Chapter 66 Seraphina #2
“I am not abandoning her,” Seraphina murmured, keeping her voice gentle despite the sting of his words.
“I am prioritizing the battle we can win today. Arlund is the strategic key. And Olivia…you know she is clever, Tristan. Not only that, but she worships the Lady, just as the Arathians do. Just as Coreto does. They will not kill one of their own, even to spite me. They will hold her hostage in the hopes I will come for her, too. Which I will.”
“Excuses,” he spat, shaking his head. “Olivia would do anything for you, and here you can’t even prioritize her safety over the Crow’s.”
She recoiled from this latest accusation; it landed a little too close to home, a little too close to all the questions she had asked herself and all the options she had agonized over before her clarity finally dawned.
“Enough,” she whispered, lifting her chin. “You dare to speak to me this way because you are in pain, Tristan Dacre. But you make the mistake of thinking you are the only one here who feels Olivia’s loss. I love that woman like a sister. I have loved her since before you even knew she existed.”
Now it was the knight’s turn to flinch.
But she didn’t stop. She kept speaking, promising him, promising the air, promising anyone who would listen: “And the moment I have reclaimed Arlund as a foothold, I will assault Goldreach. I will breach its walls. I will find Olivia. This is not a question of ‘if,’ Tristan. Merely of ‘when.’”
Tristan stared at her for a long moment, his jaw working, his sea-green eyes shimmering with unshed tears—and fury. Without another word, he turned on his heel and stormed out of the tent, the flap whipping violently behind him.
Seraphina made to follow, but a hand caught her arm.
Duchess Edith glanced at her, her face sorrowful. “Let him go, Your Majesty.”
Her lips parted, a protest of her own lingering on her tongue, but she swallowed it back. She knew there was nothing she could say to ease Sir Tristan’s pain. Olivia might be dead. He might not ever see her again.
She certainly knew what that felt like.
Please, protect him, Lord, she prayed as she finally stepped out of the tent, watching Sir Tristan go. And protect her, too. Keep Olivia safe.
The camp was a hive of controlled chaos. Men were mounting horses, checking weapons, and dousing fires. Varhounds whined, clearly sensing the change in the air—the crackle of tension blanketing every soul in the camp. So far as they were concerned, this was all just another dire bear hunt.
And the hunt was about to begin.
“Your Majesty!” Duke Percival called, his expression guarded as he carefully picked his way through the camp, leading a warhorse with the free hand not wielding his cane.
Her eyebrows shot up when she recognized the horse in question. It was Mourn, her Crow’s destrier. The stallion was just as heavily scarred as her husband was—a lifetime of battles etched into his dark pelt.
She would have expected him to be an unruly creature, given his name and Aldric’s reputation alone, but he came quietly, with a soft mouth and a gentle eye.
When her godfather paused before her, she cautiously reached out and stroked the wild tumble of Mourn’s mane.
“I cannot possibly ride the Crow’s horse,” she whispered.
No doubt she was being ridiculous; the stallion was trained for war.
But she could not stand the thought of any harm coming to him while in her care.
Duke Percival’s lips twitched into a wry smile.
“He is the only destrier we have to spare, Your Majesty. And besides…” His expression flickered, as if he weren’t quite sure whether to be worried or irritated.
“He at least knows what he’s doing out there.
He will keep you safe.” A hint of fear leached into the duke’s voice with those words.
Seraphina’s heart ached at the sound. “As will Cyneric,” she softly reminded him. “And Knox, and Slade, and Wulfston.” Leaning in close, she planted a chaste kiss against her godfather’s whiskered cheek. “I will come back. This is not goodbye.”
Drawing in a ragged breath, he shoved Mourn’s reins into her hands and choked out a soft, “I know.” It was all he said—perhaps all that needed to be said between them—before he took a step back so she could mount.
Seraphina drank in deep the crisp air, steadying herself for what was yet to come.
Finally hooking her foot in the stirrup, she swung up into the saddle, her armor clanking, her sword swinging awkwardly at her hip.
The moment she settled, Alyx let loose with a quiet screech and took to the air in a flutter of shimmering wings.
“Men and women of Elmoria!” Seraphina cried, wheeling Mourn around to skim her gaze across the faces of her gathered troops.
Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Her godparents.
Her cousins. The Sons. Men and women from the north she had never met before, but who marched under her banner all the same.
Because to them, she was still their queen.
Even though she had no throne.
Even though she still wore no crown.
Still, these people—her people—believed in her.
Warmth flared through her chest, brighter than any star, hotter than even the sun.
Gathering Mourn’s reins into her left hand, she pointed toward the valley below with her right.
“The enemy thinks us broken. They think us weak. But even though we are hard pressed on every side, we are not yet crushed!” The light burning in her heart flared all the more brightly with each word that flowed from her lips.
“We have been displaced, but still the Lord has not abandoned us! We have been struck down, but we are not destroyed!”
A roar of approval rippled through the ranks.
“We are Elmorians!” she shouted, her attention turning toward the Sons. “And we are Drakmori,” she added for their benefit. “We bend, but we do not break. If we fall today, we fall only so that we may rise again in the Lord’s embrace!”
Her eyes found Father Perero in the crowd. With a twitch of her fingers, she gestured for him to approach. “Please, Shepherd, will you pray over us?”
With a nod, Father Perero stepped forward and raised his hands.
The wind whipped at his robes, but still he stood tall and still.
“Lord on High,” the Shepherd prayed aloud, his voice swelling to fill the entire encampment.
“May You watch over these brave men and women today. Under Your wings, may they find refuge. May Your faithfulness be their shield and rampart.”
Bowing her head, Seraphina let the soothing words wash over her, quieting every other thought in her mind, stilling every distraction whispering in her heart until there was only this—the heat burning within her soul, the tug of the cord urging her onward.
“So it is written: ‘I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name,’” Father Perero continued. “‘He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble.’ May it also be so for those here today. In Your name we pray, O Lord.”
Her throat grew thick as those words, “He will call on me, and I will answer him,” branded themselves on her mind. Yes. The Lord was good. And He always answered. Perhaps not when she wanted Him to, but He answered in His own time. In His own way.
Tears escaped from the corners of her eyes and tracked down her cheeks before she could stop them. As the prayer faded, hoofbeats thudded on the ground, drawing closer.
A voice asked, “Are you all right, cousin?”
Seraphina opened her eyes and scrubbed her face clean. “Yes,” she whispered, her gaze trailing toward the valley, to where the enemy waited. To where her husband waited. How many lives might be lost today? She did not know.
She could not think about such things right now.
A watery smile curved Duchess Edith’s lips. “Here,” her godmother said, stepping forward to press her helm into her hands. “You look so fearsome, I hardly recognize you, Your Majesty.”
Fearsome? If only her father could hear such a thing.
If only he could see her now.
With a murmur of thanks, Seraphina eased the helmet atop her head, narrowing her field of vision to the slit just in front of her. She stared at her army, at all their expectant faces, knowing she could not delay the inevitable any longer.
The cavalry waited, their horses stamping. The infantry tightened their grips on their spears. In between, the varhounds paced, their hackles raised and eyes fixed on the valley below.
Seraphina released her breath in a slow sigh and tightened her grip on Mourn’s reins. She felt the golden cord snap taut again, pulling her onward.
It was time.
Lifting her voice, she called out to her troops a single command: “Release the varhounds.”
The low wail of a hunting horn shivered through the trees.
A howl ripped from one varhound’s throat in reply.
And as a sea of white fur rippled over the edge of the ridge, racing toward the valley, the cove, and the promise of war, Seraphina drove her heel into Mourn’s flank and peeled off through the forest, banking hard toward the exposed hill in the distance.
She had to be the bait. That was her role.
But still, a part of her soul cried out, urging her to throw caution to the wind and follow the hounds down into the valley, into the heat of battle.
To ride straight for the one heart in all the world that beat in time with hers.
The one heart that nothing—neither witch nor war—could possibly keep from her now.