Kai frowned, dragging his gaze from her dress to her face. His throat bobbed, and his voice, when he spoke, was dazed.
“Like what?”
Goddess,she loved the way he looked at her. It was an effort not to sound as giddy nor as pleased as she felt when she told him, “You’re staring again.”
“Adhlas,” he muttered, then nodded absently. “Yes, I am. Youlook—”
“Do I?” Adeline tilted her head, delighting in the way his eyes darted to catch the tumble of her curls over one shoulder. He reached absently to sweep them back behind her ear, and when she shivered at the warmth of his hand, he let his fingers trace her jaw and come to rest beneath her chin, tilting her face toward his own.
“Adeline,” he said, in a voice that sent butterflies aflight inside her. A voicefartoo low and intimate for a public function. But when the hollow clang of metal cut the thick air between them, whatever he’d wanted to say was drowned out. For just a moment, they watched each other blink away the haze in their eyes. Then, reluctantly, Kai turned toward the insistent clanging, and Adeline followed.
“Friends,” called a laughing voice from the top of the garden. “If I could have your ear.”
Kai laced his fingers through hers, and though the world throbbed in time with her swooning pulse, Adeline managed to drag her attention to the speaker. Eleni stood framed before the gate to the Silver Meadow, a small, gleaming bell dangling from one hand, and a slim copper wand in the other. When silence settled over the gardens, she turned and handed the instruments to an attendant at her side, taking a glass flute from him in their stead.
“You all know why we’re here tonight; we have so very much to celebrate.”
A littlewhooprose up from a corner of the garden to a chorus of bubbling laughter.
Eleni grinned.
“Well, exactly,” she said, pausing to allow another giddy swell before she waved the noise down and went on. “We have been blessed with a new friendship, and that friendship has brought us something our ancestors only dreamed of. I won’t dwell on the implications of this gift; we’d be here all night, and I can already see some of you clutching empty cups.”
More laughter rose, then rolled away when Eleni placed a hand over her heart and set her lips in a solemn, earnest line.
“I will say this: Dhalias will not soon forget the support of its Merrow allies. For the first time incenturies, we can sail our own waters. We fearIsa Koemino more.”
Adeline had no idea what Kai had been doing in a graveyard of all places, but at the roar of approval exploding all around them, she felt him go rigid at her side; that posture she knew so well from his time in her Mother’s court, oh so civil and refined. She bit her lip against her growing smile and watched as he gave a few humble nods in each direction, a wave to Papou, who had yelled something indecipherable at him, then reached for Adeline, claiming her hand again mid-clap.
Heat swept through her in a flurry of embers when he tugged her close and leaned down to whisper in her ear—
“And of course,” Eleni went on, and Kai sighed quietly before he straightened. “We’re here tonight to formally thank our guests. And so, Your Majesty, I would be delighted if you would open the floor for our honourary ball.”
Eleni stretched out a hand to another round of applause, and the music began at once, bright and triumphant—the sort of music that might open the parade for a war hero returning home. Kai shot Adeline a stricken, sideways glance, and she placed a hand on his back to nudge him forward.
“There are no steps,” she reminded him, beneath the cover of the growing melody. And then, because she couldn’t help herself, “Just don’t run away from your dance partner.”
At this, he paused and twisted to raise a brow at her over his shoulder; “Have I yet to prove I regretted that night?”
She just grinned back at him. “No. But save me a dance later, and you can remind me just how much.”
She gave him another little nudge, and he turned to stride through the still-applauding courtiers and offer his arm to Eleni. The musicians shifted the pace of their song to something jaunty, and Kai held the Empress’s hand aloft as they cleared a space in the wide stretch of grass and began to dance.
“Agameni,” creaked a voice at Adeline’s side, and she turned to find her grandfather bowed over, nose pointed at the grass, and his hand outstretched. “Will you do me the honour?”
Adeline did not like that her answering smile took some coaxing.
She loved her grandfather, or at least the man he was in her memories. She might not know him well as an adult, but he’d been good to her all those years ago, and her father had always spoken of him with such tenderness. That little kernel of doubt sprouting in her belly as she looked at his hand—the same hand that had held out a wilted flower to her only days ago—was not Papou’s fault. She put the flower and his awkward, expectant stare from her mind. Then she took his hand, then let him whirlher toward the grassy dancefloor with surprising grace. The space around them filled out quickly, and Adeline watched as courtiers and Merrow joined them in mingled pairs.
“A great deal to celebrate, for us all,” Papou said, following her eye. “We were blessed the day your Merrow friends landed on our shores.”
“As much as I agree,” she confessed, leaning in with her voice just above a whisper. “I’ve missed whatever it is we’re celebrating.”
Papou laughed. “Isa Koemi, a vast portion of our waters, was inaccessible to us for so long—all throughout my own reign, and longer besides.Ahn, for as long as anyone can remember, in truth. Anyone brave or reckless enough to cut through would never make it back to Dhaliaan shores. But now, thanks to your Merrow King, our trade ships can travel the oceans faster—and safer—than ever before.”
HerMerrow King.
Adeline did not want to address the validity of that observation, even to herself, but she could not help the glow that warmed her cheeks. Pride and something else, something soft and airy, swelled in her ribcage until she could barely breathe. She squirmed under her grandfather’s knowing smile and glanced away to find both Eleni and Kai looking her way through the weave of dancers that separated them.
