How easy it would have been, to lean in.
Stop. Reckless.
He had reached the door to the training room, and he did not want to risk walking in there if his thoughts had somehow been sketched across his face. Especially with how odd and awkward their last session had become, even before he’d pinned her to that wall. Kai took a moment to compose himself, to summon his most Kingly bearing.
But the door swung open before he could reach for it.
Adeline darted halfway out, eyes wide but ringed with a shadow of exhaustion. Her curls were rolled into a thick knot at the top of her head that bobbed with her every move.
“Kai! Come in, quick.”
Kai stared at her, forgetting himself for a moment. She was wired, slightly jittery, as if she’d been awake for too long. He stepped inside and she closed the door behind him, wafting a dark warm scent as though she’d bathed in strong black tea.
“Are you… quite well?”
Adeline managed a grin.
“Mostly. I haven’t been to bed yet and I’ve just drank at least a jug and a half of coffee.”
Kai didn’t know what coffee was, but he gathered it wasn’t liquor or wine from the way the lines of her body practically hummed with tension. “What have you been doing all night? I don’t mean to pry –”
Adeline waved his half-finished apology away. “I’ve been researching. Strategy, weaponry, that sort of thing, just trying to get a sense of where to begin with our training –”
“I thought we’d begun. We’re focusing on swordplay, as I recall.”
Adeline had wandered over to the windowsill to pick up a steaming cup the size of a bowl, filled with something black that smelled strong and earthy. She took a few small sips, scrunching her nose.
“Blegh. I hate coffee. Give me honeyed tea any day over this bitter muck.”
Kai didn’t understand what was happening. Why was she losing sleep over their sessions? What had he missed? He was no coward, but truth be told he hadn’t expected to actually have to fight Selma’s wars. He thought he’d have his people home beneath the lake long before they caught even a breath of the wind that rustled through the battlefields. The thought that he might have to endanger them, the thought that war was coming to Eisalaan…
“Prin– Adeline,” Kai corrected himself before she could, and went on, straining to keep his voice even. “What is this about? Why the sudden urgency?”
Adeline put down the cup more slowly than seemed strictly necessary, obviously biding time. When she turned to him, the gleam in her dark eyes was dulled by... something. He didn’t know what, and she wouldn’t meet his eyes, so he couldn’t search hers.
“Is there a battle?”
“There’s no battle. I just think that you deserve the training befitting a King. You deserve to train alongside a partner with actual experience, someone who knows what they’re doing. But my mother wants you training right here in the palace, and since Master Ellis isn’t… available… Well, I need to be better.”
There was something about the way she spoke those words:I need to be better.Stubborn, but forlorn, and from the inward curve of her shoulders as she fidgeted with the handle of her mug on the windowsill, a hint of embarrassment.
And now Kai understood.
“Did you speak with Master Ellis?”
Adeline’s head swivelled, the knot of her curls bobbling madly. She looked at him, understanding dawning on her as it had on Kai just moments ago, wrinkling the smooth skin of her brow.
“You know, then? Why he won’t train you?”
Kai inclined his head gently.
“Yes. It seems some things havenotchanged during my time in the ice. The Merrow are no strangers to prejudice, Adeline. We’re different. Different is frightening, and fear can be ugly.”
Adeline dragged a hand over her face, shook her head with her palm still masking her mouth. Then she crossed her arms and said dryly; “That’s awfully magnanimous.”
He mirrored her, folding his arms across his chest.
“Is it? Should I leverage my bloodline to force him into training me? It seems to me that I’ve been fortunate. I could be spending every morning in the company of someone who hates me for the very air I breathe and the freshwater in my veins, but instead I have –”
