“Olivia?” someone shouted from further up—her godmother.
“Don’t worry, I have her,” Olivia called back, as if she were a parcel being fetched.
As if she were not even there.
A seed of doubt burrowed its way into her heart. Was that what her family thought of her? One single misstep—one singlemoment of trusting the wrong person, a man who had never given her reason to mistrust—and suddenly she was a little girl again, in need of coddling?
A dark voice in the back of her mind murmured,Yes. That is exactly what they think.
Seraphina pried her hand from her friend’s grip and flattened herself against the wall as two dozen guardsmen flooded down the staircase, as if meaning to pursue Coreto through the bowels of the palace.
“Stop!” she shouted. Olivia shot her a strange glance.
Seraphina forced steel into her spine. “There is no point in following them. The passage is too narrow—a choke point. And the duke said men were already in position. He wants you funneled. It will be an ambush.”
The men hesitated at once—two dozen armored bodies frozen mid-stride. A few exchanged uneasy glances. Others looked toward Olivia, clearly unsure. But Olivia wasn’t their queen.
She was.
“I will not lose good, loyal soldiers to blind pursuit,” she continued, biting out each word. “Return upstairs with me so that we can secure the rest of the palace.”
One of the guards shifted uncomfortably. “But Your Majesty…Coreto—”
“—wants you to chase him,” she cut in. “He led me through those tunnels for a reason. He has something planned. Something waiting. And not only that, but he would surely relish you being funneled.” Her jaw hardened. “I will not grant him that.”
The guard dropped his gaze and bowed. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
She turned on her heel and made for the stairs. Far overhead, screams echoed. Not screams of pain, but of fear. She tripped over the uneven steps underfoot, nearly losing her balance completely.
But Sir Tristan grabbed her elbow from behind, steadying her.
A tremor rippled through her fingers. What was happening up there? What fresh plan of Coreto’s had she not seen coming? A part of her did not wish to know.
And yet she had to know.
“Mistress Olivia,” she whispered, her voice sounding distant in the chill darkness of the stairwell. “I need a report.”
She shot her friend a glance over her shoulder.
Olivia met her gaze in that brief moment, reluctance shimmering there. The other woman hesitated.
“Now, Olivia.”
“The Viscount of Arlund is dead, Your Majesty,” Olivia began, her tone detached, uncharacteristically matter-of-fact. “The front has broken. And now we stand to lose Goldreach.”
Seraphina missed the next step and staggered into the wall, just barely catching herself against the rough stone. “Lose Goldreach?” she repeated, her lips cold, numb.
The walls on either side closed in. The already steep stairwell seemed to tilt, to spin. Suddenly, breathing became difficult.
Alyx rumbled with an usuru purr and bumped her scaled head against her throat, as if in an attempt to comfort her. But she barely felt her serpent’s presence now.
She barely felt anything at all.
The Viscount of Arlund, dead.
The front, broken.
Aldric.She had sent him to that broken front.
