Kai watched from his periphery, and only when she was seated again did he say to Mareda; “We were Water Wielders.”
Mareda pulled her delicate features into a soft crumple, the very portrait of innocent confusion. “Forgive me, King Cumhaill, but whatisice, if not hardened water?”
Someone coughed, covering a snickering laugh. Captain Doran, he was almost certain.
“Mareda,” said Selma, her tone sharp with warning.
Kai raised a reassuring hand to the Queen.
“It’s quite alright. I understand the… curiosity.” He let them all hear the heavy inflection there, mirroring Mareda’s accusation with one of his own - she was notcuriousabout him, she was needling him, looking for a rise. Why, he could not say. This was the longest conversation he had ever had with the eldest Princess. He turned back to Mareda. “Our power is drawn from the Laune, Princess. From the currents that surround our home, deep below the laketop. While it remains Frozen, we can Wield no magic.”
“I see,” Mareda said, with a slow, calculated nod, exuding airs of grace and regret. “So you have tried, then? To reverse the Thaw?”
Selma spoke low words of warning. Adeline hissed something beneath her breath.
Kai and Mareda ignored them both, eyes locked.
“I have tried and failed to Wield my power, yes.”
“In what manner, Your Majesty, if you don’t mind my asking? Have you tried to alter the ice?”
Alter the ice.
Notreverse the Thaw. But not quitereverse the Frosteither.
They all knew what she was asking. The room held its breath, and Kai could say nothing.
“Forgive me, I suppose that’s not a reasonable question. What would you stand to gain, after all?”
She had overdone it; her barbed words were not coated thickly enough in that syrupy-sweet tone to hide the sting of accusation. Selma called her name once more in reprimand, joined this time by Adeline’s outburst; “Goddess, Marry, do you fucking hear yourself?”
Someone winced. Beside him, Johanna gave a soft hiss that might have been a wheeze of laughter.
Selma pinched the bridge of her nose, groaning both of her daughter’s names now. Kai risked a glance; Adeline was standing, leaning into the table again, as though she’d vault it to get at her sister. Her father wrapped a hand around her arm, and she shrugged him off. Her cheeks were flushed as she stared boldly at the Queen.
“Are you going to let her speak to him like that?”
“Sit. Down.” Selma gritted the words out with no small amount of tension, her eyes still closed against her palm.
Adeline did not move.
“He’s aKing.You’re the Queen, and if she spoke to you like that–”
Selma’s eyes flew open, and her voice thundered along the length of the table, low and furious. Several of the council members pressed themselves back in their seats.
“I am well aware that I am the Queen, Adeline, althoughbothof my daughters seem to have forgotten that fact. Sit down, now. Right now. Mareda – that isenough. You have said your piece, and quite thoroughly embarrassed me in the process, as your motherandyour Queen. Hold your tongue.”
Adeline settled in her chair, still glaring at her sister. Mareda, for her part, radiated a quiet contentment, though she bowed her head regretfully at her mother, and then at Kai. She didn’t meet his eye, but he caught the flash of triumph in hers.
“Now. Aunt Johanna,” Selma sighed, making a notable effort to leash her anger as she turned to the old woman. “Have you any updates from the Treasury?”
???
Kai paced the training room. The meeting had ended with still a few hours left before Master Ellis would reclaim the space, and though they hadn’t discussed it, he had hoped Adeline would think to find him here when she was through being reprimanded by her mother.
He had been here for twenty minutes, wearing a path in the soft wooden floorboards. He glanced out the window distractedly. If she didn’t turn up soon, he could check the library, or perhaps Gerard would know -
The door slammed open and Kai spun just as Adeline came storming into the room, her eyes crackling and dark, thunder and lightning. For a bewildering moment, he thought she would rage at him as she had Mareda. But when her pace didn’t slow, he caught her in his arms at the last second, and her momentum carried them both until his back hit the windowsill. Her mouth was on his in an instant, arms locking around his shoulders and using that leverage to pull herself up and against him in a fierce kiss.
