Her Crow had lied to her, yes. That betrayal still stung. But he was not a butcher. He had not sacrificed a city to keep a secret.
The knot in her chest, the one that had been pulled tight ever since she first learned the truth of the witchblade, finally loosened. The bitterness draining away, leaving only a clean, sharp clarity.
Forgiveness is a choice.
Seraphina took a deep breath of the freezing air. She let the guilt of Mysai go. She let the anger at Aldric settle into something quieter—something that could wait until she looked him in the eye again.
If she ever did.
Her gaze returned to Cyneric, her thoughts crystallized into something more focused—a focus fixed on the future rather than the past. “With the northern forces you have brought, do we have the numbers to retake Goldreach?”
Her cousin let out a short, humorless laugh. “Not unless you have a dozen siege engines hidden in the lower bailey. We could march to the gates, certainly. And then we would die there, besieging it as winter rolls in.”
“And even if we could breach the walls,” Duchess Edith gently pointed out, “with Arlund now held by Arath to the south, we would be flanked. We cannot strike at the head of the snake while its body still coils around our legs.”
Seraphina nodded. It was the answer she had expected.
But it did not spell defeat. It was simply the start of another game of Sovereign, and she needed to know what cards she had to play.
“I want my cousins up the lift now,” Seraphina commanded, her gaze snapping between her godparents and Cyneric. “Get the northern forces secured in the upper bailey. Summon Lady Reyla and Dame Florence. Bring Knox, Slade, and Wulfston once they arrive. You will be my war council.”
Duke Percival parted his lips, a question brewing in his eyes, but she held up a hand. “Next, send the fastest usuri we have to the coast. I need to know what remains of my navy.”
The blockade against Arath would have broken by now. But the Elmorian fleet…did it remain loyal? Or did it belong to Coreto now?
“Any ships that remain loyal are to sail for the Frostrun immediately,” she ordered.
Finally, her godfather spoke. “What is the plan, exactly?”
“I do not know,” she answered, truthful. Blunt.
Stepping out from behind the desk and making for the door, her hand drifted to her chest, feeling the crinkle of the letter beneath the wool of her gown.
“Our fate is in the Lord’s hands now,” she whispered, her voice steel. “And He will reveal the path forward in His own time.”
She paused in the doorway, looking back at the map of Elmoria hanging on the wall—at the capital she had lost and the mountains where she now stood.
“But until then, we will consider our options.”
Chapter sixty-one
Aldric
The black sands were endless.
Inky swells of it stretched to a horizon that bled into a midnight sky. Above, crimson lightning tore the heavens apart, the thunder rattling in his very marrow.
Chains bit into his wrists and ankles. They dragged him down, bowing his spine, forcing his face toward the grit. Every link burned with a cold that seared like fire.
Agony radiated from his shoulder, his hand, his soul.
“Why do you still resist?” The voice did not come from the wind. It slithered inside his skull, oily and sharp.
Aldric gritted his teeth,straining against the iron, muscles trembling with the effort to simply lift his head. He could not. The weight was too great.
“Why not just give in?” the voice whispered.
“Give in to what?” he rasped, the words tearing at his throat.
