The baron was still talking, going on about, “Besides, the Umberlys know how to fend for themselves. And as forOlivia—”
He said her best friend’s name like a nuisance, likean afterthought.
Her anger roared into a blaze.
Seraphina twisted in the saddle, her right hand flashing up. With all the strength she possessed, she backhanded Tiberius Beaumont square across the face.
The glass setting in Olivia’s poison ring shattered against his cheekbone with a sharp crack. Tiberius flinched, a hiss tearing from his lips. “Sera, what—”
His gloved fingers rose to his face, coming away with a small smear of blood and a dusting of glittering shards. “What did you…?” The words slurred together. Already, his eyes were going hazy.
He swayed in the saddle, the color draining from his face.
“What did you…?” he repeated, slower now, as if the words were too heavy.
She watched, chest heaving, as his lashes fluttered once, twice. Then he slid bonelessly out of the saddle, hitting the rocky shore with a graceless thud.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then the Lothmeeran barked out a laugh, sounding utterly delighted. “Well, I’ll be,” he drawled, grin splitting his weathered face. “Didn’t know you had that in you, Your Majesty.”
Seraphina didn’t answer.
Her fingers fumbled for the reins as she swung her right leg over the horse’s neck, settling properly in the saddle astride. Her pulse thundered in her ears as she wheeled the horse around and dug in her heels.
The horse leapt forward with a snort, scrambling up through the narrow path that wound out of the cove.
The Lothmeeran man whooped with laughter. “Run, Your Majesty!” he called after her. “Run!”
She didn’t look back.
The world narrowed to the pounding of hooves against earth, the slap of wind against her face, the lingering sweetness of Tiberius’s drug clinging to the back of her throat. But she was awake now. She was alive.
She was free.
Leaning lower over her horse’s neck, she flew up the rocky track, over the rise, and into the wider world. An unfamiliar world of gray, restless sea churning behind her and a gently rolling land unfurling before her.
Wait. She did know where she was.
In the distance, Goldreach smoldered; closer at hand, a dark line of trees marked the edge of the King’s Forest. But off on the western horizon, mountains reared, their jagged silhouettes cut against the sky, dusted white at their crowns.
The Dawnspire. That was where her family’s fortress lay.
The promise of safety. Security.
Her throat tightened as she hauled the horse to a pause. That was where she should go—to the Dawnspire, as she told her family she would. If her godparents had escaped Goldreach, that is where they would go to look for her. Olivia, too.
And maybe…maybe Aldric…
Seraphina clenched her eyes shut, a shaky breath trembling forth.Please, she prayed, no longer knowing what exactly she was praying for. But the Lord knew.
Even now, with her entire world shattered at her feet, she chose to believe that He was still there—that He still cared—and that He knew what she needed.
An image of Reyla pierced her thoughts, unbidden. Reyla smiling and laughing as she bested Master Fitzjesmaine at his own dice game.
A sharp pang lanced through her chest.
Reyla and Dame Florence were still back there, still in the cottage. Perhaps they did not know about the coup. No one would have warned them. She was the only soul left nearby, aside from Olivia, who even knew they existed.
