His stomach roiled more viciously still. Not only at Avette’s knowing suggestion, but at the sickening realisation that itwasenough to sway him. He could not reach the Merrow, but Adeline was here, her safety and a moment alone together dangled before him like a carrot on a stick. Despite his better judgment, he let himself look at her; Adeline’s lips and her brow told two different stories, face threatening to crumble even as she forced a trembling smile.
Kai dragged his gaze away, knowing that his mind had been made up before he’d even turned to her. Hating himself for it.
“Alright,” he said.
From the corner of his eye, Adeline stiffened—but Avette only smiled.
“Wonderful. Come now, cousins.”
And with a flippant gesture over her shoulder, she picked up her skirts and glided away. The cold nipped and stung at Kai’s skin as she passed him by with her stormwinds and her cavalry in tow. Benan leered at him, Mareda barely looked his way, but Adeline—Adeline slowed to brush her fingers over his.
Just one brief moment of reassurance.
The warmth of that touch did more to bolster him than any amount of broth or berries ever could.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Kai
The tunnel was broad and smooth to begin with, a neat construction of ice pillars and flat pathways. It was not difficult to see where the Wielder’s energy had begun to wane. The passage narrowed, the walls growing more jagged, and where their long tunnel splintered into forked pathways, Lady Imogen caught his lingering gaze and said, “Those ones aren’t ours. There’s a few bisecting this passage.”
The Sealgair’s tunnels.
He peered hopefully into them whenever they passed, but it was difficult enough to see the path ahead, let alone spy anyone hidden in the ancient, unlit passages. The winter sunlight, filtered through centuries of muggy ice, did little to light theirway. Lanterns had been set into the walls, but the farther they walked, the sparser the light became, as though the Wielders had underestimated just how deep they would need to tunnel.
But Kai was unfortunately familiar with these depths.
He had expected dread to fall upon him as they entered the tunnels, but it did not come. After all, while the dark could not be called a comfort, itwasfamiliar. For better or worse, this ice, these shadows, had been his cradle for longer than he could truly fathom. He didn’t fear them anymore; his fears had taken a very different shape in these last few months. And so, it was with an unexpected ease that Kai followed Lady Imogen into the frozen heart of his lost home, knowing that what he truly feared was a threat hanging far above the solid surface.
They walked in silence broken only by Lady Imogen’s occasional offerings; that they were not far now; that the other wielders and gards would be waiting for them; that he need only clear their way as they broke through the ice to the running waters of the cavern.
At this last assertion, Kai could not help himself.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked tersely. Ahead of him, Imogen did not turn, but he enjoyed a savage satisfaction in the tightening of her shoulders. “How can you help her?”
“How can you?” she shot back.
Kai gritted his chattering teeth.
“She has Adeline.”
“And Mareda, too,” Imogen said simply. Her gaze remained on the dim path ahead, one hand flat to the rough-hewn ice wall, following the tunnels she’d carved at Avette’s command. “Do you have any idea, Your Majesty, just how many times I’ve had thisconversation? I’m tired of it. You cannot know,anyof you, what I have done to survive these past few months. To ensure weallsurvived.”
“And you think we’ll survive if you give her the Pearl?”
Imogen drew abruptly short, gaze flicking halfway over her shoulder.
“I think if I give her the next pretty trinket she has her eye on, it’ll hold her attention long enough to keep us all safe a moment longer. I think if she didn’t sendme, she would send someone whose motives I can’t guarantee. I think I am buying us time.” She turned fully to him, and even in the dwindling light of the depths, he caught the fire behind her eyes. “And frankly, I think that’s more thananyoneelse has done to stop her.”
Kai’s tense jaw loosened, thawed by the hot sweep of shame in his chest, all that self-righteousness crumbling to ash. Thoroughly cowed, he flinched from the sear of her gaze and caught only the sparkling whisk of her skirts as she turned and continued on, her steps decidedly more clipped. He followed at a distance, reminded irresistibly of the last time a slight and elegant woman had cut him down to size.Lady Snow, Avette had called her, and he doubted whether she knew just how apt that was; Imogen was every bit as formidable as the Queen of Snow and Silver herself.
He hurried on as Imogen rounded a bend in the tunnels, nearly slipping in his haste and sending his heart lurching.
“I should not have presumed to understand your motivations,” he said. “I am sorry, Lady Imogen.”
Her shoulders pulled back straighter.
“I am aware of how it must look,” she sniffed—then softened. “And I’m sorry for snapping. It’s just been—”
