Chapter 63
Chapter sixty-three
Seraphina
“Atrap?” her godfather echoed, staring at her over the rims of his spectacles.
The war room of the Dawnspire yawned around her, as though it were a chamber built for giants, with vaulted ceilings soaring far overhead, lost to shadow, and a table of black stone carved with a map of the known world that could seat twenty.
And yet Seraphina was suffocating within the enormous space.
The room was suddenly far too small. Far too crowded.
Duke Percival and Duchess Edith sat at the head of the table, their faces lined with worry. Down the length of the stone slab sat her “cousins”—Cyneric, Slade, Knox, and Wulfston—each with a mountain of white fur and canine muscle curled around their boots.
Dame Florence stood sentinel by the cold hearth; Reyla perched on a stool nearby. And near the door, as if afraid to enter further, stood all that remained of the Twelve Sons: Calix, Kyn, Rakon, and Leif.
“As your Lord Chancellor,” her godfather continued, his tone as stern as his expression, “I must strongly advise against us flinging you directly into Arath’s maws.”
Seraphina paced before the high, frosted windows, with Alyx draped about her shoulders, unable to sit.
Not with her mind currently ablaze, flickering through every possible path forward.
Pressure tightened behind her eyes, each suggestion piling atop the next until she could scarcely hear her own thoughts through the din.
Aldric was alive. But where?
She whirled to face the Sons. “Can you show me on the map where you left the Crow?”
Cyneric shifted in his chair, the wood creaking beneath his weight. “Cousin, I fear I am in agreement with my father. We cannot afford to lose you now.”
His words left a sour taste in the back of her throat. They smacked of Tiberius’s own sentiment back in Goldreach on the day of the coup, when he had claimed her life was worth more than Sir Tristan’s.
Kyn’s gaze darted between her and Cyneric before he finally stepped forward, approaching the table.
“We were a day’s ride from Goldreach when we were first ambushed, Your Majesty.
I believe…” The Drakmori circled around the stone slab, earning himself a warning rumble from Slade’s varhound when he drew too close. Finally, he tapped the map. “Here.”
Calix remained quiet, his arms crossed over his chest.
Rakon cut in with his deep rumble to point out, “But we escaped from further in the wood. Further south—that seemed to be the direction the witch was taking us.”
At the mention of the word “witch,” a quiet hiss emanated from Leif’s direction. For just a moment, she caught a glimpse of a sleek black head poking out from beneath the elderly man’s jerkin before Soot retreated once more.
Seraphina turned back to the rest of her councilors. “We already agreed the wisest course of action is to retake Arlund first. The fact that my consort also lies in that direction now solidifies this as the best move in my mind.”
“That was before we realized it was a trap,” Cyneric pointed out, his voice rough.
Knox absentmindedly twirled one of his hunting knives through his fingers, his lips pursed.
“But we don’t know that this Crow is actually in Arlund, do we?
” He traded a look with Slade sitting beside him; his younger brother shook his head.
At a glance, the two looked nearly identical—almost perfect replicas of Percival Umberly himself.
Seraphina turned sharply on her heel to resume her pacing, her skirts sweeping across the stone floor.
Heat flared up her throat—anger, fear, and determination tangled so tightly that she could no longer tell them apart.
“I refuse to leave my husband to die. He is alive. I intend to rescue him. That is the end of it.”
Around her neck, Alyx shifted, the serpent’s scales cool against her skin. The creature purred, a vibrating comfort against her collarbone. But it did little to settle the storm raging in her mind.
What manner of trap were the witches planning?
“We are not suggesting you leave him, Your Majesty,” Duchess Edith murmured, her tone apologetic. Leaning forward, her gaze lowered to the map engraved into the very stone of the table. “But we cannot blindly comb every hill and grove of the midlands hunting for His Highness—”
“His Majesty,” Seraphina absentmindedly corrected, still pacing, still thinking. “My husband is the King of Drakmor.”
Her godmother cleared her throat. “Yes, Your Majesty. But perhaps if we were to strike Goldreach first, we might be able to flush out the witches holding His Majesty hostage.”
Wulfston huffed out a breath and looked toward the duchess, the green eyes shining from behind his strange varhound mask, a mirror of his mother’s. “We might also simply expose our flanks to the Arathian forces in Arlund.”
Seraphina’s steps momentarily slowed as she found herself staring at her cousin, tracing the shape of his mask with her eyes before she swallowed hard and pried her gaze away.
She had heard rumors that he had been mutilated some years ago in a dire bear attack.
Now, he was never seen in public without that mask.
Duke Percival lifted his voice to suggest, “Have we considered that the witches might have taken His Majesty to Goldreach? As Lord Slade says, we do not know exactly where they are holding him.”
“We can assault Goldreach from both the west and the east,” Knox added at the tail end of his father’s words. “Ground troops hammering the western walls. Navy assaulting the harbor to the east. We hit hard and squeeze them out before any Arathian forces in Arlund can even retaliate.”
Cyneric cocked his eyebrow. “Assault the harbor? With what ships?”
Seraphina stopped her pacing. “Enough!” Her gaze cut across the room toward those who were most silent—Dame Florence, Reyla, and the Sons. “What do you all think?”
Calix finally spoke, but only to snap, “I think we should respect His Majesty’s wishes and leave him where he is, wherever that may be.”
Reyla scratched out a quick message on her slate and flipped it around: SaveAldric.
Dame Florence shrugged, heaving out a sigh.
“I just find it all strange that the witches want to use him to lure you into a trap, and yet they haven’t made it clear to us exactly where they are keeping him.
If they want you to come to a particular place, why have they not told you where that place is? ”
Seraphina nodded slowly, chewing on the inside of her cheek. She had been thinking the exact same thing. What was the point in laying a trap and yet keeping the location secret?
Leif edged a little closer to the table and suggested, “Soot could find him.”
“Soot?” Wulfston echoed, clearly confused.
The eldest Son nodded and patted his jerkin. “The Crow’s usuru.”
Cyneric pinched the bridge of his nose. “My forces have already marched halfway across the kingdom. I am not going to ask them to now follow an usuru while we simply hope it will lead us to where we need to go.”
Seraphina pressed her fingers to her temples. A low throb pulsed behind her eyes, each beat a reminder that they were wasting precious time she did not have. Round and round they went with no plan to show for it.
She just needed time to think. Time to breathe without the weight of a dozen stares pressing on her back—
Wooooo-ooooo.
The sound of a horn cut through the thick stone walls, muffled but unmistakable. Two long blasts. One short.
Seraphina froze. The room went silent, save for the panting breaths of the varhounds beneath the table.
Duke Percival threw his hands up into the air, scowling at the door. “Is all of Elmoria coming to visit the Dawnspire this week?”
“Apparently so,” Seraphina muttered. Just what she needed—one more interruption, one more problem for her to have to deal with when she had not even had a chance to solve the latest.
With a sharp wave of her hand, she bit out, “We will reconvene tomorrow,” and strode for the door. At least this time she knew it would not be Aldric.
“Your Majesty, wait!” Duchess Edith called, but she was already in the corridor.
She marched through the twisting halls of the Dawnspire, Alyx snug around her throat, grounding her with each step. By the time she finally reached the signal room, breathless, the feeling that she had already experienced this same moment before swept over her, rendering her momentarily dizzy.
“Do we truly have yet more riders in the pass,” she snapped, her patience frayed to a thread, “or is this simply all a jest now?”
The Liftwarden startled and hastily sketched a bow. “No, Your Majesty. There are no riders in the pass this time.” He gestured to the array of levers. “Just a ship sailing up the Frostrun.”
Seraphina paused, her eyebrows shooting up. “A ship? Whose colors do they fly?”
“None,” the Liftwarden reported. “The message from the river landing says it’s a merchant vessel.”
Her mind raced. A merchant vessel? Her thoughts immediately flickered back to Tiberius, to his fleet of trading ships, to the sickly sweet scent of his handkerchief as he clamped it over her nose and mouth.
Her skin crawled with the memory. But it could not be Tiberius. He wouldn’t dare show his face to her ever again.
…Would he?
“Tell the river landing that I will speak with the captain of this vessel,” she quietly commanded. “And only the captain.”
“Aye, Your Majesty.”
The Warden yanked the appropriate levers, the clack-clack of the mechanisms echoing down into the depths of the mountain.
By the time the great chains of the river lift began to rattle into motion, Duke Percival and Duchess Edith had arrived, breathless and flanked by Cyneric.
“There is a ship coming up the river,” Seraphina told them before they could ask.
“Who is it?” Duchess Edith asked, craning her head as if to try to catch a glimpse of the frigid waters of the Frostrun through the mist.
Seraphina shook her head. “I do not know.”
The wait was agonizing. The river lift was much slower than the main one—a grueling ascent all the way from the river’s shore. Seraphina stood at the railing, watching the flakes of snow drift by, her stomach clenching as her mind flickered through all the worst possible scenarios.
Please, she found herself praying just as the cage crested the landing. Just don’t let it be more bad news. We cannot bear any more bad news.
The gears groaned and locked into place. The gate swung open.
Seraphina blinked. Though she had commanded that only the captain of the ship be allowed entry into the lift, two men stepped out onto the bay, shivering in the cold. One in battered plate armor, the other in a travel-stained cassock.
Her godparents audibly gasped.
Something inside her chest jolted sharp and bright, a spark cutting through days of unending dread. Seraphina could only laugh at the sight of the two men—a sound of pure, unadulterated joy.
“Sir Tristan!” she cried out, hardly daring to believe her eyes. “Father Perero!”
Tristan Dacre’s face, haggard and unwashed, broke into a wide, beaming smile. Beside him, Father Perero clutched his golden sun pendant, looking as though he had just walked through a valley of shadow and finally emerged back into the light.
“Your Majesty!” Tristan dropped to one knee. “Forgive me. I came as swiftly as I—”
Seraphina rushed forward, flinging her arms around his neck. He smelled rank—like sea and smoke and an unwashed man. But she didn’t care. He was here. He was alive.
And he had brought her Shepherd.
“You made it out,” she whispered, tears pricking her eyes as she squeezed the knight all the more tightly. “Praise the Lord, you made it out.”
“It was a near thing,” Father Perero admitted with a laugh, his voice rising to speak over the howl of the wind. “Very near. But the Lord watches over His flock always…” The Shepherd trailed off with another shiver. “G-gracious, it’s terribly cold here, isn’t it?”
Cyneric huffed out an amused breath. “Clearly, you’ve never been to Varoa.”
Jaw tight, Duke Percival spoke over his eldest son to ask, “Did you bring anyone else from Goldreach with you, Sir Dacre? Father?”
Seraphina went perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe. Olivia.
“Yes,” Father Perero answered, tipping his head toward the lift. “We have refugees waiting in the ship down below, in desperate need of food and shelter.” For a moment, the Shepherd’s eyes tightened. “I fear too many were left behind, but we saved who we could.”
Tristan gently eased himself from Seraphina’s embrace and rose to his feet. His gaze skimmed past her shoulder, eyebrows knitting together as he clearly hunted for something. “Where is your sharp-tongued shadow, then?”
The floor seemed to lurch beneath her, her balance tilting as though the mountain itself had shifted.
A cold sweep washed through her chest, leaving her empty.
Sound dulled around her, her joy collapsing into a single sharp point of pain.
She felt the loss of Olivia all over again; it stung even more keenly the second time.
Her best friend was still back there, trapped in Coreto’s Goldreach. Either that or she was…
Her breath caught—sharp and shallow—stolen clean out of her lungs. No. Desperately, she tried to silence that part of her mind. She couldn’t possibly think about that right now.
Duke Percival bowed his head, his grip tightening on his cane. Duchess Edith drifted closer to her husband, her hand moving to rest atop his arm. Cyneric glanced between his parents, frowning.
Tristan froze, his eyes darting between the duke and duchess. “Where is Olivia?” he asked more directly, a note of panic seeping into his words.
Seraphina parted her lips, but no sound came. Words shriveled on her tongue; her mouth was suddenly as dry as dust. How could she possibly tell him that they had left her best friend—the woman he so clearly loved—behind?
When silence was his only answer, he clenched his armored fists and demanded, “Tell me!” His voice rivaled even the roar of the bitter wind whistling past as it echoed off the ceiling of the landing bay.
“Tristan,” Father Perero murmured, reaching out his hand.
The knight twitched away. “Is she dead?” he asked, his voice cracking. “If she is dead—”
“Sir Dacre,” her godfather softly interrupted, lifting his head at last. For once, the threat of tears shimmered in Percival Umberly’s eyes. “Come with me, my boy. There are some things I need to tell you.”