Chapter 56 Edith #2
Edith cradled Alyx against her chest, murmuring nonsense comforts under her breath.
Rogue hovered nearby, whining softly, nose sniffing at the air.
Percy snapped the arrowhead off with a muted crack, then braced his other hand near the wound.
With the next breath, he eased the broken shaft back through the torn wing with one smooth pull.
Alyx hissed, then sagged, trembling in her arms.
“You brave usuru,” Edith whispered, gently stroking the creature’s smooth scales as she rose to her feet. Hope flared to life in her heart like a signal fire. Alyx was never far from Sera’s side—not when she could help it.
Her goddaughter must be close.
But where? Was she…? Edith’s throat tightened. She combed the underbrush with her eyes, reluctantly hunting for a glimpse of a woman’s foot peeking out from amongst the briars. A flash of chestnut hair behind the next tree trunk.
What if they had been set upon by archers while trying to flee?
What if—
“Where was she going, do you think?” Percy asked, drawing her out of her spiraling thoughts. He pushed himself back to his feet with a wince.
Please, Lord. Let her yet live.
Edith glanced around them, trying to orient herself. She had grown up in these woods, but that had been so long ago… “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
Alyx rumbled faintly against her palms. The serpent’s head lifted, scales catching what little starlight there was. Her eyes fixed on a point off to their right, deeper into the forest.
But there was nothing there.
When Edith shifted a step in the direction they had been heading before, Alyx hissed, a low, insistent sound, and strained instead toward that other direction. Her injured wing trembled.
Percy narrowed his eyes. “If I didn’t know any better, I would think she wants us to go that way. But”—he huffed out a quiet laugh—“that would be ridiculous.”
They shared a glance, her brow furrowing.
Her duke frowned. “Would it not?”
“It is not as if we have any better ideas,” she murmured. They had been wandering for hours. She hated to admit it, but they were lost.
Gently adjusting her hold on the usuru, careful of the injured wing, she whispered, “Very well. We shall do things your way.” She turned to the right, aligning herself with the angle of Alyx’s head. “Lead on, then, Your Ladyship.”
The serpent purred, as if in agreement.
They moved.
Edith kept her steps where Alyx’s gaze led—over a fallen log, around a thicket of brambles, down a slight incline where the ground grew damp underfoot. Rogue padded ahead, nose working, tail swishing. Percy followed close behind, cane thudding softly, breath laboring but steady.
Now at least they had a direction. A purpose.
Every few moments, Edith paused to listen, to strain for any hint of pursuit. Nothing reached her ears but the inescapable rush of her own heartbeat.
At last, a shape began to coalesce through the shadows ahead. Squat. Angular. The blacker outline of a roof against the star-dusted sky.
Edith narrowed her eyes, slowing to a stop.
“What is it?” Percy rasped.
She stepped closer, brush parting around her.
The trees thinned, opening into a small clearing.
There, nestled in the cradle of the forest, sat a cottage—little more than a hunter’s shack.
Its timbers sagged. Moss clung to the stones of its low chimney.
One shutter hung askew; the other was gone entirely.
Long since abandoned, by the look of it.
And yet…a faint glow spilled through a tear in the tattered curtains over one of the narrow windows. Candlelight, warm and wavering. A horse stood tied to a post near the door, its head drooping, reins slack.
“Where are we?” she whispered, more to herself than to Percy. The place tugged at some distant memory. Had she been here before, as a girl?
Alyx purred, the sound shivering weakly in the frosted air. Before Edith could tighten her grip, the usuru writhed in her hands and flared her wings, attempting to launch herself skyward.
The effort failed. Alyx’s injured wing buckled, and she slipped from Edith’s grasp, thudding to the ground with a pained screech.
“Alyx!” Edith dropped to her knees again, trying to scoop the mad creature back into her arms.
The door of the cottage creaked open. “Alyx?” came a hoarse whisper. Candlelight flared across the threshold, cutting a sharp wedge into the dark. A woman’s silhouette filled the doorway. A familiar silhouette.
Edith’s heart seized. “Seraphina?” The name tore from her lips as more cry than word.
Clearly throwing all caution to the wind, Seraphina stepped fully into the night. Her hair spilled wild over her shoulders, framing her dirt-smudged face. Her crown was missing. Her eyes flew wide. “Your Grace?”
Rogue lunged forward with a sharp whine, tail wagging furiously. Percy laughed—a short, broken sound—and surged after the hound, nearly forgetting his cane.
Edith did not remember standing, only that one moment she was kneeling in the grass and the next she was there, flinging her arms around her goddaughter.
Seraphina folded into her, choking on a sob. “You’re here…”
“I am. I am.” Edith clutched her close, fingers digging into the fabric of her gown, breathing in the scents of sweat, smoke, and forest that clung to her. “Oh, my darling girl. My darling, darling girl.”
An ache of relief speared through Edith’s chest, so sharp it bordered on pain.
Thank you, Lord. Thank you.
Percy’s arms wrapped around them both, squeezing them tight. Rogue danced circles around their feet. Alyx hissed from where she had been abandoned in the grass. But for a long moment, there was nothing but relief amongst them. Warmth. The sound of shared breathing.
Seraphina lived.
At last, Percy eased back enough to look Sera over from head to toe, his hands cupping her shoulders. “What in the blazes are you doing out here?” he demanded, his voice rough with spent terror. “What is this place?”
It was only then, as the first wild wave of relief ebbed, that Edith became properly aware they were not alone.
Two women stood just inside the cottage, curiously watching their reunion.
One was Lothmeeran—tall and broad-shouldered, with close-cropped silver curls.
Her bearing was that of a soldier, though she wore no armor, only a simple, well-made tunic and trousers.
The other was smaller, slighter—a young Drakmori woman with shoulder-length hair so brown it was almost black.
In her hands, she clutched a writing slate.
Edith stared, confusion rippling through her. Who were they?
Seraphina drew in a shaky breath and stepped out of their shared embrace. “Dame Florence, Reyla, these are my godparents, the Duke and Duchess of Varoa.”
Her goddaughter wiped at her moist cheeks with the backs of her hands and hazarded a watery smile as she continued the introductions. “Duchess Edith, Duke Percival, this is Dame Florence and…Reyla Hargrave, Aldric’s sister.”
“Aldric’s sister?” Edith echoed, shifting her attention to the Drakmori woman. She did not even know the man had a sister. “Well, I am…very pleased to meet you, Your Highness.”
Despite the circumstances, Edith lowered her head, even as her thoughts whirled. What was a princess of Drakmor doing out here, hiding in the woods?
Reyla said nothing. Instead, she scratched out something on her slate with Dame Florence reading the words over the smaller woman’s shoulder. She nodded once.
“You should come inside,” the Lothmeeran woman rumbled.
Seraphina gasped, drawing Edith’s attention back to her. “Oh, Alyx! Forgive me.” Her goddaughter rushed further out into the cold and scooped up the injured usuru. “What happened?”
While Percy set about telling the tale of how they had found the winged serpent in the brush, Edith drifted further inside the little cottage. It was quaint but warm—old but in good repair.
Dame Florence sighed, as if their arrival was a great imposition. “Let me go put the kettle on,” she grumbled as if to herself and stalked off before Edith could say anything at all, leaving her alone with a young woman she did not know.
Silence descended between them.
Edith apologized at once, softly admitting, “Forgive me, but I have never been very good at small talk.”
Reyla rubbed her sleeve over her slate, wiping it clean. Silent, she scratched out another message before flipping it around so that Edith could read it: Where is Olivia?
The question crushed all the air from her lungs. Olivia knew this young woman too? It seemed that both her adoptive daughters were now keeping secrets.
“I...I fear she is not coming,” Edith whispered, reluctant.
Reyla rocked on her heels, as if waiting to hear the rest of the explanation.
But that was it. What else could she possibly say?
“Your Grace?” Seraphina’s voice unfurled from just behind her, soft and uncertain.
Edith swallowed hard and turned to face her goddaughter, already dreading the look she knew would be etched into Seraphina’s features. Hurt. Worry. Disbelief.
She found them all shining there within the queen’s familiar gray eyes—a perfect mirror of her dear Silvie’s.
Tears sprang to Edith’s own eyes unbidden as, lips trembling, Seraphina repeated Reyla’s written question, enunciating each word: “Where is Olivia?”
As if from far away, she heard Percy murmur, “She is not with us, Your Majesty...I fear Mistress Olivia decided to stay behind.”
Seraphina swayed where she stood, her arms tightening around Alyx until the usuru hissed. “Stayed…”
Edith’s own knees went weak. She had promised Silvie she would protect Seraphina. But she had promised herself she would protect Olivia. One princess. One commoner. Both hers—her daughters by choice instead of blood.
But she had failed. She had let the door slam shut. She had left Olivia alone in that burning city.
And now she might never see her again.