Before the wedding.
The wedding that will not happen,she told herself fiercely.
“I won’t lie, Ade, it’s going to be hard won. It won’t be pleasant.”
“I don’t care,” she said at once. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it. I can do it.”
Imogen’s brows sloped, eyes soft with sympathy. She set down her mug and reached past Adeline’s own untouched tea. Herhand was cool when she laid it over Adeline’s, despite the warmth of the broth she’d been nursing. As though she wore Aera’s gift like a glove, forever wreathed around her long fingers, wound between the silver rings she wore, so similar to the ones Marry favoured.
“It won’t be pleasant forhim,” Imogen said gently. And then, pursing her lips against the same wince that narrowed her eyes, “I’m going to need that pendant back.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Kai
When he woke to a large bowl of broth, thick with carrots and boar, Kai did not question it for a single moment.
He should have, as it turned out.
Hunger had robbed him of something vital, some essential cog in his brain rusted and unusable. He’d been surviving, just about, on a small parcel of nuts that someone had snuck in with his bed linens, but that had been days ago, and even picking at them like a bird, he’d been unable to make them last. Rations had been whittled down to one daily cup of broth for each inhabitant of the palace, but as Benan was on duty more often than not, there’d been many evenings that Kai’s ration didn’t make it past his doorway. He ate only on the nights thatBenan was called to Avette’s bed—something he’d gleaned by the raucous exchanges outside his door.She may be the Ice Queen,Benan had crowed to a chorus of grimy chuckles, but her cunt’s warm enough, that’s all I’ll say.
Kai wished thathadbeen all he’d said. If only that rusted cog in his head had affected his hearing rather than his reason. At least then, he might be blissfully ignorant of Avette’s appetites. Strong enough to resist his own. He was not that fortunate. The bowl the porter delivered that morning was brimming and fragrant, and Kai all but fell upon it, oblivious to all else until he was nearly scraping the bottom.
“Your Majesty,” a voice at his side sang, lifting as though they’d been calling him for some time now.
The porter had left without his notice, and it was Lady Imogen who stood over him now, where he sat on his unmade bed, expressionless yet somehow expectant. Clean and groomed and fresh-faced, wafting a delicate perfume. Kai stiffened. His sense of self overcame him now that he was somewhat satiated, and he was suddenly and acutely aware of who the Lady would find staring back at her. He was a stale man in a dark bedroom, not a half-starved beast caught in a bramble—though he suspected he more closely resembled the latter. Eyeing Imogen warily, he swallowed the last of the broth and wiped at his mouth with the back of one wilted sleeve, overgrown stubble catching on the fabric. He wanted to lick the bowl clean, but he had just enough pride to hold out. That is what he would havelikedto believe at least, though if he was honest with himself, his tongue was just too sore—he must have burned it in his haste to inhale the scalding contents of the bowl.
“Lady Imogen,” he managed, unsurprised to find his voice hoarse.
“You’ll be joining me for a little while today,” she said pleasantly, as though she had not just watched him grunt and scoff his way through his first meal in days.
“We just had a fitting,” he said.
He had hoped for a brief respite from the fittings; each one of them had been carried out in Avette’s rooms, and how sherevelledin the excuse to touch him. She trailed her deadened fingers up his arms, plucking at the fabric of his half-made suit, black eyes shining with every shudder she evoked. On the other hand, these fittings were the one and only time he left his bedroom lately. More importantly, they were his only opportunity to gauge the Wielders’ work beneath the Laune, information that was crucial to the movements of his own Court. Information that was rather freely shared in front of him, too—he had wondered, on occasion, if that was by design. If Imogen was leading these conversations with her queen for his benefit. If the distribution of the Eisalaan Gard to the ports and borders was intentional, or simply poor planning. He could not say; she wasincrediblyconvincing as Avette’s Lady Snow, all fluttering lashes and simpering smiles. But here, in the rotting ice cavern of his bedroom, she remained unreadable.
“This is more of an excursion,” she said mildly. “You can visit the bathing room first if you’d like, and I’ve brought you some fresh clothing.”
Kai did not answer, moved nothing but his eyes.
There was no sneering gard filling the doorway; the friendly porter had been allowed to deliver his meal directly for once, and now Adeline’s one-time friend was offering him something of a reprieve. He was hesitant to react, even internally. It seemed almost too good to be true.
“We’ll have to hurry, I’m afraid,” said Lady Imogen. “Her Majesty is expecting us.”
Kai’s stomach sank, full enough now to give his dread some weight. Not a reprieve, then. And, he realised, when Imogen offered a tight and expectant smile, not optional either.
???
Kai had not seen the outside of the palace since his return from Dhalias, and he had not been in any frame of mind to take much notice at the time. He knew it had been stark, but he was almost certain it was worse now. Their steps sank with every step, and snow pelted sideways at them as they walked. The cover of the forest offered only a brief reprieve, and when they emerged on the banks of the Laune, he could barely make out the Queen’s Village in the distance, so thick was the curtain of snowfall.
Kai’s cloaktail was sodden and dragging as they crossed the ice, his skin so raw with cold that he could not suppress the memory that shivered free. The day he had dragged himself from the very same ice beneath his feet and half-crawled to the palace doors with only his rage to propel him forward. But the sun had risen for him on that dark day; he’d seen Adeline for the first time, the light of her eyes parting the clouds that hung over his every numbed sense. His lashes were thick with slush, just as they had been that day. And just as he had that day, he blinked the cold away to better see her.
Because there she was.
Adeline, a beacon in the relentless snowfall—
Dimmed only by Benan’s shadow as he loomed over her. It was only that shadow that drew his attention to the cluster of figures surrounding them, as though his eyes had only bothered to fight the distortion of the snowfall to cast his sights onher.Now, he saw them all: Adeline, Benan, Mareda, and standing at the fore with her hands clasped like a Priestess in prayer, Avette.
Kai stumbled mid-step, drawing abruptly short. “What is this?”
