Chapter 64 Seraphina #2
When she did not, he rocked back on his heels, grasped the pew beside them, and shoved himself back to his feet with a quiet grunt and the crackle of popping joints.
Breathless, the Shepherd whispered, “You have been called, Your Majesty. You must now trust that the Lord will prepare you for that calling, no matter what trials may come.”
Out of all the things Father Perero had ever said to her, it was that word in particular—trust—that made her recoil as if he had just physically struck her. “But I do trust Him—”
“Do you?” Father Perero asked, his gaze piercing through her defenses. “When you sit here, doubting every past decision you have ever made? Fearing every mistake you might yet make in the future?”
Seraphina opened her mouth to argue, wanting to hotly deny everything he had just accused her of, but the words died on her tongue. She could not deny them because he was right. She did doubt. She did fear. Even now, after everything she had been through.
Hold fast, Tsukiko had written.
But she had managed to hold fast for only a week before breaking once more.
The silence stretched between them, growing larger and heavier with each passing moment. The candlelight danced, casting shadows across the Shepherd’s face, masking his true expression from view. But she could imagine it well enough.
Surely, he was just as disappointed with her as she was with herself.
Her shoulders slumped. The fight drained out of her, leaving only exhaustion in its place.
“I doubt because there are so many relying on me, Father,” she softly confessed.
“I fear because there are even more looking to me for guidance when I have no answers. Goldreach or Arlund? Aldric or another option I have not yet considered?”
She looked down at her empty hands, as if the worn leather of her fur-lined gloves might hold the answers she sought. “I have nothing.”
Father Perero crouched down, his hands slipping into the clasp of hers. His grip was warm and strong. Giving her fingers a squeeze, he helped her back to her feet.
“You have everything that you need already, Seraphina de la Croix,” her Shepherd whispered, his tone back to the gentle thrum she knew so well. “Trust in that. Trust in Him. The way forward will become clear once you do.”
Everything that she needed already?
Frowning, Seraphina looked at Father Perero—really looked at him.
Now eye to eye with the man once more, she could clearly see that he housed not a single shred of disappointment in his gaze.
He seemed so calm, so sure, as if he truly believed the Lord had already given her what she needed to do what must be done.
Everything I need.
Her gaze drifted past the priest, toward the altar, and then further still—toward the stained-glass window above it. It was too dark outside for the light to shine through, leaving the image black and lifeless.
But she knew what was depicted there. She had seen it by daylight.
It was not a dragon, like the stained glass in Goldreach’s cathedral depicted. It was not a king, like the stained glass within the throne room of her palace.
It was a sun. The symbol of the Lord on High Himself.
“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.”
Seraphina’s eyes fluttered closed. Trust. She just needed to trust that the dawn would come, no matter what trials—or what sorrows—the world might bring. But why was it so hard to trust?
Drawing in a shuddering breath, she did her best, desperately attempting to snuff out her fears one by one. Olivia’s smiling face swam through her thoughts, but her best friend’s fate was in the Lord’s hands now.
Aldric shimmered to the forefront of her mind next, making her heart lurch all over again with the memory of their cold parting.
With the knowledge that she might never have an opportunity to apologize—no.
She exhaled slowly, trying to force the fear surrounding his fate from her thoughts just as she forced the air from her lungs.
Her Crow’s fate was in the Lord’s hands as well.
All of Goldreach, Elmoria, and Avirel, too. They were all in the Lord’s hands.
But then what did He need her for? No. No more questions.
Her fate was in the Lord’s hands, too.
She was tired of being afraid. She was tired of doubting and second-guessing both herself and Him at every turn. She just wanted to believe for once, without a single moment’s hesitation. She just wanted to trust without a single seed of doubt taking root in her heart.
Do you trust me?
Seraphina drew perfectly still as those four words shivered through her soul with all the gentle warmth of a summer breeze, with all the sweetness of a chime.
She might have almost thought it was a memory of that very question Aldric had asked her on their wedding day…
except that her Crow did not possess such a voice.
A voice that was felt more than heard—like a ball of light pulsing in her chest. Perfectly golden, just like the feel of Father Perero and Oracle Tsukiko’s blessings. Light. His light.
All at once, the chapel fell away, and all of its bitter cold with it. She tried to open her eyes to see what had happened and found that she could not; strangely, that realization brought her no fear.
It was impossible to fear while in the presence of such radiance.
Tears beaded in Seraphina’s eyelashes as she reached toward that warmth building inside her—the very tears she promised she would never again shed.
But here, deep inside herself, seeking the glow she always wished she could bottle and keep with her always, she decided to give herself a little grace.
Do you trust me? the voice asked again, the words pulsing in time with her heart.
I do, she whispered to the most secret parts of her heart, meaning it with every fiber of her being.
She did trust Him, even though it was hard, even though sometimes she wished life were just a little bit easier.
But now she saw within the shimmer of that warmth something far greater than any mortal woes or fleeting worldly struggles.
She saw a glimpse of eternity.
Light enveloped her from within like a dawn to end all others, burning away her sorrow, lifting the crushing weight from her shoulders that she had carried since before the coup. A laugh bubbled up in her throat—not the bitter, sharp thing from before, but a sound of pure, effervescent joy. Relief.
She drank in that light as if it were water, feeling it rush through her veins, chasing away the cold, waking her up.
Making her new.
But when next she drew breath, something else snapped taut within her chest. A pull so deep it trembled through her bones. A voice brushed her ear like a caress, low, intimate, and achingly familiar.
Kirei…
Her eyes fluttered open, breath hitching. “Aldric.”
She felt him as surely as if he stood beside her now, though such a thing should be impossible. His heartbeat echoed inside her own chest, weak but steady, as if it had always been there, beating alongside hers ever since that first day on Nerina Reef.
Ever since the night he saved her from the assassin’s blade.
Ever since their wedding day. Their first kiss.
Warmth surged along the invisible tether between them, thrumming with destiny. With promise. With a feeling she still did not dare name.
For a single, crystalline moment, Seraphina saw that strange bond stretching before her—like a golden cord glowing with the very breath of the Lord on High Himself—piercing through stone and darkness and distance, pointing unerringly toward the man her God had chosen for her, guiding her back to him.
Guiding her home.
Her eyes flew wide. The chapel was no longer dark; to her, it seemed vibrant, alive with purpose. A fire kindled within her heart, a compass needle of pure gold pulling at her sternum.
She rushed toward the doors without a single backward glance.
“Your Majesty?” Father Perero asked, his startled voice winging after her.
But Seraphina didn’t answer. She couldn’t. The pull was too strong. She gathered her heavy skirts into her hands and flew out into the corridor at a full sprint.
“Seraphina!” the Shepherd called, his own footsteps swiftly fading behind her.
She could not stop. She could not slow. She needed the map. Now.
Bursting into the war room, she surged through the darkness, not bothering to light the torches lining the walls. She knew exactly where she was going already without needing a mere torch to illuminate her way.
Grabbing a marker from the side of the table—a heavy iron piece representing her own forces—she slammed it down onto the stone surface.
Clack.
The sound echoed with finality.
Father Perero skidded into the room behind her, breathless, bracing himself against the walls. “Your Majesty…what…?”
Seraphina stood over the map, her chest heaving, her eyes locked on the marker she had placed. It sat firmly in the heart of Arlund.
“He is there,” she whispered, the certainty in her voice unshakable. The golden cord in her heart hummed, tight and true. “Aldric. He is there.”
She looked up at her Shepherd, a fierce, joyous smile breaking across her face. She could no longer contain it, her joy. At last, she knew what to do. She saw it as clearly as she saw Father Perero before her.
“I do hope you are not too terribly tired, Father,” she whispered, her tone apologetic, “because we need to wake the rest of my council.”
The Shepherd’s eyes crinkled at the corners, his expression softening. “You have found the answer you sought.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “And we leave at dawn.”