“Interestingly, Your Highness, I’d thought to askyouthe very same thing.”
Tension flickered over the Empress’s features, almost too swift for Kai’s slowed senses to catch. She laughed, the sound perhaps tighter than before.
“Well then,” she said slowly, tapping the table in thought before she met his eyes again; he could see the fresh spark in her gaze when she nodded. “You shall have your answer.”
Then she picked up her wineglass once more and, raising it above her head, let it lead her to her feet.
Lyra turned a look of slow horror her way, uttering a curse beneath her breath. Kai caught the sentiment, even if the words were foreign to him. The distinct mortification of youth knew no language; it was written deep in her scowl, deeper still when she shielded her eyes from the sight of the Empress standing with her glass raised. To be perceived, apparently, was the height of shame.
“Aht veskou,” Eleni called down the length of the table, and every head turned her way.
Switching easily from Dhaliaan, she smiled around at each of the court’s guests in turn; Alun, Os, Ceri and Adeline at one end of the table, then a slow and deliberate smile just for Kai.
“I wanted to take just a moment of this fine evening to formally welcome our guests, both to Dhalias and to the Imperial Court. Our Merrow friends have had the longest journey imaginable, and we look forward to seeing them settled. To their new home—and to many years of friendship and cooperation.”
Cooperation?
Something in that one word, the tone of it, snagged at Kai’s slipping attention. He glanced down the table to Al, who caught his eye with a half-grimace and a swiftly mouthedLater. He did not like that word;Cooperation. He did not like the look on Al’s face either, nor the briefly loosened knot that was pulling taut across his shoulders once more. Kai reached for his wineglass and downed the dregs; it was little help. He poured another cup while the Court exchanged effusive toasts, and drained it again just as Eleni began to wave her hand, settling the crowd to a gentle hum.
“And to Adeline.”
Kai carefully set down his cup. The knot in his shoulders had become a web, every single muscle snagged within it, tensed and poised—for what, he could not say.
“My belovedAdeleni, whose own journey has been nearly as long.”
There were some soft noises of agreement, some smiles from around the table. Yet Kai knew that if he were to turn in his seat, he would find Adeline sitting still as a hunted deer, those round eyes wide with apprehension. Perhaps that was why his own muscles were braced; why his lungs stung with withheld breath.
“We have watched you grow from afar—watched as you became the famously kind and endlessly compassionate young woman you are today, despite every odd.”
Adeline flinched.
“We are so proud of you. Welcome home,agameni.”
And with that, Eleni raised her drink high, the crystal-cut glass winking briefly in the candlelight before she tilted her head back, draining her wine to a giddy chorus of “Agameni!”
Taking her seat, the Empress tilted her glass toward Kai, the same edge of triumph in both the gesture and her smile. Kai tried to smile back, but it was a thin, half-hearted thing. He didn’t have to look around again to know the well-meaning speech had flown wide of its target. He just knew. And, when Eleni’s broad smile stuttered, her dark eyes drawing a short path from the table to the balcony, he knew that Adeline had walked out.
???
Kai steeled himself. His hesitation was absurd.
This wasAdeline. It was not that long ago that he’d spent every waking moment in her company. He’d held her close, moved inside her, bared the most vulnerable, human parts of himself to her and to her alone. He’d spoken those three catastrophic words to her—said them more than once, even when she hadn’t said them back. He could do this; he could force out thissingleword. Even with his tongue heavy with wine and his heart thundering with restless adrenaline that did little to clear the fog.
Just say it.
“Hello.”
His voice came out on a forceful breath, louder than he’d meant, and Adeline jolted, whipping around from the balcony railing to face him. She stood in the glow of a string ofbronze lanterns hung from one limestone pillar to another, their dappled light drifting like spectral butterflies over her wide eyes and flushed cheeks. An old and buried instinct rose inside him, the sudden, acute need to look away, to train his sight on something safe and bland, because damn it if she didn’t overwhelm him even now.
Did she have to bequiteso beautiful?
“Kai,” she said, breathless.
And that was all he needed. Courage surged through him, rushing alongside the wine in his veins, and he stepped out from the dining hall to cross the small balcony. Adeline was not wary exactly, but she gazed up at him with a guarded sort of expectation as he joined her at the stone railing, just a little less than an arm’s length between them. He didn’t say a word. He knew what it was to grieve, knew how it felt to be needled and nagged and forced to offer up your mess of waterlogged feelings when what you truly needed was to sink into them. He wasn’t going to force her to talk to him, he just—
He wanted to be here. Be with her. He thought, by the softening of her brow and the curve of her lips, that perhaps this was what she wanted, too. For now, at least.
And so they stood for a time, gazing out over the Imperial City and the dark and shimmering seas beyond. The breeze was barely noticeable but for the gentle sway of the feathery trees towering overhead. The evening smelled of fading heat and the delicate pink flowers that wove thick through the balustrades. It was a peaceful, perfect moment of stillness, and Kai knew he would have stood there all night, basking in Adeline’s presence as much as the warmth of the ocean air. When she spoke, however, it sent a cool wash of relief surging through him.
