“When she asked me to, I sought out the Pearl so she could use it to hold off her father, the King. We knew I might not succeed, that the storm could prove too strong, and it did. The current nearly tore me to pieces; the pressure of the depths nearly crushed me. She’d planned for that, though. The stormwaters would be the next best thing, she said. So I filled a glass vial and brought it back to her.”
The noise of the revelry fell away; within the bubble of their forecastle, they might have heard a pin drop to the sodden wood floorboards. They had all known Kai’s story, of course, but somehow, against the epic backdrop of their Merrow creationmyth, the gravity of it became a smothering weight. Adeline chewed her lip, eyes locked on Kai’s face, every flicker of pain and tension that ticked in his jaw, his brow, the tense corners of his eyes. At his throat, the Adhlian pendant flickered a ghostly green, and Kai’s fingers twitched into a fist, closing around his scars.
“And, as we now know, I doomed us all.”
Something splintered inside Adeline at the look on his face. Setting the wine aside, she found herself crawling across the circle before dignity could get a look in. Kai reached for her at once, drawing her fluidly into his arms, and she held him for what could have been hours; whatmayhave been several long minutes.
“And the prophecy?” said a familiar flat voice.
Kai raised his head from her shoulder, and she released him with no small amount of reluctance; she looked around to find Os cocking a meaningful brow at his King. It dropped when he caught Adeline’s eye, and he cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Isn’t that what we’re doing here?” he said, to no one in particular.
Kai sent his cousin a withering stare, but Adeline was already shifting backward off his lap, her cheeks warming. She spared a small smile for Alun when he scooted over to let her in, her hand still caught in Kai’s firm grasp. Kai reached into his trouser pocket, struggling one-handed to retrieve a crumpled scrap of paper, which he handed to Os.
“The Cerulean Heir,” Oswalt read. “Thisis the prophecy?”
“Isn’t that a book?” said Adeline. “The one about the Duke’s secret baby with the serving girl who’s really a princess—”
Ceri’s ragged gasp cut her off.
“You mindlessbrute,” she screeched, “you ripped up my book?”
“Perspective, Ceriwyn, please,” said Kai, though he didn’t temper his guilty wince. “Eda was in a trance, seconds from passing out, and chanting a centuries-old prophecy in my face. I had to act fast—”
“Behold the silver winds that blow,” Oswalt read beneath his breath, having flipped the torn page to reveal a long, cramped passage in Kai’s frantic hand.
With a frown flickering beneath his sandy sweep of hair, Os cleared his throat and began again.
“Behold the silver winds that blow
where gilded waters once did flow;
a fate as cruel for Merrow as for Man.
Distorted gift of silver daughter
devastates Her holy waters—
years and ice and sorrow time will span.
A frozen heart must bear the price
of treasures wreathed in bonds of ice,
but blood will run the only way it can.
For Mother’s tears already known
Will hide a heart of pretty stone,
and pretty hearts revive the drown’d clan.
The storm will seek out peace and calm,
beneath a magic bearing palm,
all power resting in her icy hand.
