The King’s Forest loomed around them in shades of black and deeper black. Only the faintest wash of stars and moonlight filtered down through the canopy, lighting their way.
Far behind, somewhere in the direction of the ruined hunting lodge, a horn sounded—a harsh, braying note that sent cold fingers creeping up Edith’s spine.
Coreto’s men. They must be looking for Seraphina, too.
But she and Percy had to find their goddaughter first.
Lord, give me wisdom. Give me strength.
The prayer flickered through her mind as naturally as breath. She fixed her eyes on the dark path ahead, trying to assemble in her thoughts some sort of plan beyond simply keep moving, keep searching, stay alive.
Sir Arkwright was dead. They had found the captain’s body near the ruins, Seraphina’s knapsack still with it—the knapsack Percy now carried. But there had been no sign of Seraphina. That must mean she was alive.
Edith refused to entertain any alternatives.
But where? Where would her goddaughter have gone?
“We need to make for the Dawnspire,” Percy grumbled from the darkness, answering the question she had not yet asked. A twig snapped beneath his boot, too loud. They were being far too loud. “That is where we will find Seraphina.”
Edith frowned. She wasn’t so sure. “Seraphina was a girl the last time she visited the Spire. Would she even remember the way?”
The path up the mountain was treacherous. Her heart ached at the thought of her goddaughter braving it alone.
Percy grunted. “Sera is a good deal braver and more resourceful than any of us give her credit for. She is rather like you in that regard.” He meant it as a compliment. She knew that.
But still, she winced.
Oblivious, her husband finished, “She will survive.”
Pressing her lips into a thin line, Edith carefully eased herself over a fallen log and thrust out her hand to help Percy do the same. “Is that why you tried to abandon me?” she bit out at last, the words escaping her lips before she could stop them. “Because you find me brave and resourceful? Because you thought I could survive on my own?”
His gaze snapped to her at once. Within the moonlight streaming through the trees, his spectacles glinted. His face crumpled. “My star—”
“Do not ‘my star’ me, Percival Umberly,” she hissed, her voice low and sharp. They couldn’t afford to speak loudly—not with soldiers combing the woods.
But neither could she afford to keep silent any longer.
Pain bubbled up in her chest—a searing geyser that forced each word from her throat. “I want you to answer the question. I want you to look me in the eye and tell me why you were going to leave me, after all we have been through.” Her lips trembled. “Forty years, Percy. After forty years of marriage?”
Her husband glanced away, as if he could no longer bear to look at her.
But she continued anyway, not letting him escape this conversation. “After raising seven children?” Six, the world would have said. Six living sons.
But one daughter already with the Lord.
And their eldest, Cyneric, lost somewhere between Varoa and Goldreach. He should have arrived by now. For one wild moment, Edith pictured him fallen in a nameless ditch. Abandoned. Forgotten.
“Nine,” Percy exhaled, his gaze finding hers again in the darkness, “if we wish to count the girls.”
The girls. The reminder that they had simply left Olivia behind lanced through her again, compounding the grief already threatening to swallow her whole. Guilt. Pain. She tried to push it all aside, to leave it for another time.
But it was too fresh.
Too much. First Cyneric. Now Olivia. Perhaps Seraphina, too.
Three children unaccounted for.
“Very well,” she softly agreed. “We have raised nine children together.” She crossed her arms over her chest beneath the heavy drape of her dire bear fur cloak and waited for him to continue.
