She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t pull away.
Allshe could do was stare at the man before her—the most dangerous man in all Avirel—who looked at her with such desperation as he breathed, “Your life is worth so much more than mine. Please, kirei. Leave me. He is coming.”
The roar of the wind sought to devour her Crow’s words, leaving her straining to hear him. Swallowing hard, Seraphina leaned in closer so she could hear more. Never before had she received any manner of clue as to just what the vision represented. Never had it given her any inkling as to the danger she was supposed to be facing here.
Beyond darkness, fire, and the end of all things.
“Who?” she asked. Her eyes searched his scarred visage, hunting for any fresh truths that might be housed there. “Who is coming?”
But Aldric didn’t immediately answer.
His attention dropped to her mouth, causing her heart to stop. His hold on her cheek tightened, causing her breath to hitch.
And just as the darkness swept in all around them like a crashing wave, just as it blacked out what was left of the world, Aldric’s voice unfurled from those fathomless shadows on a whisper of, “Death, my kirei.”
His mouth hovered close—dangerously close—threatening a kiss.
Ridiculously, her heart fluttered at the sensation.
She should be crying. She should be mourning.
Avirel was gone. She had failed.Again.
And yet all she felt was a sudden desire to tip her face downward just that much more and feel the Crow of Drakmor crush his mouthagainst hers. At least then she could know what it felt like to be kissed byhimbefore she died—
Seraphina jolted awake, her heart in her throat, her pulse racing. Moonlight streamed in through her bedroom windows, marking the late hour. Her silken sheets tangled about her legs. Her nightgown clung uncomfortably to her skin.
Beside her, Olivia snorted awake. “What is it?” her friend asked, one of the blades she kept on her at all times—even while in bed—already in her hand. “What’s wrong?”
Seraphina flinched away, warily eyeing the dagger now being waved threateningly.
Ever since the assassination attempt, Olivia had insisted on sleeping in her room to ensure such a thing never happened again. On any other night, she would have been glad for the company, especially now with her dear usuru, Alyx, officially nesting in the Roost with the other winged serpents at night until warmer weather returned to Elmoria.
But at that moment, she wished she were alone.
Free to have strange dreams about wanting to kissAldric Hargravewithout having to potentially field prying questions afterward—questions she wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to answer.
“Nothing,” she breathlessly insisted. “I just had a bad dream. Now will you put that thing away before you poke somebody’s eye out? And bysomebody, I do mean me.”
Olivia flashed a lopsided grin. The blade disappeared in the next moment. “But just think—if you had an eyepatch, you and the Crow could be a matched set for the wedding.”
While Olivia laughed at her own joke, Seraphina’s stomach twisted itself into knots.The wedding. That was just the day after tomorrow, wasn’t it? Which meant tomorrow was the meeting with her Privy Council.
The meeting in which she would have to pass judgment on the servant found to have left her balcony doors unlocked the night of the assassination attempt, allowing both her Crow and the assassin to enter her room unimpeded.
With a groan, she fell back onto her pillow and covered her face with her hands. Her skin felt flushed. Feverish. Perhaps she was coming down with something. Perhaps she was keeping herself stressed to the point of sickness.
That would certainly explain a great deal.
But who wouldn’t be stressed in her position?
Her country was at war. The Arathian army was nearly at her doorstep. The Emperor of Lothmeer was still ignoring her calls for aid, and her alliance with Drakmor was shaky at best—completely reliant on Edmund Hargrave remaining oblivious to the fact that she now intended to support his older brother’s claim to the Drakmori throne.
And soon, she would be married to that brother.
The very man who had openly confessed to wanting her dead.
The very man she would soon have to kiss before all of Goldreach.
