And Olivia, she finished for him as her heart threatened to rip in two again.Because you cannot stop her from callingyou that.
Beside her, Reyla scratched out more words on her slate. Seraphina shoved a spoonful of tasteless porridge into her mouth and leaned over to read the question written there:The Dawnspire?
She tried to summon a smile for her sister-in-law. It felt thin. “It is a fortress in the mountains just west of here. A castle in the sky.” At least, that was how she had always seen it the few times she had visited as a child—a castle floating, precariously perched atop the mountain, with only clouds and stars to keep it company.
Reyla tilted her head as if absorbing this news. Then she wiped her slate and began writing again.
Seraphina’s gaze drifted to the window, to the pale hints of dawn beginning to edge the treetops. In the near distance rose Goldreach, its elegant spires peeking over its walls. All her life, she had thought those walls insurmountable. The capital of her great nation unconquerable.
Now she knew the truth.
Her chest constricted. Sir Tristan. Father Perero. Olivia. Cyneric, lost somewhere with the northern forces that could have saved them.
They might all be dead.
Aldric might be dead.
The thought struck her again like a blade sliding between her ribs. She swallowed around the ache, her hand drifting to her chest, fingers wrapping around her golden sun pendant once more.
Lord…if he lives, please bring him home. And if he has fallen…I beg You to forgive him any trespasses against You. I beg You to receive him into Yourembrace.
That wordforgivesnagged in her thoughts. How could she beg the Lord to forgive her husband when she had not yet done the same? But…Mysai…all those lives lost…
She would carry the weight of each one to her own grave.
Around her, the cottage shifted with quiet motion. Beside her, Reyla made a quiet noise, trying to get her attention. Seraphina opened her eyes and glanced toward her sister-in-law’s slate again.
The words written there were a fresh lance through the heart:Will Aldric be there?
The ache thrumming through her chest clawed its way upward, threatening to undo her in front of them all. But she swallowed it down. She had to.
She was now a queen of nothing and no one. Yet, she still felt responsible for the safety ofthesepeople. The ones right here. Looking to her for guidance. For strength.
“Aldric is elsewhere—in Arlund—which is south of here,” Seraphina gently explained. “The Lord willing, we will see him again one day. The Lord willing, he will be back.”
The words tasted like ash on her tongue. Were they a lie? Or a prayer?
She no longer knew.
Steeling her jaw, she rose from the table before her sister-in-law’s curiosity could further chip the fragile composure she had so carefully constructed. “Gather your things.” Her gaze swept around the table, meeting their eyes one by one, reminding herself of everything she might yet lose if she allowed Coreto’s men to find them here. “We must leave now.”
Dame Florence held her gaze for a moment before she nodded. “As you say…” But the lady knight trailed off, her head tilting. “What do I call you now?”
A humorless smile twitched Seraphina’s lips upward. “Just Sera, I suppose.”
Tucking Alyx beneath her cloak, she turned toward the door and stepped out of the cottage, into the biting wind. The wind whipped at her skirts and stung her cheeks. For once, she did not shrink back from the cold.
She embraced it.
This was her current lot in life.
Cold. Guilt. Shame.
On the horizon, Goldreach shimmered. Banners that were not her own cracked in the wind. Coreto’s boar. And worse still—Arath’s dragon. The sight of those red-and-black standards was yet more salt poured onto her many wounds.
Bitterness rose in her throat like bile before she could swallow it back. Grief, hot and suffocating, clawed at her chest. How many people had died yesterday? How many bodies now littered the streets of her capital city?
Alone out here in the cold, she allowed herself these scant moments in which she could break, weighed down by the ghosts of the people she had sworn she would save.
