Chapter 60
Chapter sixty
Seraphina
The skylord’s study was colder than a tomb.
Seraphina sat behind the massive desk of black ironwood, her breath unfurling in white plumes before her. Her fingers were numb, stiff with the chill that permeated this part of the Spire. But she refused to light the hearth.
Every log burned here was a log taken from the refugees shivering in the great hall below. She would not steal their warmth for her own comfort.
Across the room, Cyneric stood by the frosted window, his massive white varhound, Havoc, sprawled at his feet. Duke Percival and Duchess Edith sat in the high-backed chairs opposite the desk, wrapped in their cloaks, watching her with eyes full of worry.
But Seraphina ignored them for a moment longer. Her attention was fixed on the parchment smoothed out atop the desk.
Oracle Tsukiko’s letter.
She read the sweeping, elegant script for the third time, letting the words wash over the raw wounds of her soul.
Sister,
Do not fear the shadows that encroach and whisper their lies meant to turn you from the Lord’s path. The night is long, and the wind is bitter, but never forget that the morning always comes. It is the nature of the world the Lord has made: the dawn must follow the dark.
It cannot be stopped.
You stand now in a valley of bones. You look backward with regret and forward with fear. But the Lord’s plan is absolute, His grace is infinite, and He does not abandon His children in their hour of need.
Bitterness and fear are food for the Enemy.
Forgiveness is a choice we must each make.
Hold fast, Seraphina. You are not forgotten.
You are not alone.
Seraphina squeezed her eyes shut. Tears pricked at the corners, hot and stinging, but she fought them back. She breathed in the scent of the old paper and the dry dust of the room, forcing her heart to steady its frantic rhythm.
Thank You, she prayed silently, for not abandoning me.
She folded the letter with care and tucked it away next to her heart. Oracle Tsukiko had known she would be here at the Dawnspire, not at Goldreach. She had bid Cyneric to change course before Goldreach even fell.
Did that mean the coup had been inevitable?
That nothing she could have done would have changed the outcome?
“Cyneric,” she murmured, her eyes flashing back open. “What are our numbers?”
Her cousin turned from the window, his expression grim but alert. “I brought nearly the entire strength of the north, Your Majesty: three thousand heavy infantry, five hundred archers, and two hundred cavalry with their varhounds.”
He gestured vaguely toward the window, toward the mountain passes beyond. “I had to leave some men behind at Snowcrest. My brother, Rowan, has command of them. The mountain tribes are restless—more so than usual.”
Seraphina nodded slowly, absorbing the numbers. Three thousand. It was a formidable force for a field battle. But for a siege? Against the walls of Goldreach?
“And your other brothers?” Duke Percival asked, leaning forward, his hands tightening on the head of his cane.
“Knox, Slade, and Wulfston are with the main host, waiting down the pass at the first outpost,” Cyneric reassured his father. “Godwyn remained behind with Rowan.”
Duchess Edith let out a long, shaky breath, her hand finding the duke’s knee. “They are safe. Thank the Lord.” After a moment, the older woman’s attention shifted back her way. “And you, Sera? Are you all right? You seem…pensive.”
Seraphina’s lips hitched into a faint smile. “I am.” That word inevitable still nagged at the back of her mind, making her thoughts whirl. If the fall of Goldreach had been inevitable…had the fall of Mysai been, too?
“Your Grace,” she whispered, her attention trailing toward her godfather. “I have a question. And I need the truth. Not the truth you give a goddaughter to comfort her, but the truth you give a queen.”
Duke Percival straightened, his brow furrowing. “Ask it.”
The words were heavy on Seraphina’s tongue. But still she had to ask. Still, she had to know. “If we had known about Edmund’s alliance with Arath sooner…if we could have foreseen his betrayal months ago, could we have saved Mysai?”
The room went still.
Duke Percival looked confused by the shift in conversation. He glanced at the duchess, then at Cyneric, before meeting her gaze once more. He opened his mouth to speak, paused, and then sighed—a sound of deep, weary resignation. “You want my honest opinion?”
“I do.”
“Then the answer is ‘No.’”
The word hung in the air, stark and brutal.
Duke Percival shook his head slowly, expounding, “There was nothing we could have done to save Mysai. It was a city of artisans and merchants sitting on the doorstep of your enemies. It had been an advantageous outpost once, when we were still at peace with Arath, but the moment they declared war—the moment they decided to take it back for their own—it was already lost. We could have sent every soldier in Elmoria, Sera, and it would not have mattered.”
Seraphina’s breath frosted in her lungs. Inevitable. “Why…” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat, forcing strength back into it. “Why did you not tell me this sooner?”
“I tried,” her godfather whispered, his eyes full of sorrow. “But you were so set on saving it. You were so determined to cling to the last reminder of all your forefathers had worked for that you did not want to listen.”
Seraphina was on her feet in the next moment, though she could not even remember standing. Inevitable.
Mysai would have fallen regardless.
Even if Aldric had told her about the witchblade sooner, even if she could have guessed at Edmund’s alliance with Arath even then…it would not have mattered.
Mysai would have still fallen.
The realization hit her not with pain but with a sudden, dizzying release. For weeks, she had carried the souls of Mysai on her back. She had believed that her ignorance—and Aldric’s silence regarding the witchblade—had condemned them.
But it hadn’t.
Her Crow had lied to her, yes. That betrayal still stung. But he was not a butcher. He had not sacrificed a city to keep a secret.
The knot in her chest, the one that had been pulled tight ever since she first learned the truth of the witchblade, finally loosened. The bitterness draining away, leaving only a clean, sharp clarity.
Forgiveness is a choice.
Seraphina took a deep breath of the freezing air. She let the guilt of Mysai go. She let the anger at Aldric settle into something quieter—something that could wait until she looked him in the eye again.
If she ever did.
Her gaze returned to Cyneric, her thoughts crystallized into something more focused—a focus fixed on the future rather than the past. “With the northern forces you have brought, do we have the numbers to retake Goldreach?”
Her cousin let out a short, humorless laugh. “Not unless you have a dozen siege engines hidden in the lower bailey. We could march to the gates, certainly. And then we would die there, besieging it as winter rolls in.”
“And even if we could breach the walls,” Duchess Edith gently pointed out, “with Arlund now held by Arath to the south, we would be flanked. We cannot strike at the head of the snake while its body still coils around our legs.”
Seraphina nodded. It was the answer she had expected.
But it did not spell defeat. It was simply the start of another game of Sovereign, and she needed to know what cards she had to play.
“I want my cousins up the lift now,” Seraphina commanded, her gaze snapping between her godparents and Cyneric. “Get the northern forces secured in the upper bailey. Summon Lady Reyla and Dame Florence. Bring Knox, Slade, and Wulfston once they arrive. You will be my war council.”
Duke Percival parted his lips, a question brewing in his eyes, but she held up a hand. “Next, send the fastest usuri we have to the coast. I need to know what remains of my navy.”
The blockade against Arath would have broken by now. But the Elmorian fleet…did it remain loyal? Or did it belong to Coreto now?
“Any ships that remain loyal are to sail for the Frostrun immediately,” she ordered.
Finally, her godfather spoke. “What is the plan, exactly?”
“I do not know,” she answered, truthful. Blunt.
Stepping out from behind the desk and making for the door, her hand drifted to her chest, feeling the crinkle of the letter beneath the wool of her gown.
“Our fate is in the Lord’s hands now,” she whispered, her voice steel. “And He will reveal the path forward in His own time.”
She paused in the doorway, looking back at the map of Elmoria hanging on the wall—at the capital she had lost and the mountains where she now stood.
“But until then, we will consider our options.”