Doran shrieked the single command in her face, spittle flying.
“You backed the wrong Beira,” she finally snarled back.
“Not fucking likely.” Doran wound his grip in the torn lace of her sleeve and yanked her shoulders off the ground, so hard she could hear the groan of her spine in her own ears. “What other choice was there? Your whore mother opened her legs for any foreign fucker with the right title. Her one and only pure-bred heir willneverbear a royal child of her own.”
He yanked her closer still, his cold nose brushing over her own almost lovingly.
“Then there’s you. Half a Beira, although you made your share of the Snow Queen’s legacy count. Made her proud, didn’t it, to see you rutting with the fucking fishes?”
“Andthat’swhy you chose her,” said Adeline, then caught her breath in a gasp when Doran gave her another swift shake. “Because of what my sister and I might choose to do in our own beds? Not because Avette gives you free license to befucking deranged?”
Doran grinned, every gritted tooth gleaming near as bright as the delight in his eyes.
“Can’t it be both?”
And then hewaschoking her, his scarred hands thick beneath her chin, heavy, his weight bearing down entirely on her throat until her lungs swelled in her chest, two grapes ripe to burst. Her magic thrashed, but the pain was a brick wall she could not reach through. Agony snatched at her vision in waves as she flailed and kicked beneath him. Her brain was slowing and sluggish—she thought she had reached for his throat, but her hands were still frozen in claws around his wrists. The pain reached a crest, and just as her sight went black, something did burst within her. But it was not her lungs. She was breathing again, albeit weakly,her eyes blurring back into focus to find that Doran had faltered above her. His eyes bulged just as she knew her own must be.
She had gone for his throat after all, she thought dimly, or apartof her had—her magic reaching where her hands could not. Doran released one hand to scrabble at his own throat, the other tightening around hers. The pain and pressure of his grip wasexcruciating, but it was not enough; she could breathe, she could think, she could feel for her magic and spool it up within her. Her vines wound around Doran’s throat, tighter,tighter, so tight she could see his skin wrinkling in the grip of her magic. In her childhood nightmares, Doran had been a man made of steel; sharp and colourless, all the life and light leeched out of him until he was a twin to the blade he so worshipped. It seemed impossible now that there should be any colour left, but she watched it flood his face, watched in horror as his entire head turned purple, skin swelling. His grasp on Adeline weakened enough for her to smack his hand away, freed at last. So she could not say why her first instinct was not to throw him off her—but to reach for the vines around his throat and tug. He only lurched forward, but she tore at the ropes her flailing mind had called forth, ripping feverishly until Doran was free and gasping. She did throw him off then, bucking so he slipped sideways and landed with a breathless thud on the ground beside her.
Adeline rolled and struggled to her knees, slipping on the ice and then again on her many layers of skirts. She’d just gotten one foot beneath her when the entire room tilted, and she had barely a split second to throw her hands out before her cheek hit the marble. Her pores roared their outrage, and all around her was a flurry of green and brown. Adeline felt herself wrenched physically from the ground and thrown onto her back, teeth rattling with the impact. Her eyes screwed forcefully shut, but when she opened them, she saw only the splay of Doran’sfingers, his entire broad palm shoving her head back against the biting marble. She clawed and bucked and screamed, but his weight was too much, and she was so stupid. So fuckingarrogantto think that a clumsy grasp on magic and a few years in the training room would be enough to take down a man who outweighed her for size, years, experience, and sheer fuckingwillto cause harm.
“I won’t ask you to yield this time, Princess,” Doran panted. She caught flashes between his fingers; a canopy of green, his arm rising over his head, steel glinting in the air. “I’ll take your advice, once so eloquently offered. I’llfucking make you.”
Panic screamed through her, a base and animal fear erupting beneath her skin. It ballooned inside her, rising between her ears in one drawn-out howl that nearly drowned out the screams all around her. Someone was calling her name from a great distance, and the desperate pitch of it chilled her crashing blood. The sword whistled in the air for all of a heartbeat before its song was ripped clean away, and only a muffled clatter took its place. Adeline was not aware she’d thrown up her arms in defence until they fell limp at her sides, her body feeling the loss of Doran’s weight before her mind could catch up.
She blinked up at the boughs and swaying young leaves of a small clearing, confusion dulling her senses for long enough that she didn’t immediately pick apart the nearby scuffle from the rustle of her trees. A scream tugged at her attention, snapping like an elastic band, the sharp return of it sending her scrambling to her elbows and halfway upright.
Her body went rigid where she lay propped in her bed of moss and frost.
Towering over her was a woman, statuesque and terribly beautiful. Her pale face and gleaming fangs were lit in anethereal green glow that emanated from beneath a threadbare cloak as she stared curiously down at Adeline. She held Doran almost absentmindedly by his cloak, his armour clattering as he clawed once more at his own throat. His eyes bulged, red rims vivid against the mottled grey of his skin, and with his every strangled breath, droplets of water burst between his spluttering lips.
“We meet at last,” said the strange woman. Her voice was melodic and slow, soft as the tilt of her head as she considered Adeline with those too-curious eyes, the glow of her pendant building just as a slow pressure settled over Adeline’s lungs. “Well, I quite understand all the fuss. Youarea pretty thing. Not quite as lovely as the stories say, but then, who ever is?”
“That’s not her,” someone cut in urgently, and Adeline felt the pressure in her chest evaporate. She raked in a burning gasp, disbelief and confusion warring for space as her eyes darted around.
Ceri skidded to a halt at her side, shoulders heaving as though she’d run the length of the hall. Shemusthave, Adeline realised, as Ceri bent to grasp her arms and haul her upright, righting her when she staggered into her arms. Ceri’s brow was taut, the sorrow and seriousness on her face making her looksolike Kai that it shot a bolt of panic through Adeline’s chest, sweeping her mind with vicious clarity. Her heart gave one mighty pulse of protest.Kai.She had taken too long; left Kai to battle Avette and Benan for far longer than she’d intended.
“TheotherBeira girl,” said the strange merrow woman. She glanced up at the canopy of trees above them, lips pursing. “Interesting.”
Adeline’s head swam; something was tugging sharply at her veins, no longer crying for release but demanding her attention.Imogen’s influence, not just feeding, but calling, searching, panicked. Her heart stuttered, trapping her breath. They needed her. She tore her gaze from the Merrow woman’s, from Doran’s rapidly purpling face, and found Ceriwyn’s worried frown.
“I have to go,” she tried to say, but the words burned all the way up, and all that came out was a pained wheeze.
Ceri paused in her exam of Adeline’s injuries to hush her, fingers brushing lightly over her aching throat.
“He’s bruised your throat; it will hurt to speak.”
Adeline shook her head, vision swimming with the vigorous movement. “Have to get to Kai.”
She watched realisation crumple Ceri’s brow, but she turned to the Merrow woman at once. Looking to her for leadership, Adeline realised, for permission. She eyed the woman’s green pendant, a twin to the one Daithí had given Kai.
The same pendants the Sealgair had lived and died for.
“My brother needs her,” Ceri said urgently. “She’s a part of the plan he described last night.”
Adeline’s pulse skipped; she hadn’t known Kai sent word—sent for help, from those who had no reason to offer him anything. He really had taken every chance to make this work, and the knowledge swelled through her in a reviving burst of warmth.
The woman gave a sing-song sigh, tearing her attention from the trees. “Very well.”
