Page 22 of On Silver Winds
Pettiness, and the overfull glass of wine she’d choked down before leaving her apartment.
“You’re in unusually good spirits,” her father noted as she stepped from the carriage and took his arm.
“Liquid courage,” she grinned.
“Ah. Well, I can’t say I approve, but you won’t be the only lush at the dinner table.”
“Edward?”
“Drunk as a wheel-barrow.”
Adeline grimaced. Who could blame him? She didn’t remember a time when shehadn’tknown Edward was in love with her mother. It was common knowledge, an inexhaustible source of gossip for court and kitchens alike.
The longing looks, the open pining, the depths of darkness he had sunken to when the Queen returned from the Caldbon War with a Prince in tow and his baby in her belly. Edward had come to love Iseult as they all did, but Sebastian was another story.
Adeline shot a side-long glance at her father as they walked.
“You’re not bothered by it. The engagement, I mean. Not in the same way as Edward.”
It wasn’t a question really, but Silas had always been prone to indulging her curiosity. He answered her, a thoughtful furrow between his brows as he watched the snow sink beneath their feet with every step.
“No, I can’t say that I am. Selma and I had deep feelings for each other for a fleeting moment, but it ended when it should have, and we parted as old friends. But for Edward–”
He hesitated, and Adeline implored him with a soft nudge at his side. He tucked her arm closer, wrapping her cold hand in the warmth of his cloak before he went on.
“They were childhood sweethearts. Of all before Sebastian, he came the closest to sharing her throne, and no one quite knows where it all went wrong. It’s as though she woke one day and simply… stopped loving him. And he, of course, never stopped loving her. It’s hard on him, but Mareda is a potential Heir, so there’s been no escape. Though I’m not convinced he’d take it if there was.”
“Why not?”
Adeline couldn’t wrap her head around it, even beyond the pleasant fog of the wine. Could not imagine that total and utter surrender of your pride. To love someone so much it destroyed you, yet still want them close.
Silas shook his head, and sighed, his frozen breath swirling on the breeze.
“I think a part of him always thought Sebastian’s hold on her heart would fade, as mine had. He hoped that one day, Iseult would claim her grandfather’s throne in Caldbon and they’d leave as nothing more than neighbouring allies.”
“Seems less likely now.”
They stopped just short of the bleached white walls of the palace and as Silas paused to open the heavy side door, he gave her a grim smile.
“Just a bit.”
???
The dinner was awful.
Not the food. The cook, Marie, was so spectacularly talented that Adeline would almost have sworn she was blessed by the Goddess if any trace of magic still existed in the world, outside of Ice Wielding.
No, the roast was exquisite.
Just about everything else was terrible.
Edward was so drunk he could barely keep his eyes open. Mareda, usually their mother’s biggest champion, was visibly souring moment by moment while the Queen paraded her young companion for them, cooing and fussing, and already calling him her King. Sebastian, to his credit, looked almost as uncomfortable as the rest of them if the flush across his cheeks was any indication. He returned the Queen’s attentions all the same, with mooning gazes and lovesick sighs. Although it was rather overwhelming for them all, Adeline could see how especially hard it was for Mareda, to watch her father crumble in on himself with every kiss and touch that passed between the Queen and her betrothed.
But the true twist of the knife came when their mother finally tired of performing her pantomime – and turned her attention to Adeline instead.
Adeline felt the shift like a change in the winds, the warning of a blinding snowstorm to come. She stared rigidly down at her plate, sawing at a piece of meat and trying to ignore her mother’s eyes where they pierced at her shoulders and pinned her to her seat. When she didn’t let up, Adeline finally met her gaze.
The Queen smiled; sort of. Her lips lifted, and she allowed her eyes to drift over Adeline in cold appraisal, swilling her wineglass in one hand while her daughter waited and braced.
