Behind her, Duke Percival murmured, obviously reluctant, “Arath is already here, Your Majesty.”
There, through the window, she finally saw it—smoke rising just beyond the palace in great, dark clouds, unfurling above her capital city.
Goldreach was already ablaze.
What air remained within her lungs rushed out, leaving her bracing herself against the windowsill as her knees threatened to buckle. Her ears buzzed with a sudden absence—an absence thatmade the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. It took her a few more moments to realize what it was.
The bells.
The cathedral bells had finally stopped ringing.
“We must quit the city while we still have a chance,” her godfather was saying, his voice just barely audible over the pounding of footsteps echoing through the halls, the clamor of distant shouts to hurry.
In the courtyard below, courtiers scrambled, dragging trunks, loading carriages, fighting over horses. Servants darted like birds flushed from cover and disappeared from view. Already fleeing. Already abandoning the city she had sworn to protect.
Hercity.
Herpeople.
Her father’s dying whisper ghosted through her thoughts once more, haunting her. Taunting her.“You will spell the end of House de la Croix and all that my forefathers worked for. Our royal line will die withyou.”
“No.” The word punched from her throat, shattering the numbness encasing her heart just enough for something hot and sharp to pierce through. She was Elmoria’s queen. She was the protector of its people.
It would not end like this. Itcouldnot end like this.
She straightened, whirling to face them all—her friends, her family, the last allies she had left. “We will stand and fight. We will not quit Goldreach. We will not abandon our people to die.” She spat that last word like the curse it was.
But silence was her only answer. No one spoke. No one dared meet her gaze.
No one save for her godfather.
“Your Majesty,” Duke Percival whispered, his voice steady despite the trembling of his hands. “We must quit Goldreach now while we still have a chance. Your people? They will survive. Because your enemies have no reason to kill them.”
He paused, looking at her over the rims of his spectacles—not with pity but with love. And the kind of pain only a father could bear.
A true father. Not by blood, but by choice.
“But you? They will kill you. And you are no good to your people dead.”
Chapter fifty-one
Seraphina
Her body moved of its own accord, shoving essentials into one of Olivia’s spare leather knapsacks: the royal seal, a map of Elmoria, her copy of the Scriptures.
Her fingers caught on the worn leather of the latter, the fading gold inlay. When had she last opened it? She couldn’t remember.
No time now.
She dropped it into the bag and slammed it shut, the cold settling back in. The numbness. She could not think. She could not feel.
She just needed to act now. To leave.
Her godparents stood by the hearth, burning what sensitive documents they could not take with them. Olivia and Sir Tristanwere in the sitting room, barricading the doors. Lord Tiberius paced uselessly in the space that remained between the Umberly guards and her own.
“We must hurry,” the baron fretted. “I already have the horses waiting.”
Olivia snapped from the other room, “Worrying isn’t going to make this go any faster, Crestley.”
