Chapter 29 Seraphina
Chapter twenty-nine
Seraphina
What will she had left to remain standing oozed from her in the wake of those words, leaving her slipping down into a seated position, her back scraping against the wall as she went.
What he was suggesting was wrong. And yet there was something in the way he suggested it—low and husky—that made her traitorous heart beat all the quicker.
“If only it were that simple, Aldric,” she whispered, shielding her eyes against the bright glare from his torch.
“It is that simple, Sera,” he growled, tossing the torch aside.
It clattered against the floor an arm’s length away and sputtered weakly in the darkness.
“You have a problem. This is the solution. If you cut off the head of a snake, it can no longer bite you. The moment he is dead, Coreto’s allies will fling themselves on your mercy.
Then we can focus our attention back on Arlund. ”
He made it sound so easy, speaking in that matter-of-fact way of his.
Perhaps he was right. Perhaps it was that easy.
It was almost a comforting thought—the thought of just letting him take care of it for her. The thought of her brave, vicious Crow chopping off the head of a viper to protect her from its venomous bite.
Except the Duke of Coreto was no snake. He was a man. A man of noble blood. And the head of House Threston—one of the Great Houses of Elmoria—besides.
Seraphina swallowed hard and pushed the thought aside.
“I cannot,” she breathed, earning an annoyed hiss from her husband.
With more force, she added, “We cannot. The duke is a nobleman. I cannot simply execute him for treason. He must first be found guilty of said treason before an assembly of his peers.”
Aldric shifted closer by a single step, looming over her for once. The shadows carved strange shapes into his scarred visage, reminding her of her original vision: the bloody crow, bound in chains.
By the light cast from his torch, she watched his one good eye narrow. “You did not hold a trial for that commoner,” he pointed out. “The one who left your balcony unlocked.”
A humorless smile twitched the corner of her mouth upward. “I fear that in Elmoria we do not afford the common people the same courtesy as the nobleborn. I can find a commoner guilty of treason, but a noble must be tried by his or her peers. It is simply the way things are done.”
“Then change the way things are done,” Aldric snapped, his mounting anger a palpable thing stirring between them. “You are the queen.”
“And as the queen, I must set a good example for my people by following my own laws.” Even as she spoke, a wave of weariness swept over her. She was absolutely certain they had had this exact conversation before. “I cannot just change the rules to suit me, Aldric.”
“That has certainly not stopped you before,” he hissed.
A fresh spark of irritation caught flame in her own soul. “Writing loopholes into treaties for the sole purpose of outwitting your idiot brother is not the same as this and you know it. It is not the same thing as…killing a man.”
Her Crow lunged for her then, snatching her face between his hands, his fingers cupping her cheeks.
“If you do not kill him, he will kill you,” he snarled, his face mere inches from hers.
His warm breath unfurled against her lips.
His gaze locked with hers, his eye a shadowed pool of unfathomable depth. Unreadable. Inescapable.
Her breath hitched in her throat. Her pulse fluttered like a hummingbird’s wings.
Something in her husband’s expression shifted. It gentled.
“Please,” he rasped, low and dark. His hands carefully tilted her face upward, luring her closer. So painfully close. “Let me do this for you, kirei. It will be quick,” he promised on an almost intimate whisper. “You will not even have to see.”
His words were a siren’s song to her still-spiraling thoughts. His touch was a balm she didn’t know she needed. Kiss me. That was the only thing she wanted to demand of him in that moment—that he hold her. That he kiss her. That he lie to her and tell her that everything was going to be all right.
Everything will be all right if you only let him take care of it, a small voice within her head whispered, tempting her further. You may not be a warrior, but you certainly married one. Let him wage war for you. Wasn’t that the agreement? That he secure your throne?
The cold from the stone beneath her slowly seeped through her clothing, reminding her of the ever-present chill blanketing her kingdom these days.
She shivered.
That had been the agreement, yes. A throne for a throne. But that had been before.
Before she became a liability.
“Why do you still wish to help me?” she asked.
Aldric froze, his eye searching both of hers within that excruciating nearness. “What do you mean?”
“I just mean…” She swallowed hard, already regretting the words before she had even spoken them. But it was too late now. She had to ask.
She had to know.
“I am a poor ally to you now, Aldric,” she pointed out to him in the scantest of whispers.
“I have little to offer. My country stands on the brink of a civil war. I have been unable to garner any support for your own claim to Drakmor. The High Shepherd has yet to answer a single one of my missives. The Emperor of Lothmeer has been equally silent.”
Her Crow’s brow furrowed.
She wet her lips. “So…I just would like to know…why you would wish to still help me? When it would be so much easier to just…leave?”
That final word hung in the air between them for the span of a single heartbeat before his hands dropped from her face. Before he pulled away. “You clearly don’t know me at all if you need to ask that question, Sera.”
His words felt like a slap. A dismissal.
With his features shuttered once more, he bent to retrieve his torch.
Seraphina wrapped her arms around her midsection and simply watched him, wishing all the while that he would come back to her, that he would cradle her face again. That he would crush his mouth against hers.
Strange voice or no voice, she would be willing to risk it tonight.
Feeling quite small and foolish, she asked, “Are you returning to the throne room, then?”
With all his usual brusqueness, he snapped, “Not unless you are.”
She clenched her jaw, fighting against the urge to flinch away from the sharpness of his tone.
“I would like to go to the chapel, actually,” she softly revealed, studying his face in the flickering light.
“I think it best that I spend the night in prayer before I make a final decision on what to do about Coreto.”
Her Crow’s expression remained hard. Dull. It didn’t change in the slightest, not even when he bit out, “Time is of the essence now, Sera. You have none left to waste.”
Despite his words, he thrust out a hand to her, clearly intent on helping her to her feet.
Slipping her fingers into the clasp of his, she accepted his aid and marveled quietly all the while at his understated strength when he effortlessly hauled her upright despite the fact that she was so much taller than he.
“You’re right,” she breathed, steadying herself on her feet. Without thinking, she rested her free hand on his shoulder again.
Her Crow’s muscles coiled tighter beneath her touch.
“But I refuse to make a decision right in this moment based on fear and desperation alone,” she continued, reluctantly letting her hand slip from his. “Not now. Not when the fate of Elmoria hangs in the balance.”
For a single, heart-rending moment, she could have almost sworn that she smelled ash on a gust of wind that couldn’t possibly have existed there in the passageway. As if the vision that plagued her every night was intent on reminding her of what else was at stake here.
Beyond the lives of her subjects. Beyond even her own head.
The fate of all Avirel was what truly hung in the balance now.
For the sake of all peoples, she could no longer afford to make a wrong move.