The moment his horse came alongside hers, she softly demanded, “Tell me.”
Not a question that time. A command.
He obliged. “Arlund is going to be a bloodbath if this is truly the best Elmoria has to offer. These boys don’t know the first thing about war. And I don’t know the first thing about how Arath fights, other than that they wield witches and…” His mind hunted for the right word. “Gadgetry.”
Sera smiled, as if he had just given her a flattering report of her troops. No doubt for the sake of the soldiers they were riding past. “You’re thinking of Lothmeer with their ‘clockwork.’”
“No. I’m thinking of Arath with their exploding powders and siege engines.” After a beat, he added, “And the witches.”
“There’s only one witch on our shores,” his wife countered, as if one witch weren’t already bad enough.
He couldn’t help but point out, “That you know of.”
He had expected her to shoot him a sharp look in the wake of those words; she surprised him when she adopted a thoughtful expression instead. “I suppose you’re right.” Lower still, she observed, “The assassin had to have gotten that witchblade from somewhere.”
The witchblade. His pulse spiked again as he jerked his attention away from his kirei and looked out toward her troops instead. Every man they passed stood a little taller at the sight of their queen—back straight, eyes agleam. They were all clearly besotted with her. Clearly, they would die for her, down to the very last man.
Love made men do foolish things like that.
Unbidden, the memory of the ridiculous vow he had made just yesterday during their first dance as man and wife flashed to the forefront of his mind.
To distract himself from his own stupidity, he turned his attention back Sera’s way and asked, “What did you end up doing with it?” When she frowned at him, obviously confused, he clarified, “The witchblade.”
Her frown deepened. Beneath the weight of her searching gaze, he fought hard to keep his features smooth. To appear apathetic. But still, she looked at him. Was his guilt stamped so plainly on his face?No more secrets. That was what they had promised each other just last night.
But the truth about the witchblade’s origins was the one secret he couldn’t afford to reveal. Not if he wanted to keep Sera as an ally.
Not if he wanted Drakmor.
“I gave it to Father Perero to dispose of,” his wife finally revealed, her voice so soft he hardly heard it over the various sounds filling the yard: the stamp of hooves, the whinny of horses, the crash of practice weaponry, the shouts of men. “Why?”
“Just curious,” he claimed, happy to let the subject drop. The witchblade was gone, and Sera had never even made mention of the scrap of cloth found wrapping its hilt—the one bit of evidence that could have possibly tied it all back to him.
There was no need to think about it further.
Out of nowhere, she asked, “Will you be at chapel tomorrow?”
Now it was his turn to frown. “Why?”
“Because you are my consort, and it will look odd if you are not beside me in the pew.”
He opened his mouth, ready to argue, to point out that he had far better things to do than to sit through a rambling sermon about matters that did not concern him. Before he could, Sera reached over and laid her gloved hand atop his.
“Please, Aldric,” she whispered, looking as though the utterance of those two words pained her. “I am not in the mood to argue.”
Beneath the warmth of her hand, his grip on his reins tightened. “Very well.”
Just past his wife’s shoulder, he spotted a sudden flurry of movement. A young man from the Royal Roost sprinted across the yard, making directly for him and his kirei before Duke Percival waylaid him. Hurried words were exchanged. A scroll changed hands.
Whatever words it contained saw all the color draining from the Lord Chancellor’s face.
“Your Majesty!” his kirei’s godfather called out, riding over at a brisk clip.
At the sound of the older man’s voice, she twitched away, her hand returning to her own reins. A tight smile curved her lips. “Your Grace,” she gently reminded when her godfather drew to a halt alongside her, that scroll tightly gripped in the clutch of his hand, “I still have matters I need to discuss with His Highness.”
“But this cannot wait,” the Lord Chancellor insisted, holding out the scroll for her to take.
Aldric frowned, watching as Sera unrolled the scroll to read it for herself. The moment she did, her face went ash-white.
