She had no time to process it. Mareda whirled on her then, openly sobbing. Imogen had drifted cautiously to her side and now gently touched her arm, but Mareda shook her off almost viciously. Her eyes were angry red slits in her beautiful face and her teeth were gritted against the wracking sobs. “Get him out of here,” she hissed at Adeline. “Now.”
For once, Adeline didn’t argue. She tugged on Kai’s arm and after a moment he stumbled back, let her lead him to the banks where the last of the gawking stragglers quickly scattered. Behind them, Edward was screaming himself hoarse.
“Do you hear me, Creature? I loved her!”
Even at this distance, his fury launched the words against their backs like the lash of a whip.
“I loved her!I loved her!”
Chapter 45
Adeline
There was a memorial feast to be held that evening, hosted by Selma’s closest courtiers. In light of all that had been said and done on the Laune that morning, Adeline had elected not to attend. The court had plenty to gossip about now; no need to provide them any further dramatics. She found herself, instead, in Kai’s rooms, kneeling before him on his bed and pressing ice wrapped up in a soft cloth to the bruise blossoming across his cheekbone. One of Edward’s rings had gouged his skin too, leaving a small streak of blood in its wake.
Adeline scowled.
“He could have taken your eye out,” she said.
“I am so sorry, Adeline.”
“You didn’t ask him to hit you.”
They both knew that wasn’t what he’d meant, but when she wouldn’t meet his eye, Kai just said; “You could argue that I did. I goaded him; your sister certainly thinks so.”
She set down her cloth on the bedside table.
“My sister doesn’t know what we know.”
Kai curled a finger under her chin, easing her face up until she looked at him. He didn’t say anything. Just waited, his hand curving over her jaw and his thumb brushing her cheek, coaxing, soothing.
Adeline breathed through the tightness in her throat that would not go away, no matter how many times she tried to swallow it down.
People said it was my heart, that I’d encased it in ice.
Her mother’s voice echoed in her head, even now.
They weren’t far off.
“What you said to Edward,” Adeline said finally. “You think he used the pendant to keep my mother from dying. And then again, years later, to thaw her heart.”
It wasn’t a question really, but Kai nodded all the same.
“She knew the whole time,” said Adeline, with a certainty that steadied her every word. “She knew he’d Wielded his ice magic to prolong her life. And I think he assumed it had worked too well. He must have believed what everyone else believed; that her heart was frozen - not just the living, beating parts of it that kept her alive, but the part where her soul lived too. The part of her heart that let her love, and feel. That let her lovehim.Maybe he thought that’s why she left him all those years ago, because she couldn’t love him any longer with her frozen heart, but he was wrong. That’s not why she left.”
She didn’t tell Kai what she now knew, about her mother’s struggle within her own mind. It wasn’t her story to tell, and it wasn’t part of Edward’s story either – wasn’t the reason he’d lost her.
“She knew what he did to keep her,” Adeline said slowly, thinking aloud, “and she couldn’t get past it.”
We did things neither of us had thought the other capable of.
Edward had played with her mother’s life, tying her to the magic of the Frost because he couldn’t bear to lose her. He’d used his own power to claim the one power she possessed – the power of choice. A Queen’s decisions were her own.
“Do you think Edward understood what he did? That freeing her heart would set off the Thaw?”
“I don’t think he cared,” said Kai. “Not at the time.”
No, of course he didn’t. He’d just wanted her to feel something, to hurt like he hurt. Adeline’s throat was still thick, forever aching with the tears that wouldn’t come. It made her voice small and pitiful when she croaked out; “Why didn’t he stop it? When he realised what was happening?”
