had been breathing the cold Eisalaan air for weeks, and it had never felt so frigid, so tight around his gills as it did in that one, long moment as the reality of his situation came flooding over him. It was nearly unbearable. Adeline watched him quietly, reading something in him as the blood drained from his face. The Princess did not much resemble her mother, but in that moment her face could have been a mirror to the Queen’s. It was the same look her mother had worn when she’d told him Avette’s fate; knowing and sorrowful.
Adeline spoke softly.
“It must be hard. Reminders everywhere.”
“Yes,” he said, the words still grating on the way up. “It is.”
And Kai found that he was grateful for the tightness in his throat, the rasp that ringed every word. This was how he should sound; the lovelorn hero of Eisalaan folklore. This was the man she thought he was; who they all thought he was.
So when Adeline gave him a final, sad smile and turned to the training floor, he knew he should be glad for it. He couldn’t do this, not with her. No more flustering and pining. No pathetic, longing stares. He had his part to play, after all. He was the Merrow King; strong and capable, but bound to loyalty by his long lost love. That was how he got out of this palace with all that he needed.
That was how he got his people home.
Chapter 21
Adeline
“Look sharp now, Your Majesty. I can hear your joints creaking from across the room.”
