Chapter 43 Seraphina
Chapter forty-three
Seraphina
Those words hung in the air between them like a noxious smog seeking to smother her, to choke the very air from her lungs.
It was me. I was carrying the witchblade. And I had every intention of using it on you.
Her pulse stuttered. Her vision darkened at the edges. It had been him. It had been Aldric. Not the assassin. Aldric. Her husband. The man she had just kissed. The man that, for all of a moment, she had almost thought she—
Seraphina pushed herself away from her desk so abruptly that she nearly sent her chair clattering to the floor. Heat rushed up her throat, mingling with a cold, hollow ache that sought to rip her chest in two.
How could she have been so foolish?
How could she have been so easily taken in by his strength? His fierce protectiveness?
A bitter laugh bubbled in her throat. He had even warned her that night, had he not? When she had…swooned into his arms and thanked him for rescuing her?
“Never thank me for this,” he had whispered against her ear. “Never, do you hear me? Never.”
A tremor rippled through her fingers. She curled them tightly into her skirts, trying to hide it, trying to hold herself together while the world shifted beneath her feet.
At long last, she had the final piece of the puzzle. The single sliver of truth that had eluded her for so long. And now that the whole picture had snapped into place with brutal, sickening clarity, she wished she could unsee it.
“Sera…” the Crow dared to whisper.
She recoiled as if he had struck her.
“You may not call me that name,” she snapped, ice cracking through each syllable. Authority. Fury. Hurt. “That familiarity is a privilege, Your Majesty. And you have forfeited your privileges.”
Aldric’s throat bobbed, but he said nothing.
In his silence, she drifted further away, placing her desk between them.
She forced herself to meet his gaze—forced herself to look into the eye of the man who had just unraveled her world.
The man who now had the audacity to gaze at her as if he were the one who had just had his heart gouged from his chest.
The man whose kiss still burned her lips.
Whose taste lingered on her tongue.
She hated it. She hated him.
“You will answer my questions, Aldric Hargrave,” she informed him, leaving no room to argue. “And you will answer them truthfully. Once I am satisfied, I will decide what is to be done with you.” A beat. “Agreed?”
“Agreed,” he rasped without pause as his gaze shuttered itself, unreadable once more.
Good. She no longer wished to know what he felt. Not about this. Not about her. Not about anything at all.
She just wanted the truth.
Though the warmth of the hearth now lapped against her back, she barely felt it for the cold seeping into her bones when she asked, “Who gave you the blade?”
He answered immediately. “Edmund.”
“And where did he get it from?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.” Thinning his lips, he clarified, “I didn’t want to know.”
Fury caught flame inside her at his words. He didn’t want to know? “It was Arath, clearly,” she snarled, nearly spitting the words at him. “Where else would he come by such a thing?”
Aldric didn’t answer. He just clasped his hands in his lap and stared at her, as if waiting for her next question. The question she didn’t want to ask.
The question she had to ask.
“When?” she whispered, almost choking on that single syllable. “When did he give you the blade, Aldric?”
The Crow drew in a deep breath through his nose. He held that lungful of air for a single moment. And then he expelled, “On Nerina Reef.”
The room spun. Her stomach lurched.
Nerina Reef. Edmund had been allied with Arath even then.
If only she had known.
If only he had told her.
If only she had not been blind enough to trust him—trust Edmund—trust any of them.
Mysai. She could have saved Mysai.
“Get out!” she shouted, the words ripping from her throat as she flung her arm toward the door. The door behind which their friends were waiting, probably able to hear their row. But she didn’t care.
Let them hear.
Let them all know that he was a liar.
That he was her enemy.
“I want you gone,” she continued, the words pouring from her like molten metal. She couldn’t have stopped them even if she had wanted to. “You march for Arlund tomorrow, Crow.”
He flinched at her use of his moniker. But she didn’t care. She just kept going. Kept shouting. Kept giving orders like the queen she was.
Like the queen she should have always been from the start.
“Uphold your end of the bargain and I will continue to hold up mine. I will win you back your throne. I will wrest it from Edmund’s cold, dead fingers for you simply so that you can sail across the Straight back to Drakmor and I never have to see you again.”
She could hear her own voice, sharp and cold, but it felt distant—echoing back at her as though spoken by someone else entirely. A woman made of marble. A queen carved from ice. But she wasn’t carved from ice. Not truly.
Ice couldn’t feel pain like this. Like her heart was trying to fold in on itself.
To disappear.
A great silence descended between them—a yawning ravine no sane man would ever attempt to breach.
But still, Aldric tried to breach it. “And what about the witchblade?” he rasped, keeping his voice soft as if to contrast her own.
Her throat burned. She refused to let it show. She refused to let anything show.
The Crow continued, “Possession of a witchblade on Elmorian soil is punishable by death—”
“I know the laws of my own kingdom,” she seethed, cutting him off mid-sentence. “A life for a life, Aldric. You saved me from the assassin that night. I will save you from your own stupidity now.”
Again, she pointed toward the door. “Go. I am finished with you. You are dismissed. I want you out of my sight.”
Slowly, the Crow eased from his chair. But he did not yet leave. He lingered. “You never asked me why,” he whispered, his voice growing raw.
She didn’t care about that either. “I do not need to know your why—”
“He was going to kill Reyla,” Aldric bit out anyway, even though she didn’t wish to know. Even though she didn’t need to know.
For the smallest, most treacherous moment, her heart faltered. A flicker of understanding tried to catch spark.
She extinguished it.
No. That was no excuse. He still could have told her.
They could have found a solution together.
His one good eye settled on her with all of its usual intensity, as if trying to bore a hole straight through her. As if trying to get her to feel something.
But she felt nothing anymore. Not for him. Not for anything.
“Edmund was going to kill Reyla,” he repeated on his way to the door. She watched him go, merely to ensure he actually left. But just as his hand finally rested on the doorknob, he paused and glanced back her way, something broken shining in the depths of his gaze for all of a moment.
On a rasp, he asked, “What would you have done?”
Her breath threatened to catch, to betray her. Again, she forced it steady. Again, she forced herself still. She could not afford to feel—not here. Not in front of him. Not anymore.
She swallowed hard, refusing to answer.
And without another word, the Crow left.
Without another word, she let him go.