Tristan gently eased himself from Seraphina’s embrace and rose to his feet. His gaze skimmed past her shoulder, eyebrows knitting together as he clearly hunted for something. “Where is your sharp-tongued shadow, then?”
The floor seemed to lurch beneath her, her balance tilting as though the mountain itself had shifted. A cold sweep washed through her chest, leaving her empty. Sound dulled around her, her joy collapsing into a single sharp point of pain. She felt the loss of Olivia all over again; it stung even more keenly the second time.
Her best friend was still back there, trapped in Coreto’s Goldreach. Either that or she was…
Her breath caught—sharp and shallow—stolen clean out of her lungs.No. Desperately, she tried to silence that part of her mind. She couldn’t possibly think about that right now.
Duke Percival bowed his head, his grip tightening on his cane. Duchess Edith drifted closer to her husband, her hand moving to rest atop his arm. Cyneric glanced between his parents, frowning.
Tristan froze, his eyes darting between the duke and duchess. “Where is Olivia?” he asked more directly, a note of panic seeping into his words.
Seraphina parted her lips, but no sound came. Words shriveled on her tongue; her mouth was suddenly as dry as dust. How could she possibly tell him that they had left her best friend—the woman he so clearly loved—behind?
When silence was his only answer, he clenched his armored fists and demanded, “Tell me!” His voice rivaled even the roar of the bitter wind whistling past as it echoed off the ceiling of the landing bay.
“Tristan,” Father Perero murmured, reaching out his hand.
The knight twitched away. “Is she dead?” he asked, his voice cracking. “If she is dead—”
“Sir Dacre,” her godfather softly interrupted, lifting his head at last. For once, the threat of tears shimmered in Percival Umberly’s eyes. “Come with me, my boy. There are some things I need to tell you.”
Chapter sixty-four
Seraphina
Night had fallen hours ago, draping the mountain fortress in a darkness that the few sputtering candles on the chapel’s altar could not hope to pierce. The air here was still, heavy with the scent of old wax and freezing stone.
But more importantly, it was quiet—a place she could finally be alone.
Alone to think, at last.
Seraphina huddled in the front pew, her heavy fur cloak pulled tight around her shoulders, though it did little to ward off the chill seeping into her bones.
Her breath unfurled in white plumes before her, ghosting over the heavy leatherbound tome resting on her knees. Her copy ofthe Scriptures. Her fingers, numb even within her gloves, turned another page of theChronicle of Raena.
She already knew this particular Chronicle by heart, but she wasn’t reading, not truly. The words swam before her tired eyes—tales of the first Oracle, of trials endured and faith tested. She had come to the chapel to read and hunt for a pattern. A precedent. A strategy hidden within the verses that would tell her how to save a husband who was bait for a trap she couldn’t see. How to liberate a kingdom with an army she didn’t possess.
Her northern forces were not enough. She neededmore, always more.
More information. More men. More time.
Weariness pressed down on her shoulders, threatening to crush her against the rough stone floor underfoot. She had no answers for her war council. She had no comfort for Tristan, whose grief had filled the landing bay until her godfather had finally managed to convince the knight to come away with him.
And she had no plan.
The heavy wooden doors at the back of the chapel scraped open, the sound echoing sharply off the vaulted ceiling. A shush of slow, deliberate steps against the stone floor followed.
Seraphina didn’t turn. She was too tired to lift her head and too cold to feign interest in anything beyond her own problems—not even for one of her councilors or another well-meaning refugee.
The footsteps stopped just behind her. A familiar voice disturbed the quiet air. “TheChronicle of Raena?” Father Perero’s voice was soft, and yet still his words filled the entirety of the room. “A good book. Though it is terribly late to be up reading it, Your Majesty.”
Seraphina stared down at the illuminated text, her vision blurring; but still, her heart lightened to hear the Shepherd’s voice. At last, she could seek her spiritual advisor’s counsel.
Here was the man she had demanded be rescued from Goldreach on her behalf.
Here was the man Sir Tristan had risked his own life to save.
And yet, now that he was here, she didn’t even know where to begin.
