Chapter 54
Chapter fifty-four
Seraphina
The damp tang of the sea lingered in the air. The gentle lap of waves against rock whispered somewhere close by. Closer still were voices—one she knew and one she did not.
“…I already paid you,” Tiberius was saying. “That should be more than enough.”
A rough male voice with the faintest hint of a Lothmeeran accent answered, “That was before a big price was put on this one’s head, m’lord. A big price. My rates have tripled—”
“Tripled?” Tiberius snarled. “Are you trying to rob me blind?”
The man laughed. “No, m’lord. I’m trying to rob you with your eyes wide open.”
Seraphina floated in that space between dreaming and waking. Her lashes fluttered. Her tongue felt thick. Her head, heavy. That sickly sweet taste lingered in the back of her throat. Her rump ached from being perched on a pommel for only the Lord knew how long.
She was still on horseback, still held upright by an arm clamped around her middle.
Tiberius.
Memory of what happened at the ruins came rushing back, stoking a fresh fire low in her stomach. Sir Arkwright. Her capture.
She had to escape and find her family. Find Alyx.
But first, she had to know where she was.
Cautiously, she dared to crack open her eyes.
A narrow strip of stony beach tucked beneath a rise of rock greeted her hazy vision. A small, single-masted ship bobbed just beyond, tethered to a slick, dark mooring stone. A handful of men loitered along the shore—sailors, by the look of them.
Just before her stood a Lothmeeran man in a worn coat, arms folded over his chest, boots braced wide. The light was fading, sunset painting itself across what scant sky she could glimpse in the distance.
But even in that dying light, she could clearly see how the man glanced her way for all of a moment—just long enough to wink—before he shifted his attention to a point over her shoulder. As if he were aware of her watching him through her eyelashes.
Behind her sat Tiberius’s solid warmth, one arm still anchoring her in place. The horse beneath them shifted restlessly, snorting and bobbing its head. She wondered how long they had been in this place.
“She is the Queen of Elmoria,” Tiberius hissed. “Do you not understand what that means? I am offering you a chance to—”
“I know exactly what it means,” the Lothmeeran cut in, sounding thoroughly unimpressed. “I also know what it means when witches start sniffing around, asking questions. And when they offer good coin for a pretty queen’s head.”
At the word witches, something inside her snapped fully awake. She could not linger here.
This man was clearly a scoundrel. He would sell her to the highest bidder.
Seraphina sucked in a sharp breath and opened her eyes fully, sitting tall. The world cleared into painful focus—the beach, the ship, the men, Tiberius’s gloved hand at her waist.
Her once-friend startled, glancing down at her. “Sera.” Relief flashed across his features. “You are awake. Excellent.” His voice softened, turning cajoling.
As if he had not drugged her into unconsciousness.
As if she had not tried to stab him in the gut.
“Listen to me, Sera. This man is going to sail you to Lothmeer. You will be safe there. It is the only way.”
Safe?
The word merely fed the flames of her rising fury.
“And what about my godparents?” Her voice came out rougher than she liked, rusted from disuse. But it carried well enough. “What about Olivia?”
Her chest clenched. And Aldric—
His face rose up behind her eyes without mercy. The way he had looked at her in parting. The way he had kissed her hand, even after their terrible fight the night before. The way he had gifted her his dagger, despite everything.
And now, he was probably dead.
The thought drove a lance through her heart.
She swallowed hard, biting out each word. “And what about my husband? Did you care about their safety at all when you betrayed me to Coreto?”
Tiberius’s mouth tightened. “I am a businessman, Sera,” he said, each word clipped. “Not a miracle worker.”
Her anger flared, bright and sharp, burning through the last of the fog clinging to her thoughts. Her bodice dagger was gone, lost to the King’s Forest, but she still had two weapons left.
Two more means of escape.
On her right hand, Olivia’s ring glinted faintly in the dying light. For a moment, she simply stared at it, at the delicate glass jewel set into the simple band.
Her best friend had meant for her to use it on Nerina Reef against Edmund should their peace talks have gone awry. How delighted Olivia would be to hear the tale of how she had used it against Tiberius instead.
The baron was still talking, going on about, “Besides, the Umberlys know how to fend for themselves. And as for Olivia—”
He said her best friend’s name like a nuisance, like an afterthought.
Her anger roared into a blaze.
Seraphina twisted in the saddle, her right hand flashing up. With all the strength she possessed, she backhanded Tiberius Beaumont square across the face.
The glass setting in Olivia’s poison ring shattered against his cheekbone with a sharp crack. Tiberius flinched, a hiss tearing from his lips. “Sera, what—”
His gloved fingers rose to his face, coming away with a small smear of blood and a dusting of glittering shards. “What did you…?” The words slurred together. Already, his eyes were going hazy.
He swayed in the saddle, the color draining from his face.
“What did you…?” he repeated, slower now, as if the words were too heavy.
She watched, chest heaving, as his lashes fluttered once, twice. Then he slid bonelessly out of the saddle, hitting the rocky shore with a graceless thud.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then the Lothmeeran barked out a laugh, sounding utterly delighted. “Well, I’ll be,” he drawled, grin splitting his weathered face. “Didn’t know you had that in you, Your Majesty.”
Seraphina didn’t answer.
Her fingers fumbled for the reins as she swung her right leg over the horse’s neck, settling properly in the saddle astride. Her pulse thundered in her ears as she wheeled the horse around and dug in her heels.
The horse leapt forward with a snort, scrambling up through the narrow path that wound out of the cove.
The Lothmeeran man whooped with laughter. “Run, Your Majesty!” he called after her. “Run!”
She didn’t look back.
The world narrowed to the pounding of hooves against earth, the slap of wind against her face, the lingering sweetness of Tiberius’s drug clinging to the back of her throat. But she was awake now. She was alive.
She was free.
Leaning lower over her horse’s neck, she flew up the rocky track, over the rise, and into the wider world. An unfamiliar world of gray, restless sea churning behind her and a gently rolling land unfurling before her.
Wait. She did know where she was.
In the distance, Goldreach smoldered; closer at hand, a dark line of trees marked the edge of the King’s Forest. But off on the western horizon, mountains reared, their jagged silhouettes cut against the sky, dusted white at their crowns.
The Dawnspire. That was where her family’s fortress lay.
The promise of safety. Security.
Her throat tightened as she hauled the horse to a pause. That was where she should go—to the Dawnspire, as she told her family she would. If her godparents had escaped Goldreach, that is where they would go to look for her. Olivia, too.
And maybe…maybe Aldric…
Seraphina clenched her eyes shut, a shaky breath trembling forth. Please, she prayed, no longer knowing what exactly she was praying for. But the Lord knew.
Even now, with her entire world shattered at her feet, she chose to believe that He was still there—that He still cared—and that He knew what she needed.
An image of Reyla pierced her thoughts, unbidden. Reyla smiling and laughing as she bested Master Fitzjesmaine at his own dice game.
A sharp pang lanced through her chest.
Reyla and Dame Florence were still back there, still in the cottage. Perhaps they did not know about the coup. No one would have warned them. She was the only soul left nearby, aside from Olivia, who even knew they existed.
Aldric’s face rose up once more. The way he’d looked at her that day when she had forced Coreto to surrender. When he had called her “my queen.” Her throat thickened. Tears beaded in her eyelashes.
A part of her still wanted to rage at him, still wanted to blame him for the loss of Mysai.
But another part of her could not bear the thought of perhaps facing him one day and telling him she had chosen her own safety over protecting his sister.
That she had chosen herself over the women in that cottage who had no one else to tell them about the danger lurking right outside their door.
No.
She opened her eyes. The mountains blurred at the edges of her vision, falling away as she turned the horse’s head—not west, toward safety, but back toward the faint tendrils of smoke still rising over the treeline.
Toward Goldreach.
Toward the cottage.
Toward danger.
Her fingers tightened in the reins until her knuckles went white. Please, she prayed again, though this time she knew what she was praying for—safety.
For Reyla. For Dame Florence. For Aldric, wherever he was.
For her family.
And for herself, too.
Leaning low over the horse’s neck, she nudged the creature back into a hard gallop and flew not toward the safety of the Dawnspire.
But straight back into the heart of the fire.