Calix materialized beside him in the next moment, easily keeping pace. Thankfully, the former bard held his tongue for once. His Son was smart enough to know he didn’t need conversation right now.
He needed to get away from her.
He needed tohitsomething. Hard.
“I’ll round up the boys for a spar,” Calix drawled, shattering the heavy silence between them. And that was that.
Aldric merely grunted in reply.
His mind whirled, replaying every detail from his moments with Seraphina. The way she had rested her hand on him and stroked his sleeve while dealing with her peacock. The scent of her latest perfume—plums this time rather than vanilla. The sight of her already pale face blanching further when he showed her that pamphlet.
The cold dismissal in her tone when she ordered him to Arlund anyway, despite his misgivings. Despite his knowledge that her list of allies was growing thinner by the day.
“I need you,”she had claimed that day in the throne room.
Well, he certainly saw just how far thatneedwent now.
Jaw clenched, he pressed onward and stepped out into the courtyard. Into that damp Elmorian chill. Why did he care? What difference did her chances of survival make to him?
But he already knew the answer to those questions.
And it had nothing at all to do with the fact that Seraphina de la Croix was soon to be his wife. Nor that she was the prettiest woman he had ever seen despite her utterly infuriating personality.
Like it or not, their fates were bound now. If she died in this war, so too would he. And he wasn’t ready to die. Not yet. Not until he had finally reclaimed the throne his father had denied him when old King Warwick struck him from the House Hargrave family tree.
And that wasit. That was theonlyreason he cared about his kirei’s well-being.
Seraphina had ignited that long-dormant fire within his soul again the moment she had promised to support his claim, to back him in overthrowing his little brother, Edmund.
And it was a fire that refused to be quenched. Not now. Not until Edmund and his viperous mother, Charlotte, were driven from Drakmor once and for all.
Not until the throne of his forefathers was finallyhis.
Chapter six
Charlotte
Drip. Drip. Drip.
It was going to drive her mad, that dripping. It was the only sound down here, echoing in the dank darkness of the dungeon. Aside from the occasionalsqueak, which she chose to ignore. There were no mice lurking in the shadows. No rats.
She repeated the lie to herself like a mantra until she almost believed it.
She had always been so terribly good at lying—even to herself. Even when she had been mere eighteen-year-old Charlotte Dufort, the vapid, naïve little puppet tasked by her family with one missionand one alone:
Seduce the Crown Prince of Drakmor.
Except Aldric Hargrave had been immune to her wiles from the very start.
Thankfully for her family, his father was not.
How prestigious it had been for all her kin to be related to the king’s mistress. Never mind the fact that her own reputation had been ruined. Never mind the fact that she had become an object of scorn for all of Drakmor.
Until the day she became pregnant. Until the day she convinced vile, old Warwick to divorce his first wife, Rosa, and marry her instead.
“He will be a son. A perfect, well-formed son. I know it.”That was what she had promised Warwick in her desperation. Those were the words that had condemned Queen Rosa to her fate—divorced and packed off to damp, dirty Castle Blackrun in all her disgrace.
Charlotte had wept back then. Big, fat, ugly tears. Mourning forpoorRosa. Mourning for herself and what terrible fate might await her, too, if the child she carried turned out to be a girl rather than the boy she had promised. Or worse.
