And thatshewas his queen consort.
Heat coursed through him again at the memory, consuming what was left of his good sense. This woman was going to get him killed. His wild kirei. His mad, pretty wife.
Mad.
Shewasmad. Completely mad. And here he now stood, burning for her, wearing a blasted crown of all things, ready to fling himself into battle the moment she told him, “Go.”
So what did that make him?
A sharp whistle from Rakon immediately snapped him out of his thoughts and back to the present. He jerked to face the large man.
His Son tipped his head toward the south. “Trouble, boss.”
Hoofbeats clattered against stone. Curious shouts went up from the drilling soldiers. Almost reluctantly, Aldric turned to watch the pair of men riding their horses into the ground as they shot through the palace gates at a dead gallop and blew into the courtyard. The one thing his kirei didn’t need was more trouble.
But he could tell, the moment he took stock of just who the riders were, that Rakon had been right.
This was trouble.
His jaw clenched. His gaze lifted back toward the balcony where Seraphina stood with her pet rat, watching the soldiers. Watchinghim. She looked so pale, bundled up within her dark furs. Her cheeks blanched paler still when her eyes met his.
He could almost taste her mounting anxiety from there.
“Leif,” he barked, already in motion, “keep the boys drilling. Calix. Rakon. With me.”
Leif gave a careless salute.
The other two fell in stride on either side of him, providing a buffer for the growing crowd now swarming around his wife’s peacock and former champion as the two men drew their horses up short and dismounted.
A familiar pang of guilt lanced through his chest when his attention fell on Tristan Dacre, the young knight he had almost killed that day on Nerina Reef. He heard the man now suffered from debilitating headaches. A part of him felt like he still needed to apologize for that.
But the more time that passed, the less he knew what to say.
“Beaumont!” he called out to the baron.
Sir Tristan looked his way at once. His eyes ticked between the crown on his brow and his face.
Tiberius pretended as if he hadn’t heard. Instead, the pretty man hailed the nearest servant. “Inform the queen I have returned,” he instructed, as if Sera couldn’t see good and well with her own two eyes that he had returned. “And that I must speak with her immediately. It is a matter of great urgency and importance.”
Aldric ground his teeth together until his jaw ached. “Beaumont,” he bit out again, enunciating each syllable.
Calix lifted his voice and announced like a court herald, “You have been hailed by His Majesty, Lord Beaumont. Twice now. You will not be hailed again.”
The murmurs of the crowd surrounding them fell silent. The soldiers stepped backward by several paces, giving them room.
Like a man carved from wood, Lord Tiberius stiffly swiveled to face him. He gave a tight smile. “This is no king of mine.” His gaze shifted toward the crown Sera had forced him to wear; his eyes narrowed. “But I see the rumors are true.”
Bouncing his leg, Sir Tristan looked up at the balcony and simply shouted, “Olivia!”
Aldric glanced upward just in time to catch a glimpse of his wife and her Spymaster disappearing back inside. No doubt they would both be joining them soon.
“What is it?” he demanded, his attention returning to Tiberius. He might as well learn something useful before they arrived. “What’s happened?”
An infuriating smile curved the other man’s lips. “My message is for Her Majesty and Her Majesty alone.” Taking a single step closer, the peacock lowered his voice to hiss, “You may have married her,Crow, but that doesn’t make you king. Certainly notmyking.”
Calix rumbled low in his chest.
Rakon reached over and grabbed the half-Kunishi by the back of the neck before he could manage to do something they would all regret.
