Chapter 4
Chapter four
Seraphina
Unbidden, her thoughts swept back to her dream from last night. To the vision. To the way dream Aldric had cupped her cheek. The way he had tugged her in close for the kiss she never received.
No.
She braced herself, waiting for the corridor to melt away, for the vision to overtake her, for her to be pitched back onto black sands beneath crimson stars. For the world to end.
…But it didn’t.
The silence between her and the Crow grew awkward as she continued to stare down at him, slowly drowning in the gold-flecked depths of his asymmetrical gaze.
Clearing her throat, Seraphina turned away and set off again at a far quicker pace. What had come over her? It was nerves. Nothing more. The wedding was tomorrow. Her mind was still fixating on this…kiss nonsense.
“Why?” she asked, desperate to focus on something beyond the confused swirl of her own thoughts.
Just behind her, Aldric growled far louder than was readily warranted, “For the same reason your strutting peacock mentioned: the unrest. The disgruntled murmurings.”
Seraphina’s heart leapt into her throat as she skimmed a fresh glance about the corridor. At the servants hurrying past. At her guards and subjects who were always listening. Always watching.
Oblivious, Aldric announced for any and all to hear, “My men are hearing troubling things out there on the streets, Sera. Dissatisfaction. Fear.”
Without thinking, she whirled to face him and pressed her hand hard against his shoulder, trying to bodily shove him toward the nearest open doorway.
But despite the fact that the top of his head only reached her chest, she was again caught off guard by how solid he felt beneath her touch. Her Crow was far stronger than he looked.
He didn’t budge an inch.
But the look he shot her way in the wake of her attempting to “manhandle” him was particularly acidic. “Do not push me,” he bit out, enunciating each word.
It sounded like a threat.
“His Highness and I must speak in private,” Seraphina declared to her Queensguard while sweeping toward the open doorway herself instead. “We shall not be long.”
The sitting room she stepped into was dimly lit and cold. The fireplace lay empty. The sunlight streaming in through the windows was weak.
But at least it was free from prying eyes and ears.
Before she could turn around to ensure Aldric had followed her, the door slammed shut with such force that it rattled the windowpanes. She slowly turned to face him—the angry Drakmori glaring her down.
“How would you like it if I pushed you around against your will?” he snarled, stalking closer. “Or if I picked you up as if you were nothing more than a doll?”
Lifting her chin, Seraphina let him approach with all of his ire, refusing to back down or step away. For all of his scowls and clear distaste for her person, she knew she had no reason to fear him.
Even when his very life had hung in the balance, the infamous Crow of Drakmor had not been able to bring himself to hurt her.
He paused when he finally stood directly before her, close enough for her to count every scar etched into his face. “I am a person,” he finished on a whisper. “Not a plaything.”
For once, she could see his feelings emblazoned so plainly in his gaze.
His irritation. His frustration. His fury.
She could only imagine all the indignities he had suffered over his forty years of life—an entire lifetime spent fighting for respect in a world that saw him as less merely because of his stature. Heat burned its way across her cheeks; she broke her gaze from his first, glancing away.
She should have known better.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “That was very rude of me. It will not happen again.”
He stepped back at once, leaving her once again entirely too aware of the absence of his nearness.
What was wrong with her today?
Wrapping her arms around her midsection, holding herself tight, she reminded herself that she was still angry with him. She might have made a misstep in how she treated him, but Aldric had certainly made a misstep with her first.
“And just so you know,” she abruptly snapped, returning to their previous topic of conversation, “I know good and well what my people are saying. I don’t need you shouting it at me in the middle of the corridor.”
Sounding entirely too much like her godfather, he complained, “I was hardly shouting.”
“You were speaking of things that should not be spoken of in a public place,” she expounded before adding, with an exasperated sigh, “I am not going to stand here and quibble words with you, Aldric. The point is that I am well aware of what the people are saying. They fear we will lose Mysai. They fear we will lose Arlund. They fear we will lose all of Elmoria.”
She swallowed hard. “But I am not going to let that happen. We need to see Arlund secured immediately so that my people will feel safe again. And you are the best man for that job, are you not?”
His mouth worked over words he didn’t speak, though she could plainly see he desperately wished to argue with her.
She didn’t intend to give him that opportunity.
“Do you deny that you are the feared and infamous Crow of Drakmor?” she asked, challenging him. “The man responsible for holding the Kuni-Drakmor border for the past fifteen years? The man rumored to be responsible for the massacre of tens of thousands of enemy soldiers?”
His jaw locked, turning him into a man carved from dark sandstone: hard and utterly unreadable. “I deny nothing.”
“Then why do you hesitate to ride into battle when it is in my name rather than your own?” she demanded. “Is this a matter of pride or a fear of death?”
She almost wanted to laugh but couldn’t bring herself to do so. Here was a man who had held his country’s border for years with only a ragtag crew of misfits to fight on his behalf, and even he was reluctant to do battle on her behalf.
Was her cause so truly hopeless?
Aldric clenched his fists and snarled, “It is none of those things, Sera.” His tone lent her nickname a vicious edge.
She was swift to remind him, “You may not call me that name.”
But he spoke over her. “Nor do I fear death.” Flinging his arms wide as if the darkness from her vision that he had named Death were in the room with them, he called out, “Let it come for me!”
She winced at the sudden increase in his volume. “Then what is it that you fear?”
“I’m not afraid, you insufferable woman,” he insisted again, visible frustration breaking through his careful attempts to appear apathetic. He glanced away, his right hand lifting to rub at his beard while his left tapped out a staccato rhythm against his hip.
Seraphina frowned as she watched him. She had never seen the Crow fidget before.
Without answering her question, he turned away and started back toward the door. “Never mind,” he tossed out over his shoulder as he went. “Have it your way. I will lead the campaign in Arlund.”
“What?” Was that truly it? He was just…going to give up and walk away? “Aldric!” she called after him to no avail. Still, he made for the door, not bothering to look back her way.
She strode after him, refusing to let him walk away. “Aldric Hargrave, you come back here at once and speak to me like an adult. Why do you not want to go to Arlund?”
He wheeled around to face her again, his features twisted with clear disdain.
“What good will speaking do? For all that you like to cite my expertise, you don’t seem to respect my opinion enough to heed any advice I try to give.
I’m simply your pet bogeyman that you hope will frighten your enemies into submission. ”
His words stopped her in her tracks, but she said nothing. There was nothing she could possibly say to contradict him.
Because he was right.
He was her pet bogeyman.
Her Crow smirked. “Tell me I’m wrong, kirei.”
Swallowing hard, she whispered, “You may not call me that either.”
“Tell me I am wrong about you,” he challenged her again.
“Tell me that you truly think I am the best man to lead your army and that this isn’t all yet one more thing you are doing ‘for the sake of appearances.’” He looked at her as if she disgusted him.
“That’s all you care about, isn’t it? Appearances. ”
Anger ignited within her chest like a spark catching dry tinder.
“I did it because that was our agreement,” she nearly shouted at him, the words winging from her throat far louder than she had intended.
“You said you would win me back Arlund, and I said I would support your claim to the Drakmori throne. That is our arrangement. Those are the terms.”
His smirk died on his lips, leaving him looking infuriatingly apathetic once more.
As if he didn’t care that people were out there dying—her people—while he stood here bickering with her.
Her hands balled into fists, her fingernails biting hard into her palms. “You seemed to be in perfect agreement with me then. What has changed? Why this sudden reluctance?”
Without a word, Aldric suddenly reached inside his jerkin and pulled free a piece of parchment. After crumpling it into a ball, he lobbed it straight at her, where it bounced harmlessly off her shoulder.
Stunned, she could only stare.
What in the world had gotten into him?
“What’s changed,” he coldly explained, “is that pamphlet I found in the city yesterday.” Pointing to the ball of paper now lying on the ground, he whispered, “Pick it up and see for yourself. Or do you already know all about that, too?”
Pamphlet? What pamphlet?
Seraphina’s stomach clenched as she glanced down at the paper. She didn’t want to retrieve it and admit that he knew something she did not. But neither did she want to relegate herself to ignorance all for the sake of her ego.
Silencing her smarting pride, she crouched down and plucked up the crumpled parchment. It smelled dreadful—like smoke, refuse, and bile. The moment she smoothed it out to spy the drawing rendered there, though, its abhorrent scent became the least of her problems.
As if from far away, she heard herself ask, “Where did you find this?” as she stared at the picture of the rearing stag—her stag, her family’s sigil—being eaten alive by a dragon.
Arath’s dragon.
“Outside a tavern near the docks,” her Crow quietly rasped, his tone gentling in a way she immediately disliked far more than his shouting.
A tone that smacked of pity. “They’re being distributed among the common people.
But it wouldn’t surprise me if some of your courtiers hadn’t already seen them, too. ”
Silent, she studied the words scrawled beneath the picture, engraving them in her mind.
So ends House de la Croix.
Her father’s dying whisper cut through her thoughts: “You will spell the end of House de la Croix and all that my forefathers worked for. Our royal line will die with you.”
Her breath hitched. Her heart skipped a beat.
Like an autumn leaf falling, the parchment slipped from her fingers.
What if her father had been right all along?
Legs wooden, Seraphina hurried toward the nearest window. The room blurred as tears pricked her eyes. Bile burned the back of her throat.
She was going to be sick.
Fingers fumbling at the window’s latch for several desperate moments, she finally managed to fling it open and allow the blissfully cold air to flood the sitting room. She inhaled deeply, letting it burn her lungs and dry her traitorous tears before they ever had a chance to fall.
When next she blinked, Aldric stood beside her. “Kirei,” he murmured, as if he actually cared. The way he uttered the Kunishi word in that moment—low and soft—made it almost sound like a fond pet name instead of an insult. But she knew better.
He thought her stupid.
Beautiful, but stupid.
“Who will be here to protect you if I should fall on the battlefield in Arlund?” he asked. “If your people should turn on you and try to put that pretty head of yours on a pike?” Harder—more vicious—he hissed, “You do not even trust your own Queensguard these days. Do not think I have not noticed.”
A humorless smile quirked her lips. Pretty head. She knew she should offer a retort to that. That she should make some biting comment about how skilled he was at complimenting and insulting her all in the same breath.
But she was not in the mood to verbally spar with her betrothed. Her mind was like a maelstrom—a tangled snarl of doubts and fears. She wished Oracle Tsukiko were here to advise her.
She wished the Lord would just tell her what He wanted her to do instead of speaking in visions that made no sense. Please, she prayed. Whatever you want of me, I will do it. I simply wish to know.
Clutching the windowsill, she waited with bated breath, hoping beyond hope that her God would answer her. But He gave her nothing. No sign. No clue.
There was only the feel of Aldric’s body heat thrumming at her side, the chill breeze bathing her face, the sight of the palace grounds sprawling past the open window. A landscape that should have been filled with all the warm hues of autumn but was merely drab.
Gray.
Please, she prayed again, more desperately now. What am I supposed to do?
She thought she had known what to do that day in the throne room—the day she had begged Aldric to stay. The vision had shown her that she needed him to win this war. To save Elmoria. Perhaps even to save all of Avirel.
But that was all she knew.
And it simply wasn’t enough.
“My decision is final,” she whispered without glancing his way. She simply couldn’t afford to meet his gaze right now.
Not when she was on the verge of breaking.
“You must be the one to lead the march on Arlund,” she softly insisted, “not Sir Easome.” After a beat, she added, “Let me worry about my own safety.”
His reaction was far more visceral than she would have ever expected.
She flinched as he retreated from her side with a bestial snarl and made for the exit again. It was painfully easy to track his progress across the sitting room by the stamp of his booted feet against the floor alone. By the sound of him ripping open the door.
Rather than immediately depart, though, he took the time to shout at her, “In Drakmor, we prefer chess to that childish card game of yours. And in a game of chess, I would never sacrifice my queen for the sake of a few pawns.”
Before she could respond, he punctuated his words by slamming the door behind him, leaving her truly alone at last. Alone with her thoughts. Her fears.
And the tears she could no longer hold at bay.