The Queen patted her cheek vaguely and turned to the next well-wisher. Beside her, Sebastian was flushed with happiness, his cheery, youthful face almost as red as the curls he shared with Iseult. And as Adeline stepped up to embrace the would-be King, she found herself casting around the room for another face.
She couldn’t help but seek out her own father, though only the Goddess and her Daughters knew why. Silas had been quite content in the years since his own affair with the Queen had ended. He was granted a title, and the lands in the city on which Adeline now lived. He had made friends in the court and served on the Cold Council. He had made a home here, a life beyond their short-lived romance. But even so, it couldn’t be pleasant - to be told there would never be a King of Eisalaan. To be told that a Dukeship and a place in her court was the most she could offer. To then see her marry the next Consort to sire a child…
But Adeline found her father’s eyes, and he smiled reassuringly, clapping along with the courtiers around him.
It wasn’t Silas she had to worry about.
From behind them came a wet crash, and Adeline spun away from Sebastian to see Edward standing in a pile of shattered crystal, a dangerous purple flush creeping up his ruddy face. Shards glittered menacingly around his feet, and the white settee his daughter loved so much was splattered with an angry amber pattern.
In her periphery, Mareda tensed, and Adeline grabbed her wrist in warning.
Don’t.
She couldn’t go to him, not at this moment, as much as she might want to. She could not choose him, in full view of the Queen and her court, even if Mareda knew – if they all knew, had always known – that Edward had never given up hope for the woman he’d loved his whole life. Until, perhaps, this very moment, with a tumbler of whiskey thrown down in fury.
Edward glared at the Queen, and for a moment it seemed as though he might even dare to scream at her, the veins standing out on his neck and his shoulders heaving. But then he turned on his heel and stormed from the room.
The Queen did not move; her pale, clever eyes simply tracked her former Consort and watched the slam of the door, the way it shuddered in its frame. Not so much as a flinch.
After a terrible weighted pause, she raised her hand in a curt wave and turned away, dismissing her court and family from her presence.
Chapter 4
The King
His rage did not burn fiery hot. He wished that it did; it might keep him warm as he waited.
Rage was the ice in his lungs and the endless depth of black behind his eyes. It was his numbed skin and the slowed beat of his heart that echoed in his ears long after his own voice in his head had gone silent.
His rage did not burn hot, but it did burn. It was that same cold burn that enveloped him, that cradled him, that preserved him in the dark for an eternity.
Chapter 5
Adeline
With the frosty dawn came the day of the great New Winter feast, usually an eventful morning full of bustle and anticipation. The events of last night, however, seemed to weigh on the court, heavy enough to suffocate any chatter or excitement. And so, Adeline awoke in her childhood bedroom to a tense and quiet palace.
Home sweet home.
She would have given her title, her inheritance, and maybe even her left foot, to have woken up in her apartments instead.
But then again, at her apartments, she wouldn’t have Mareda softly padding into her bedroom first thing in the morning with a bowl-sized mug of sweet tea in one hand and a parcel in the other.
Adeline sat up and took the tea gratefully, gulping at it right away, and savouring the slight burn at the back of her throat, the honey on her tongue.
“Bliss,” she sighed. “You’re a gift from the Goddess.”
She flipped back the thick downy covers to let her sister share in her early morning warmth, but when Mareda’s toes brushed her bare legs she almost jumped free of her skin.
In a crisp, woody clearing just a few feet back from the banks of the Laune, there was an ancient statue that was almost sacred to Eisalaan. The Sorceress was legend; an eerie marble effigy of the Princess fabled to have cast the First Frost. She was so beloved that a Shrine of sorts had gathered around her over several lifetimes. The Sorceress heard many prayers, and she listened with her hands cast to the heavens, offerings of silver and flowers scattered at her bare, frozen feet.
And still, those feet could not have been as frigid as the two that pressed into Adeline’s sleep-warmed skin.
Adeline shrieked.
“Gah, Marry,” she gasped, flinching away. “Why are you so bloody cold? It’s like snuggling with the Sorceress!”
Mareda pulled back, but Adeline just huffed and shuffled over, pressing her shins to her sister’s toes. It was a time for kindness, after all. Especially after the night they’d had.
