Ah.Perhaps he wasn’t quite over the incident in the tent. Not that Kai blamed him.
He hid a wince behind a sip of wine, but if the Empress had noticed anything off about Silas’ swift exit, she had the grace not to mention it.
“I’ll leave you to your thoughts, Your Majesty,” she said quietly, sounding rather as though she was drawing back into her own thoughts. And then she smiled, suddenly magnanimous. “I hope I’ve given you much to think about.”
Apparently this was not so much a goodbye as it was a dismissal. The Empress gathered her shawl, a deeper, gentler purple out here in the lowlight, and pulled it tightly across her shoulders. Then she turned her back, once more looking out over the glittering rooftops and frosted spires of the Queen’s Village.
???
The cold breeze rustling through the gallery had been barely noticeable until Kai stepped back into the warmth of the ballroom. His face stung at the sudden change, and he could feel the blood returning to his frigid cheeks.
“Blushing again, Kai?”
Al appeared on his right, peering sideways at him with a broad grin. “What happened? Did Adeline glance in your general direction?”
Despite himself, Kai huffed a small laugh. “I’m glad you’ve become such fast friends,” he said dryly. “And I’m not blushing.”
“No,” said Al, narrowing his eyes. “You’re brooding. Again. What is it?”
Kai drained his wine. Was he brooding? He’d barely had time to fully contemplate what he’d just learned, not between his argument with Os and his confusion over the Empress and her intentions. Now that he thought over it all, he didn’t know what to feel.
But he did know what questions to ask.
“Your grandparents. They came here from a settlement near the Southern waters, is that right?”
Al wrinkled his brow, thrown for a moment by Kai’s change of topic, but he nodded all the same.
“Yes,” he said, drawing the word out curiously. When Kai didn’t elaborate, he shrugged and went on. “They came from a lake they called Mbalu. The surrounding Kingdom is known as Imbani today, from what I’ve heard.”
Kai nodded. He wasn’t familiar with Imbani, but if it was in the Southern waters, Al’s family would have crossed half of Adhlas to get here.
“A long journey. They must have swum for weeks.”
“If not months.”
Kai turned in toward Al, until his back shielded them both from the slow moving crowd of the ballroom. He leaned in and lowered his voice.
“Did they ever come across any ocean settlements?”
Al’s eyes widened slightly, then creased in a wry smile, finally grasping the line of Kai’s questioning.
“I’m guessing that’s not a rhetorical question.”
“The Empress of Dhalias seems to think there are Merrow living just beyond her waters. She’s offered us access to her coast.”
The words seemed to take a minute to settle, and Al frowned before his brown eyes blew wide.
Kai nodded once more at the look on his friend’s face; he was sure he’d worn the same expression just minutes ago. It was something between disbelief, and shock and – perhaps a touch of longing.
“I know,” said Kai.
Al leaned against the wall, shaking his head.
“Do you think it’s true?”
“I don’t know.”
“What will you do?”
