Chapter 32
Chapter thirty-two
Aldric
He bit back a snarl of irritation, fighting against the desire to leap from the dais, cross the room to where his kirei was speaking in hushed whispers with her attack rat, and shake some sense into her.
Her plan was almost a good plan. A strong plan. A decisive plan.
Almost.
These half-measures were going to get her killed. Luring the viper back to Goldreach and giving it plenty of opportunity to bite her was going to get her killed. She needed to kill Coreto. She needed to make an example of him before all of Elmoria.
Mercy. Mercy and hesitation had no place on the battlefield.
Court politics were no different.
“Sera,” he called, his voice echoing through the cavernous space.
She whirled to face him, a hint of annoyance flashing in her eyes. Her nostrils flared. But still, she came to him, drifting away from Olivia and drawing closer with all of her usual grace. He studied her face as she approached, committing the worry pinching the corners of her eyes to memory.
The worry she no doubt hoped to hide from them all.
“What is it?” she asked, drawing to a pause before him.
Still standing on the dais as he was, the height difference between them was less pronounced. Suddenly, his kirei didn’t seem so tall. So out of reach. Unbidden, his thoughts flickered back to their wedding day. To the sight of her bending toward him. To the sound of her quietly demanding his kiss.
His gaze flickered downward, momentarily lowering to the golden sun pendant she still wore around her neck. His hand flexed, remembering the way the chain had felt against his fingers as he tugged her closer.
He shoved the memory to the back of his mind.
“Why do you insist on playing these games when it would be so much easier to merely send me to deal with it?” he growled, fighting to keep his voice low. Still, their conversation drew the attention of her councilors, who all quietly lingered on, no doubt waiting their turn to speak with the queen.
Sera’s lips pursed. “Because that ‘it’ is a man, and I want that man alive.”
His irritation flared hotter. Brighter. “That man would not pay you the same courtesy.”
Something passed through his kirei’s storm-gray eyes. Something sad. “I know,” she whispered, “but that changes nothing.” After a pause, she added, “Besides, there is no guarantee your way of doing things would even succeed.”
Lips peeling back in another snarl, Aldric was quick to point out, “There’s no guarantee your way of doing things is going to succeed either.”
Sera closed what distance remained between them in the span of a single step. Her chin lifted. Her eyes flashed once more—fierce and challenging. “I will not sacrifice my king for the sake of a mere pawn,” she hissed, the declaration but a breath shared in close quarters.
My king.
Two simple words—yet they slammed into him with the force of a blade to the heart. He knew her words meant nothing. He knew it was mere wordplay. An echo of what he had shouted at her weeks ago. Chess. His wife was speaking of chess. He knew it was foolish to read anything more into it.
And yet, his traitorous heart still stuttered. And yet, a wave of heat still coursed through his chest, stoking something back to life he thought had died long ago.
A hope for something more.
“Very well,” he rumbled, fighting to keep his expression smooth, his voice calm, to keep his blasted kirei from learning just how easily she could bend him to her will these days—from a single glance, a mere soft word.
This woman was going to be the death of him.
Death.
Suddenly, his mind wheeled backward. Back to that nightmare. That cursed image he feared was now branded into the darkest corners of his soul. Sera limp at his feet. Her eyes glassy. The witchblade that had killed her gleaming in his hand.
The memory crushed the air from his lungs. It reminded him just how fragile his wife truly was. Just how easily he could lose her.
Just how close he had once come to killing her himself.
Sera’s brow furrowed. Her eyes narrowed. “Are you all right?”
Drawing in a ragged breath, Aldric forced himself to focus back on the present, to watch as the rising light of the day poured through the windows just behind his wife, wreathing her in gold, giving her the appearance that she was alight with a luminescence all her own.
A woman on fire from within.
“I’m fine,” he lied, edging past her and stepping off the dais. “I just have some matters to see to before your latest farce begins.”
Sera’s hand caught on his arm, holding him in place. “I know we can do this, Aldric,” she murmured, warm breath unfurling against the top of his head. “I know that we can finally turn the tide of this war back in our favor.” Softer still, she added as if to herself, “The Lord willing.”
A strange ache speared him just beneath his ribs at the desperate hope within his wife’s voice, hollowing him out from within. “I hope you’re right, kirei,” he whispered back, pulling free from her grasp. He wanted to stay. To linger in her presence. He would admit that much to himself.
But there was no time. Not if she truly expected the troops to march no later than that afternoon. And he now had his own preparations to finish—ones Sera would never approve of, but ones that might very well save her life.
Assuming the worst should happen.
It had been so long since he last prayed to the Lord on High that he could not even remember the last time he had done so. Perhaps before his mother died. But even so, he found himself praying right then, like a fool, as he made his way across the throne room toward the exit.
Like the fool his infuriating kirei was inspiring him to be.
Lord, if you’re truly out there, if you’re truly listening…don’t fail this woman now. She needs your help. She needs a blasted miracle.
The sight of Father Perero lingering by himself, gazing out a window, drew him up short. His thoughts nagged at him. Memories of his nightmare still swirling in the darkest corners of his mind despite his best efforts to eradicate them.
He veered toward the Shepherd, gritting his teeth over the way his wounded foot smarted with each step. “Father?”
Father Perero’s attention shifted his way. A tired smile crinkled the corners of the older man’s eyes. “Your Majesty. To what do I owe this pleasure?”
Aldric thinned his lips. Pleasure wasn’t the right word. But he had the feeling he would have no rest from his thoughts until he asked the question that had been gnawing at him since Sera first revealed she had given the witchblade over to the Shepherd.
He had to know what had become of it.
“That witchblade,” he whispered, stepping even closer to the holy man for fear of being overheard. “The one that was found in the queen’s chambers. She told me she gave it to you to dispose of?”
Father Perero’s smile died at once.
Aldric searched the Shepherd’s face, tracking the way the other man’s expression shifted in the wake of his question. Guilt.
He knew the feeling well.
Father Perero cleared his throat. “That is correct, Your Majesty, though I fear ‘disposed of’ is…being very generous.” His eyes tightened.
“The knowledge of how to properly dispose of such things was lost to us long ago. I tried everything I could think of—smashing it, melting it in a forge. When nothing worked, I simply had Sir Dacre drop it in the waters of the Straight.”
Some manner of relief washed over Aldric, somewhat soothing that unsettled feeling which lingered low in his gut. But only somewhat. The witchblade was gone. It had been tossed in the sea. No one could use it against Sera now.
Not even him.
But still, the knowledge of the accursed blade pressed against his conscience, festering alongside the promise he had made to Sera that night in his sister’s cottage.
No more secrets.
Like a moth drawn to a flame, Aldric couldn’t help but chance another glance at his wife, where she now stood speaking with her godparents and Sir Easome. In silence, he drank her in, trying to snuff from his thoughts any lingering memories of her lying dead before him.
It had just been a dream. A wretched dream.
He had never used the witchblade against her. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
And he wanted to remember her like this always—wreathed in light, filled with hope, truly believing they could do this. That they could accomplish the impossible.
Together.
Please, Aldric tacked on to his feeble prayer, feeling even more like a fool. Like an impostor. Like a dangerous wolf, pretending he was one of the flock.
Please help her.