“I wanted to live here when I was little.”
“You did?”
She smiled at the lift to his voice, and Kai heard his own surprise. Growing up, he had spent his summers beneath the Laune and his winters on the banks, where the Merrow would set up camps beneath the stars with sheepshide tents and a long-burning fire. He had never known a home other than Eisalaan, and it had technically been his home for over six hundred years. And yet, somehow, he felt their shared homeland meant more to Adeline than it did to himself, or indeed anyone he’d ever met. She loved Eisalaan. It had taken her attempted murder and the pleas of nearly everyone she cared for to convince her to leave.
“I begged my father to let me stay, and when he refused, I stole some bread rolls and berries from the kitchen and tried to hide out in a cave on the beach.”
“Tried?”
“I ran out of bread after a few hours, and a porter caught me sneaking off with another basket of rolls. My aunt and my father were not amused. I still remember them barging in, all sweaty and panicked from the search party. They found me sitting on the floor eating honey baked peaches while a very sweet kitchen maid braided my hair.”
Kai allowed himself a soft laugh. “Adeline Beira, wreaking mayhem no matter the setting.”
Adeline sent him a sideways glance, just a hint of that familiar gleam lighting her eyes.
“Usually the good kind of mayhem, though.”
Kai did not shy from her attention, but a flicker of ghostly heat rose to his cheeks all the same, as though his body had developeda learned response to that playful tone of hers. He cleared his throat, tearing himself away from the warmth of her eyes, their mesmerising glow beneath the bronzed lantern light.
“Often the best kind,” he said.
His voice still held a hoarse edge, and he cursed himself for it, even as he felt the brush of her gaze over his face like a warm touch. But then she turned swiftly back to the view and said, “It’s just how I remember.”
“Dhalias?”
“Dhalias, the Imperial City, the flowers, the sea. Everything.” She glanced down at her hands, where they curled over the railing. “Everyone.”
Eleni,Kai thought. He nodded, but didn’t press. Just stared out at the shimmer of the moonlight on the water and waited until, sure enough, Adeline pushed past the hesitant beat of silence.
“They had a falling out, my family, here, with my father. I don’t—I don’t know a lot of the details, he doesn’t like to talk about it.” She frowned. “It’s hard for him, I think. But from what I gather, he was never supposed to stay in Eisalaan. He was an emissary for the Dhaliaan Empire sent to discuss a trade deal with the Cold Council. But then he fell in love with my mother and—”
At the mention of the late queen, Adeline’s voice cracked and Kai’s resolve along with it. He turned to her fully, watching her in profile, and Mother save him, he wanted so damned badly to reach for her. Wanted to smooth the crease of her brow, and kiss her soft crown of curls, and fold her into his arms until her stilted breath matched the steady hush of the distant waves. Wanted it so badly it called an insistent throb to his chest. It sent resounding pain through his every limb when they didn’t immediately give in to his instinct to step forward, to reach out.
Space,he reminded himself,his inner voice somehow gritting its teeth.She wanted space.
So he stood there, gripping tight to the railing with one hand, his knuckles nearly creaking with the force of his own restraint.
“Sorry,” she whispered, still staring down at her own hands. She lifted one absently to her lips, catching at a sliver of skin between her teeth until it tore, and at her slight wince, Kai had wrapped his hand around her wrist before he could stop himself.
“Don’t.”
Adeline stiffened, eyes rounding as she slowly stared up at him. She didn’t pull out of his grasp. Kai’s voice was rough to his own ears, and he tried to soften it, to lower it as he smoothed a thumb over the delicate veins of her wrist.
“You’re going to hurt yourself.”
Her answering smile was weak.
“You sound just like Marry.”
And with no further warning, her beautiful face crumpled. A heaving sob tore through her, and when her free hand flew to her mouth to contain it, Kai could stand it no longer. He tugged her to him by the wrist he still held, and she came willingly, perhaps gratefully, collapsing against his chest and clinging to him with both hands flat against his back.
“I know,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”
She cried as though the world were ending, and in a very real way, he knew it had, for her. He could not bring her mother back, nor undo Edward’s betrayal, but he could dothis.Kai put everything he had into standing steady for her, holding her upright, absorbing the weight of each wracking sob. Hesmoothed the loosened wisps of curls back from her face so they wouldn’t catch in her tears, and when his touch made her burrow closer, he continued to stroke her hair, whispering softly in her ear.
“I know. I know.”
There had been a moment, before they’d left Eisalaan, when Adeline had broken down just like this in Gerard’s arms. Kai had struggled with a fleeting, oily sort of feeling, the discomfort of it slipping painfully past his lungs and making his chest ache. He had thought it was jealousy, at first—now it reared within him again, just as slippery and hard to grasp as before, and he recognised it at last for what it was: failure. The painful knowledge that Adeline was fractured in a way he could not fix. That shehurtin a way he could not soothe.
