She didn’t know what else to say; his grief was raw, and she knew how bewildering it was, how little sense the world made in the thick of a loss. He needed it to make sense. So did she.
“Then it’s Avette’s fault,” she said finally. “She’s to blame for this. For all of it.”
“Even more reason,” he returned, “to put an end to it, once and for all.”
That implication hooked beneath Adeline’s stomach and gave it a violent, sickening tug; though whether it was the promise of death in Kai’s eyes or the threat to his life, she could not say. Actually, yes. Yes, she absolutely could.
“I’m going with you.”
“No, you are not.”
“I beg yourfinestfucking pardon,” said Adeline. “But yes, I am. If you’re going to confront Avette, to put yourself in harm’s way to freemykingdom andmyfamily as well as your own, thenyes. I am coming with you.”
“No, Adeline,” he said, green flashing over his face once more. “You are not.”
Adeline narrowed her eyes at his pendant, at the ghostly pulse that betrayed the thundering pace of his heart even as he stared her down with all of his usual restraint.
“When did you last take that off?” she asked him. “You normally do, for a few hours, but we weren’t practising today. Daithí says it can distort your reasoning, make you act—”
Kai grabbed the chain and dragged it over his head, dropping the pendant so abruptly that it skittered and spun across the table. He drew his shoulders wide, the injured one gleamingpainfully, spine pressed to the straight back of the chair as he enunciated each word with slow, infuriating clarity.
“You are not coming with me, Adeline.”
Rage simmered beneath her skin; she could hear it in the thrum of her own voice even as she strained to keep it low, a glance spared for the open archway and the hall beyond.
“You cannot make that decision for me,” she hissed. “I’mnotone of your subjects, Kai, and if I were, I know you would afford me the respect of—”
He stood, and Adeline felt her back stiffen as her spine snapped straight. If he assumed he’d walk away with the final word, he did not know hernearlyas well as she’d believed. She scraped back her chair, ready to storm after him if that’s what it took—but Kai didn’t turn for the door, didn’t even turn away. He held her eye as he rounded the table.
And dropped to his knees before her.
The huff that had risen in her lungs caught painfully, an odd mix of relief and dread pressing down on her breath. Kai took her hands in his, and though she wanted to knead away the ominous pain in her chest, she let him.
He still looked utterly defeated, but he was trying so hard to smooth the ragged edges of his anger and grief, kneeling before her so they were nearly eye to eye. Kneeling, like he had when they’d first met and he’d stared up at her from the courtyard floor.
And when he’d begged her not to compete in the Tourney.
And after he’d told her he loved her for the first time.
“I am not making this decision as a king,” he said, somehow even softer for the ragged edge to his voice, the salt and fire still baked into his every breath. “I am deciding this as someone who cares for you, beyondanythingelse. As someone your father trusted with your safety. And as someone who will one day beyoursubject. Not because I’m a king. Because you are the heir of Eisalaan; because you’remyqueen.”
He paused deliberately, letting the silence hang off his words. Giving them the space they deserved, the breath that brought them to life, made them feel, for one airy moment, like a reality within their reach. She would be queen, just as her mother wanted; he believed that.
He believed in her.
Kai lifted one of her hands to his lips and brushed a kiss over her knuckles. Then bent his head over her fingers laced in his own grasp and stayed there, as though deep in prayer.
“I am deciding, Adeline, because no matter what it means to you, I have a responsibility to keep you safe. Please, let me keep you safe.”
It meant everything to her. It did. Which was why she had to tell him, freeing her hand to cup his soot-smeared face and guide his gaze to hers:
“Someone has to keep you safe, too. Someone has to tell you that you can’t—don’t have to—save the world by yourself. That not a single soul is expecting that of you. You keep telling me how selfish you are, but I don’t see it. What Idosee is that you need someone to hold you still. Someone has tomakeyou take a moment to breathe. And that someone is me. No matter what it means toyou, Kai, that’smyresponsibility.”
She knew what it meant to him. Just as he must know what it meant to her. It was a stupid game they were playing, one with rules she’d invented in the midst of disorienting, soul-crushing grief. He was only allowed to tell her how he felt in those heated, breathless moments when he literally could not help himself. She was not allowed to tell him at all.
But the game had run its course.
He stared up at her, and it struck her just how much she’d missed this; his eyes—without the glow of the pendant and the way its otherworldly green muddied those leafy, earthy colours that were all his own. He was more himself without it. He was more hers.
