But she also refused to keep him too close to the harm himself after he had already endured so much in her name.
As the council dispersed, everyone hurried off to their units to make ready to advance down into the valley. The energy in the tent shifted from planning to action, all save for one man who remained behind.
Sir Tristan.
He stood near the tent entrance, his face a mask carved from stone, but his eyes remained firmly fixed on her, as if waiting for the opportunity to speak with her alone.
Seraphina moved toward him, her sabatons clanking softly against the frozen earth. “Tristan? Are you all right?”
The question seemed to snap something inside him.
“All right?” he echoed, the words rasping from his throat. “How could I possibly be all right?” He took a step toward her, ignoring the way Alyx hissed at his approach. “We arehere,” he hissed right back, gesturing wildly toward the map, “while Olivia rots in a cell in Goldreach. Or worse.”
Seraphina’s heart twisted once more. “Tristan, I know this isdifficult—”
“Do you?” he snapped. “Because it looks to me like this isn’t difficult for you at all. You clearly have no qualms abandoning her to die. You chose the husband you barely know over the friend who has always sacrificed everything for you.”
His words were like a slap across the face.
She stood there, stunned into silence, until her godmother slipped back through the flap of the tent and paused at her side, a stare leveled at the heartbroken knight before her. Duchess Edith did not speak, but she did not need to.
Her presence was more than enough.
“I am not abandoning her,” Seraphina murmured, keeping her voice gentle despite the sting of his words. “I am prioritizing the battle we can win today. Arlund is the strategic key. And Olivia…you know she is clever, Tristan. Not only that, but she worships the Lady, just as the Arathians do. Just as Coreto does. They will not kill one of their own, even to spite me. They will hold her hostage in the hopes I will come for her, too. Which I will.”
“Excuses,” he spat, shaking his head. “Olivia would do anything for you, and here you can’t even prioritize her safety over the Crow’s.”
She recoiled from this latest accusation; it landed a little too close to home, a little too close to all the questions she had asked herself and all the options she had agonized over before her clarity finally dawned.
“Enough,” she whispered, lifting her chin. “You dare to speak to me this way because you are in pain, Tristan Dacre. But you make the mistake of thinking you are the only one here who feels Olivia’sloss. I love that woman like a sister. I have loved her since before you even knew she existed.”
Now it was the knight’s turn to flinch.
But she didn’t stop. She kept speaking, promising him, promising the air, promising anyone who would listen: “And the moment I have reclaimed Arlund as a foothold, Iwillassault Goldreach. I will breach its walls. I will find Olivia. This is not a question of ‘if,’ Tristan. Merely of ‘when.’”
Tristan stared at her for a long moment, his jaw working, his sea-green eyes shimmering with unshed tears—and fury. Without another word, he turned on his heel and stormed out of the tent, the flap whipping violently behind him.
Seraphina made to follow, but a hand caught her arm.
Duchess Edith glanced at her, her face sorrowful. “Let him go, Your Majesty.”
Her lips parted, a protest of her own lingering on her tongue, but she swallowed it back. She knew there was nothing she could say to ease Sir Tristan’s pain. Olivia might be dead. He might not ever see her again.
She certainly knew what that felt like.
Please, protect him, Lord,she prayed as she finally stepped out of the tent, watching Sir Tristan go.And protect her, too. Keep Olivia safe.
The camp was a hive of controlled chaos. Men were mounting horses, checking weapons, and dousing fires. Varhounds whined, clearly sensing the change in the air—the crackleof tension blanketing every soul in the camp. So far as they were concerned, this was all just another dire bear hunt.
And the hunt was about to begin.
“Your Majesty!” Duke Percival called, his expression guarded as he carefully picked his way through the camp, leading a warhorse with the free hand not wielding his cane.
Her eyebrows shot up when she recognized the horse in question. It was Mourn, her Crow’s destrier. The stallion was just as heavily scarred as her husband was—a lifetime of battles etched into his dark pelt.
She would have expected him to be an unruly creature, given his name and Aldric’s reputation alone, but he came quietly, with a soft mouth and a gentle eye.
When her godfather paused before her, she cautiously reached out and stroked the wild tumble of Mourn’s mane. “I cannot possibly ride the Crow’s horse,” she whispered. No doubt she was being ridiculous; the stallion was trained for war. But she could not stand the thought of any harm coming to him while in her care.
