Edmund’s face—his beautiful face—blanched in the moonlight. Darkness stained the front of his tunic, spreading with terrifying speed. “I made a promise,” he whispered, his voice cracking over the words. “A promise to myself…to get you out alive…”
The world before her blurred as she reached for him, wanting to pull him into her arms for an embrace. But the dagger. That dreaded dagger.
Edmund’s hands fell to her shoulders. Just past him, she spied Mariana sobbing great, ugly tears, as ifshehad not been the one to stab him in the first place.
Warm breath ruffled across the top of her head as Edmund whispered into her filthy hair, “I love you, Mother.”
Before she could speak, before she could breathe, before she could understand what was happening, Edmund shoved her backward, toward the crumbling parapets.
And out into open air.
Charlotte’s feet left the stone.
For a second, she hung suspended, her eyes locked on her son’s collapsing form. She saw him fall to his knees. She saw Mariana screaming silently into the night.
And then the air claimed her.
The wind whistled past, tearing a scream from her throat. The darkness swallowed her whole. She fell, tumbling through nothing.Edmund. Not Edmund.
Down she fell, like a stone.
Until the river finally surged up to devour her—waters dark, icy.
Merciless.
Chapter sixty-six
Seraphina
The wind whipped through the dark forests and rolling hills of Arlund, a living thing, biting and bitter. But for the first time in months, Seraphina did not feel the cold.
She stood at the edge of the forested ridge overlooking the valley far below, grass bleeding into sandy beaches, rocky coves, and two more hills in the distance. The predawn gray of the sky barely revealed glimpses of tents peeking out from the mouth of one of those coves. The Arathian encampment.
At first glance, it appeared to be a foolish place to make camp—trapping oneself between an enemy charging forth in a direct assault and the choppy waters of the Straight beyond.
But that was only if one did not account for the narrow pass leading out of the cove, which sliced straight between those two towering hills just to the north, creating a perfect chokepoint for anyone foolish enough to pursue retreating Arathians into the ravine.
Around her throat, Alyx shifted and let out a soft, trilling hiss, fully healed wings unfurling to bat at the chill air, as if she sensed it, too.
The proximity to danger.
The proximity tohim.
The golden cord binding her to Aldric was no longer a faint glimmer tugging at her heart; it was a roaring conflagration in her chest, threatening to wrench her straight off the ridge and pull her toward the valley below. He was there, just beyond the lip of the cove.
Hold on, my Crow,she whispered in the silence of her mind, her hand drifting to rest atop the golden sun pendant tucked beneath her breastplate.I am coming.
The ancient plate armor she had discovered gathering dust in the deepest vaults of the Dawnspire should have felt like a crushing weight. Never before had she worn anything beyond the occasional chainmail shirt when Olivia was feeling particularly paranoid.
This armor was truly heavy—crafted from thick steel for that mysterious warrior woman of a bygone age. Yet Seraphina barely felt it at all. It rested upon her torso as lightly as silk.
The mere thought of Olivia was enough to constrict her chest, making her next breath that much harder to draw.Soon, she promised herself. She would rescue her best friend soon.
But not today.
“Your Majesty!” Cyneric’s voice softly sliced through the early morning air.
She turned to face the orderly rows of tents comprising her war camp, scattered through the sparse treeline behind her. She caught sight of her cousin standing in the entrance of the command tent, waiting for her to join the rest of the war council there.
