“I might sleep.”
Kai gave a vague, affirming hum, yet still stood in the small space between the bed and the door. He was too big for this dim, damp little cabin. His hair had grown out a little, messy and long enough that one sleep-mussed tuft of it almost grazed the ceiling. When he came in, he’d had to turn sideways to get his shoulders through the door. But more than all that, his overwhelming presence pressed itself into every crevice, solid and warm and calm.
Adeline ached.Everythingached, physical and not. She wanted nothing more than to drift off, surrounded by all of that comfort, Kai at her back or even just in her presence.
But she had no right to ask that of him.
“Kai,” she said gently.
His attention jerked to her once more, as though he, too, had been lost in thought.
“You should go and get some sleep, too.”
He frowned a little, and it occurred to her that hehadbeen asleep just moments ago, until she’d yanked him from oblivion with her panicked retching. He was probably just as tired as she was, just as groggy. So she told him again, a little slower, “You don’t have to stay with me, I’ll be fine.”
She gestured to the rumpled bed.
“I’m going to go back to sleep.”
Understanding smoothed his dark brow, but Kai’s lips parted as though he might protest—and Adeline hated that she wanted to hear it.
He shut his mouth, and she told herself it was for the best.
“Of course,” he said, with a swift nod. A little half-bow of his head and shoulders. He stepped away with a backward stride, opened the door, but paused hesitantly. And without looking at her, he reached into the shadows behind her luggage, hefting something around it and through the open doorway.
Was that …?
“Goodnight, Adeline.”
Without another glance in her direction, he was gone. Adeline stared numbly at the shut door, candlelight and shadows playing over the planes and creases of the wood.
A trunk.He’d brought his trunk in here. Had he meant to stay with her?
Adeline crossed to the bed and sank down on trembling knees.
A mess, all of it. A messshe’dmade.
He’d come to her with an offering of trust and truth, and she’d let her fear get the better of her. She’d raged at him. Avoided him. Let him profess his love to her in a way that had beenso earnest, so heartbreakinglyKaithat she could barely stand to think of it. She’dsleptwith him in the midst of all that bittersweet uncertainty, leaned on him through the loss of her mother, then refused him when he begged her to leave with him. No wonder he was confused.
No wonder he could barely look at her.
Chapter Three
Gerard
The Cold Council had never looked quite so cold.
Or so sparse.
Edward stood at the fore of the little group, eyes cast down in deference, and his hands crossed before him. Behind him, almost shoulder to shoulder, were Bertha, Councillor of Public Wellbeing, and Norris, Councillor of Foreign Affairs, both of whom were shaking. The room had not been thawed in weeks, the icicles still glittering just overhead, reaching lovingly for their scalps with wicked, bladed fingers.
Ger strongly suspected it was not the cold that bothered them.
Behind them, one hand permanently affixed to the hilt of his sword, stood Captain Doran. Judging by the slight, satisfied tiltto the thin slit of his lips, the Councillor of the Gard seemed perfectly comfortable with the chill in the air.
The four of them were all that remained of Queen Selma’s advisors, althoughtechnicallythe Councillors of Land and Coin were both in attendance, even if they couldn’t really contribute in their current state. Ger shifted from foot to numbed foot, fighting exceptionally hard not to turn around to where the two silent councillors stood at either side of the silver throne.
Averting his gaze would make little difference; the anguished, frozen expressions of Adeline’s father and Grand Aunt followed him into sleep each and every night. In his dreams, they still had their voices, their eyes. In his dreams, their iced-over gazes followed him wherever he moved, somehow both immobile and imploring as they screamed and screamed, the sound like the shudder and shriek of splitting ice.
