His words stopped her in her tracks, but she said nothing. There was nothing she could possibly say to contradict him.
Because he was right.
Hewasher pet bogeyman.
Her Crow smirked. “Tell me I’m wrong, kirei.”
Swallowing hard, she whispered, “You may not call me that either.”
“Tell me I am wrong about you,” he challenged her again. “Tell me that you truly think I am the best man to lead your army and that this isn’t all yet one more thing you are doing ‘for the sake of appearances.’” He looked at her as if she disgusted him. “That’s all you care about, isn’t it?Appearances.”
Anger ignited within her chest like a spark catching dry tinder. “I did it because that was our agreement,” she nearly shouted at him, the words winging from her throat far louder than she had intended. “You said you would win me back Arlund, and I said I would support your claim to the Drakmori throne. That is our arrangement. Those are the terms.”
His smirk died on his lips, leaving him looking infuriatingly apathetic once more.
As if he didn’t care that people were out there dying—herpeople—while he stood here bickering with her.
Her hands balled into fists, her fingernails biting hard into her palms. “You seemed to be in perfect agreement with me then. What has changed? Why this sudden reluctance?”
Without a word, Aldric suddenly reached inside his jerkin and pulled free a piece of parchment. After crumpling it into a ball, he lobbed it straight at her, where it bounced harmlessly off her shoulder.
Stunned, she could only stare.
What in the world had gotten into him?
“What’s changed,” he coldly explained, “is that pamphlet I found in the city yesterday.” Pointing to the ball of paper now lying on the ground, he whispered, “Pick it up and see for yourself. Or do you already know all about that, too?”
Pamphlet? What pamphlet?
Seraphina’s stomach clenched as she glanced down at the paper. She didn’t want to retrieve it and admit that he knew something she did not. But neither did she want to relegate herself to ignorance all for the sake of her ego.
Silencing her smarting pride, she crouched down and plucked up the crumpled parchment. It smelled dreadful—like smoke, refuse, and bile. The moment she smoothed it out to spy the drawing rendered there, though, its abhorrent scent became the least of her problems.
As if from far away, she heard herself ask, “Where did you find this?” as she stared at the picture of the rearing stag—herstag, her family’s sigil—being eaten alive by a dragon.
Arath’s dragon.
“Outside a tavern near the docks,” her Crow quietly rasped, his tone gentling in a way she immediately disliked far more than his shouting. A tone that smacked of pity. “They’re being distributed among the common people. But it wouldn’t surprise me if some of your courtiers hadn’t already seen them, too.”
Silent, she studied the words scrawled beneath the picture, engraving them in her mind.
So ends House de la Croix.
Her father’s dying whisper cut through her thoughts:“You will spell the end of House de la Croix andall that my forefathers worked for. Our royal line will die withyou.”
Her breath hitched. Her heart skipped a beat.
Like an autumn leaf falling, the parchment slipped from her fingers.
What if her father had been right all along?
Legs wooden, Seraphina hurried toward the nearest window. The room blurred as tears pricked her eyes. Bile burned the back of her throat.
She was going to be sick.
Fingers fumbling at the window’s latch for several desperate moments, she finally managed to fling it open and allow the blissfully cold air to flood the sitting room. She inhaled deeply, letting it burn her lungs and dry her traitorous tears before they ever had a chance to fall.
When next she blinked, Aldric stood beside her. “Kirei,” he murmured, as if he actually cared. The way he uttered the Kunishi word in that moment—low and soft—made it almost sound like a fond pet name instead of an insult. But she knew better.
