Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
Aldric
“No!” his kirei screamed against his mouth, even though it had been she who had demanded his kiss in the first place.
She who had insisted, though he had intended to spare her from that fate.
She who had come alive beneath his touch with something he never would have expected from prim and proper Seraphina de la Croix.
Desire.
But with her shout came something else entirely—a sensation he had felt only once before: heat like that from the Shepherd during his Truth-Reading. It scalded his tongue. It seared his lips.
A noxious wave of fear welled up inside him, hard and fast.
No. Not again. That heat had brought him low last time. It had sent him to his knees and made him vomit all over the floor. He refused to be humiliated in front of his men again.
With a wordless shout of his own, Aldric jerked away from the burn of Seraphina’s mouth. But there was only so far he could go. Her fingers were still tangled in his hair, holding him close. Keeping him there.
Murmurs rippled through the crowd as he stared up into his kirei’s wan face, trying to make sense of what was happening. But she wasn’t looking at him. Her gaze was distant, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. Tremors wracked her form. Horror wrote itself over her features.
“Sera,” he whispered, his worry spiking. She looked just like she had that day in the throne room when she collapsed. He braced himself for that eventuality, his hand abandoning its hold on her necklace to catch at her elbow instead. “Sera, what’s wrong?”
His wife’s iridescent usuru appeared in the next moment, flying in fast and winding itself around her shoulders.
Sera’s dark eyelashes fluttered. Her eyes finally met his. “What?”
Lips still faintly parted, as if she desired another kiss, she stared back at him.
Slowly, her horror melted away to leave only confusion in its place.
And then, as her fingers within his hair loosened, as her gaze ticked toward their rapt audience, another emotion swiftly overtook his pretty wife’s countenance in time with the flush blooming upon her cheeks.
Mortification.
She recoiled from him as scattered applause rang out from the crowd.
Someone even whistled. He recognized the sound at once as coming from his oldest Son, Leif.
He shot the man a dark look in warning where he perched in the front pew with Rakon, Kyn, Calix, Sven, and all the other Sons, before returning his attention to his kirei.
She still looked on the verge of fainting, as if even the faintest breeze could bring her to her knees. But worse still was the way she was staring at him—a look he knew all too well.
As if he were some little beast.
A monster to be feared.
Frustration snarled to life within his chest. What reason did she have to be afraid of him? She was the one who had stabbed him a week ago. She was the one who had burned his mouth just now with a power only Shepherds should be able to wield. He still felt her touch there, smoldering on his lips.
As if she had just sought to brand herself on his soul.
As if she weren’t already frustratingly embedded there.
Like a barbed arrow he so desperately wanted to dislodge.
Father Perero was saying something—probably presenting them to the people as man and wife—but he didn’t hear. All he heard was the shout that suddenly echoed from outside the cathedral. The crash that followed. The loud boom that shuddered against the now-bolted double doors.
Chaos erupted. The nobles packed into their pews screamed. His kirei’s Queensguard jolted into motion. But they were too slow.
His Sons reached him and Sera first.
“Get my wife out of here,” he snarled to Rakon and Leif while Calix tossed him his glaive, which had been hidden beneath the pew alongside their other weapons. The feel of his polearm’s haft in his hand was a welcome distraction. Something familiar in the midst of so much that didn’t make sense.
Large Rakon moved to loom protectively over them both as Leif trained one of his arrows on the doors. “Come with us, Your Majesty,” the former rumbled. “We’ll get you out of here.”
Finally, his kirei rallied. Her chin lifted in that way he hated. Her jaw clenched. “Out the back. I already have carriages prepared.” But then her eyes flew wide, a lick of fear shining in their storm-gray depths. “Wait! My godparents.”
Aldric snarled to himself and cast about for the Lord Chancellor and his wife amidst the tangle of bodies and the flash of silk and jewels. They were wasting precious moments.
Hesitation was what got a man killed on the battlefield.
People scattered through the cathedral, clearly not knowing which way to run.
Confused screams clattered against one another.
Another boom rattled the doors.
He spotted Duke Percival’s beastly dog first, and then the duke. The older man locked eyes with him just long enough to shout something he couldn’t quite hear but could read well enough on his lips before he was swept up in the panicking crowd and disappeared.
Get her out of here.
“Move!” he shouted, whirling to face his kirei. She met his glare with all her usual defiance until he added, “Your godfather wants you to go on without him.”
Her defiance shattered, leaving her looking so young, though she was only ten years his junior. So lost. So unsure.
Shifting to a one-handed grip on his glaive, he snatched up her right hand with his left and started off toward the back of the cathedral as quickly as his legs could carry him. He would just bodily drag her out of there if he had to.
Even though he hadn’t the faintest idea where he was going.
His Sons and her Queensguard fanned around them in a protective ring, with that blond-haired captain of hers—Arkwright—leading the way as they forged through the labyrinth of corridors leading through the cathedral’s living quarters.
At least Sir Arkwright seemed to know where to go.
Within his hold, Sera’s hand was clammy. Her fingers trembled. Without thinking, he tightened his grip until her trembling stilled.
Off to his right, on his blind side, Leif observed in rough Kunishi, “That was some kiss.”
With an annoyed grunt, Aldric turned his head until he could finally glower at the older man with his one good eye. “Shut up.”
Leif grinned, flashing his gap-toothed smile. Calix frowned at them both. With all of his usual self-loathing, his half-Kunishi Son was the only one of them who refused to learn a single word of that musical tongue.
When his attention returned forward, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Sera was now staring at him—wary, curious. “I didn’t know you were fluent in Kunishi,” she murmured.
He huffed out a humorless breath. “There’s a lot about me you don’t know, kirei.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line, her face becoming shuttered once more. Unreadable. “And there are many more things I wish I didn’t already know,” she whispered as if to herself, leaving Aldric frowning over the cryptic words.
Perhaps she meant his reputation as the Crow? Some of the rumors were exaggerated.
Most weren’t.
The door Sir Arkwright led them to was an unassuming slab of iron-banded wood, bolted and barred. When the knight finally got it open, though, Aldric was left squinting against the light of day—painfully bright after their time within the dimly lit hallways.
The alley behind the cathedral was packed to the brim with horses, Elmorian soldiers, and carriages. He spotted his own destrier, Mourn, in the mix, though he knew he had left the scarred brute tied up out front.
More confusingly, though, were the carriages. There were three of them, each painted with the royal stag of House de la Croix.
“Which one is yours?” he asked, prepared to help her into whichever one she named.
Before he could, she pried her hand from his and set off toward the closest one alone. “They’re all mine.”
His prettiest Son, Kyn, raised his eyebrows and murmured with open admiration, “The other two are decoys.”
Sera offered Kyn a weak smile over her shoulder. “Precisely.”
Some dark beast snarled to life inside him at the sight of his wife smiling at his medic, though she seemed incapable of gifting him anything besides her scorn. Stupid. He was being stupid. She was free to smile at whomever she liked.
They were husband and wife on paper alone.
But there was still the matter of that kiss. The way she had demanded it. The way she had…clung to him.
The way she had burned him.
With a scowl, he hurried toward his kirei’s chosen carriage just as Sir Arkwright opened the door for her and helped her inside. He didn’t bother asking for permission, nor waiting for an invitation he knew would never come, before he followed.
Hauling himself up onto the bench opposite hers, he rested his glaive across his thighs and met her confused stare with a narrow-eyed glare of his own until she finally relented, breaking eye contact first.
Looking none too pleased, his pretty wife whispered to Sir Arkwright, “Let’s be off, then.”
The knight shut the carriage door with a firm snap. Leaving them alone together for the first time since that night on Nerina Reef when she had threatened him with her little dagger amongst the trees.
Without bothering to look his way, she softly asked, “What do you want?” just as the coach rumbled into motion.
He leaned forward and braced his arms against his knees, tracking the way her pulse fluttered at the hollow of her throat. “I want you to tell me what that was all about back there.”
Her pulse quickened. A hint of color crawled up her pale neck.
Fidgeting, his kirei toyed with her golden sun pendant and lied through her perfect teeth, “I don’t know what you mean.”
His one eye narrowed. “You know good and well what I mean.”
Her fingers stilled. She swallowed visibly. On the softest of whispers—so soft he could barely hear her—she asked, “Did you…did you hear the voice, too?”
Voice? What voice?
But that question died on his tongue the moment she looked at him, her eyes brimming with desperate hope and something else. Something that made his chest ache in a way he didn’t like.
Fear.
Something had his pretty wife spooked. His fingers twitched, ready to reach out to soothe her. Idiot. He wrapped both hands around the pole of his glaive before he could do something foolish and embarrass them both.
From its place coiled around her throat, his kirei’s usuru watched him with its beady little eyes. That was the unsettling thing about usuru—even his own Soot. They were just…always watching.
He ignored the beast and cautiously revealed, “I didn’t hear a voice, Sera.”
Her disappointment was immediate. Palpable.
She looked away from him and pretended to stare out the window, though the curtains were drawn against prying eyes as they rattled their way through the city streets.
Whatever commotion had broken out in front of the cathedral was long gone.
Silence was all that greeted him, both within the carriage and without.
Sera held her tongue. For once, she didn’t even correct him on the use of that nickname either. Something truly had her out of sorts.
He knew her well enough by now to understand that he should just leave it. He knew no good would come of pressing his luck further with her today. But he couldn’t help it.
He had to know.
“I was more referring to that kiss.”
“What about it?” she immediately countered, her gaze snapping back his way. Color flared on her cheeks. Defiance sparked in her eyes again, challenging him.
He wanted to ask her why she had wielded that heat against him. About how she even possessed that ability in the first place. Did it have anything to do with the visions plaguing her? Oh, yes, he knew about the visions. He knew his kirei was a very strange creature, indeed.
A woman who saw visions though she was no Oracle.
A woman who could wield the Lord’s holy fire though she was no Shepherd.
But she was just so proud, his Seraphina. So perfect.
Her pride was like oil to the fire still smoldering in his heart in the wake of that passionate kiss they had shared before all her court. Passion. Against all odds, the most beautiful woman in all of Avirel had shown him passion.
And now she was back to pretending as though he was unworthy of sharing mere space with her? He couldn’t pass up the opportunity to knock her down a peg, to wound her enormous ego just a little.
Softly, mercilessly, he pointed out, “I just mean that you seemed to be enjoying it.”
Her reaction was immediate. Visceral. She recoiled from him as if he had slapped her. Her mouth tumbled open, though no sound emerged. Speechless. For the second time in his knowing this infuriating woman, he had rendered her speechless.
But he saw in her eyes the truth, shining there like a beacon. He was right. She had enjoyed it. And she clearly didn’t know how to feel about that.
“Do not flatter yourself, Crow,” she seethed, her flush flaring all the brighter. “You know we must do these things for show. For the sake of the people. To present a united front.”
“United by our lips?” he asked, delighting in the way she squirmed as he twisted that knife a little deeper into her wounded pride. There had been no need for them to kiss on the mouth; his cheek peck would have sufficed. He knew that.
Obviously, she knew that, too.
When she scoffed and looked away, pressing deeper into her seat as if trying to escape him, he sat up and finally relented. There were things they needed to discuss—things of pressing importance.
Her strangeness. What happened outside the cathedral. The reinforcements he would be leading to Arlund.
But he knew he would be getting nothing out of her now. Not until she had time to lick her wounds and convince herself that he had forgotten all about the feel of her fingers tangling in his hair and her soft mouth crushing against his.
Perhaps he could hurry that along a bit?
Remembering how she had smiled for Kyn at talk of her decoy carriages, he cleared his throat and rumbled, “That was clever, you know, what you did with the decoys.”
But rather than soften for him, smile, or relax even a little, his kirei merely shot him a withering look, clearly trying to fell him with her gaze alone. “There’s no need to patronize me further, Aldric.”
Aldric.
She was starting to call him Aldric now instead of just Crow. It wasn’t much, but he would take it. Not that he cared. Not that it mattered. Not that it made a bit of difference.
There was just something oddly nice about knowing that at least one person remembered he had a name. Not the Crow. Not “boss.” Not “monster.” Not “Your Highness.”
Just…Aldric.