Her duke heaved out a sigh, bracing his free hand against a nearby trunk. “I wanted to protect you, Edith. I wanted…” His grip tightened on his cane. His gaze lowered. “I wanted to be your hero one last time. We…we both know that I am a burden. That I am slowing you down.”
His words struck her like an arrow to the heart.
A burden.Is that truly what he thought?
Her throat grew thick. “Percy…”
Slowly, he lifted his eyes back to hers.
“You could never be a burden to me, my love,” she whispered, her breath catching on the words. “You are only a blessing. You are myhusband.I…” She swallowed hard, fighting the prick of tears threatening at the corners of her eyes. “I love you.”
Percy pushed himself away from the tree and closed the distance between them in the span of a single moment. Even before her first traitorous tear fell, he was there, cupping her cheek.
“You—” she choked out, her hand lifting to cover his. “You will always be my hero—”
“Shhh,” he soothed her, easing her closer until his forehead pressed against hers. Within that scant space, their breath mingled. “I am sorry,” he whispered, the words brushing warm against her lips. “I am so sorry. I love you.”
Silence fell between them—comfortable and familiar. A silence she could easily lose herself in for hours. Letting her eyes flutter closed, she leaned into him as she had leaned into him a thousand times before. In ballrooms. In deadly forests. In quiet bedrooms and crowded halls.
“I fear we might be getting too old for all of this,” Percy whispered, luring a smile to her lips despite herself. “Perhaps we might consider retirement if we make it out of this alive.”
“I would like that—” she managed to say before his mouth found hers in the darkness, his beard brushing her cheeks. It was a warm kiss—soft and steady.
Just like her duke.
Somewhere far off, a hunting horn sounded, wailing through the trees. Her shoulders tensed. They were not safe here.
“We must keep moving,” she forced herself to say, drawing in a steadying breath as she gently pulled away. “If Coreto catches us, he will surely have us executed. But we must find Sera. We promised Silvie we would protect her, Percy.” Her breath hitched on the words, that sorrow she knew she needed to keep tamped down rising again. “But now—”
“We will find her,” Percy whispered, so calm, so sure. The hand not clutching his cane gently wrapped around her own. “You are the best tracker I know.”
Edith huffed, something almost like a laugh escaping her, though it tasted bitter. “It is pitch black out,” she pointed out, though still she started forward again, looking for any signs that someone had already passed this way. “And I have not tracked anything in nearly twenty-five years.”
ThatEdith seemed like such a distant memory. The Edith who had always had a bow in her hand and a knife at her hip. The Edith who had spent all her spare time riding horses and hunting. The Edith who had been the first woman to ever help fell a dire bear.
She had tucked that Edith away when dear Silvia de la Croix had died and she had promised to raise Seraphina as her own.
Seraphina was a princess. She had needed to learn grace. Decorum. Diplomacy. How to smile when she wished to snarl. How to wield words like weapons instead of steel.
Edith’s heart twisted in her chest as she wondered now if she should have taught her goddaughter how to fell a dire bear as well.
Or, at the very least, how to gut anyone who dared threaten her.
A low rustle sounded somewhere up ahead, a fluttering, delicate and wrong against the heaviness of the night. Rogue’s head snapped up, ears pricking. The varhound let out a soft huff, then darted forward toward a clump of brush.
“Rogue,” Edith hissed. “Quiet.”
But the hound was already shoving his way nose-first into the tangle of briars and fallen leaves, tail twitching.
She hurried after him, dragging Percy with her, heart pounding, breaths shallow.
Every new noise could draw Coreto’s men near. Did they hear the rustling, too?
She braced for another horn blast, a shout from amongst the trees.
But there was nothing. Only silence.
Pulling away from her, Percy crept forward and nudged aside some leaves with the end of his cane. A glimmer of iridescent scales, dulled by dirt and blood, caught the moonlight.
