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As the door closes, leaving Adaine alone in the drawing room with her future husband, she drops the pretense.
She knows Hakinvar can see her shift in demeanour, based on the way he stiffens slightly, seated on the couch opposite hers. Adaine doesn’t really care what he thinks, though. The fact of the matter is that she’s not at all pleased about her current situation. In fact, she’s disgruntled with being stuck in an arranged marriage thanks to her parents’ machinations. They want nothing more than to be rid of their rowdy youngest who keeps sneaking out to go on adventures with whom they perceive as a bunch of good-for-nothing lowbloods. Wedding her off was the perfect solution.
“Do me a favour, if you will,” she begins, her words curt. She doesn’t care that she could be overheard, that the magic running through the Abernant manor could be used to listen in on this conversation. “Call the wedding off.”
Hakinvar winces. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Adaine.”
Her voice sharpens. “Can’t, or won’t?”
“Can’t,” he affirms. Leaning back with a sigh, he flashes her an apologetic look. “It’s out of my hands, too.”
Great. Adaine had been hoping that one of them would have the power to call this off. If she just had a few more months, she could wait until she came of age, old enough that her parents would no longer have any control over her movements. She could gather up all her belongings, flee once and for all — no more talks of upholding the family’s values, or doing what was best for them, or maintaining their bullshit reputation. Why did she have to abide by their rules when they neglected her growing up, pouring everything they had into her older sister instead?
Adaine would much rather trade the stiff petticoats of her fancy gowns for a pair of riding pants and a collared shirt. She would rather tramp through the mud and swing her arms in casting her spells, getting splattered with gore by the monsters she and her friends fight.
But no, her parents decided to set her up with someone else. Oisin Hakinvar, of the Hakinvar clan — a family of wealthy dragonborns, on par with the Abernants in their prestige and power. “This is for your own good, daughter,” her father had told her as she bristled in his office, hands clenched into fists by her side. “Maybe you’ll finally learn what it means to bring some respect to the Abernant name.”
“So we’re stuck then.” She can’t keep the bitterness out of her voice as she leans back, pressing a hand against her cheek. “There’s nothing we can do.”
Silence.
She feels a pair of eyes staring at her. Hakinvar seems unsure of what to say, constantly opening and closing his mouth as though constantly reconsidering his words. It hits a point where Adaine, having completely discarded the pretense of decorum, raises her head, fixing him with a stern look. “If you have something to say, husband dear,” she snips, voice dripping with venom, “then out with it.”
“I don’t think it’ll be as bad as you think.”
She freezes. “Are you serious?” Adaine hisses, only for Hakinvar to raise his hand, cutting her off.
“Hear me out,” he says, steepling his claws together as he leans forward. “I’ve heard what your parents have said about you, that you keep going on adventures, sneaking out and stuff. I’m fine with that.”
Adaine stares. “Are you serious?”
“Yes,” Hakinvar affirms, tail wrapping around him. “If you want your space, I can give it to you. The only thing I ask is that you give this a chance. That you give me a chance.”
A beat.
“What’s in it for you?”
A wry smile. “My parents refuse to allow me my inheritance unless I get with a nice girl, in their words,” he says. “But dragonborns mate for life—” And hearing that does cause Adaine’s heart to skip a beat, suddenly terrified, “—so you can imagine my hesitance.”
“And you’re settling for me, because…?”
“I thought… maybe you’d understand.” Hakinvar exhales. “The struggle of not being able to do what you want. I thought it’d be easier that way, if the both of us entered this marriage on the same page. You don’t have to love me, Adaine — but at the very least, if I’m going to spend my life with someone, it would be nice if they were my friend.”
And that resonates with her.
Adaine takes a moment to study Hakinvar carefully. She’s not an expert in dragonborns, can’t read him as well, but for all intents and purposes, he seems to be honest about this. He seems to be speaking the truth.
Friends, she thinks. I can do that.
(She does not know that in just two years time, this is the man she will smile at, laugh with, the person she will let take her by the hand and pull her into a dance. She does not know that, in wedding her, Oisin will promise truthfully in sickness and health, and follow through with every one of his oaths.
She does not yet know that Oisin Hakinvar will slowly become her friend, as the two of them promised each other. And with that, with the freedom he affords her and the care he gives her, he will grow to become something else in the way Adaine’s infrequent affections tend to grow.
Someone she loves.)
She stretches out her hand. Hakinvar takes it.
“It’s a deal, then,” she tells him, to which Hakinvar smiles.