She felt him as surely as if he stood beside her now, though such a thing should be impossible. His heartbeat echoed inside her own chest, weak but steady, as if it had always been there, beating alongside hers ever since that first day on Nerina Reef.
Ever since the night he saved her from the assassin’s blade.
Ever since their wedding day. Their first kiss.
Warmth surged along the invisible tether between them, thrumming with destiny. With promise. With a feeling she still did not dare name.
For a single, crystalline moment, Seraphina saw that strange bond stretching before her—like a golden cord glowing with the very breath of the Lord on High Himself—piercing through stone and darkness and distance, pointing unerringly toward the man her God had chosen for her, guiding her back to him.
Guiding her home.
Her eyes flew wide. The chapel was no longer dark; to her, it seemed vibrant, alive with purpose. A fire kindled within her heart, a compass needle of pure gold pulling at her sternum.
She rushed toward the doors without a single backward glance.
“Your Majesty?” Father Perero asked, his startled voice winging after her.
But Seraphina didn’t answer. She couldn’t. The pull was too strong. She gathered her heavy skirts into her hands and flew out into the corridor at a full sprint.
“Seraphina!” the Shepherd called, his own footsteps swiftly fading behind her.
She could not stop. She could not slow. She needed the map.Now.
Bursting into the war room, she surged through the darkness, not bothering to light the torches lining the walls. She knew exactly where she was going already without needing a mere torch to illuminate her way.
Grabbing a marker from the side of the table—a heavy iron piece representing her own forces—she slammed it down onto the stone surface.
Clack.
The sound echoed with finality.
Father Perero skidded into the room behind her, breathless, bracing himself against the walls. “Your Majesty…what…?”
Seraphina stood over the map, her chest heaving, her eyes locked on the marker she had placed. It sat firmly in the heart of Arlund.
“He is there,” she whispered, the certainty in her voice unshakable. The golden cord in her heart hummed, tight and true. “Aldric. He is there.”
She looked up at her Shepherd, a fierce, joyous smile breaking across her face. She could no longer contain it, her joy. At last, she knew what to do. She saw it as clearly as she saw Father Perero before her.
“I do hope you are not too terribly tired, Father,” she whispered, her tone apologetic, “because we need to wake the rest of my council.”
The Shepherd’s eyes crinkled at the corners, his expression softening. “You have found the answer you sought.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “And we leave at dawn.”
Chapter sixty-five
Charlotte
Numb.That was the only word for it.
She was numb to the bone-deep cold of the stone floor. Numb to the lice she was certain were currently making a home in the matted disaster of her hair. Numb to the hunger that had clawed at her belly until it simply gave up and went to sleep.
The darkness was not so dark anymore, though. Not when one had good company.
“I told you, Gisela,” Charlotte whispered, a giggle escaping from her throat, raw with disuse. She leaned her head back against the damp stone wall, looking at the woman sitting on the floor across from her. “The Duchess of Kolar always had ankles like a drafthorse. It is a wonder she found a husband at all, let alone one with so much land.”
Gisela, looking pristine in her favorite gown of lavender silk, covered her mouth with a delicate hand. Her eyes crinkled with mirth.“Oh, Your Majesty, you are terrible. But you are right. Do you remember the ensemble she wore to the Midsummer Ball?”
