“Why do you still wish to help me?” she asked.
Aldric froze, his eye searching both of hers within that excruciating nearness. “What do you mean?”
“I just mean…” She swallowed hard, already regretting the words before she had even spoken them. But it was too late now. She had to ask.
She had to know.
“I am a poor ally to you now, Aldric,” she pointed out to him in the scantest of whispers. “I have little to offer. My country stands on the brink of a civil war. I have been unable to garner any support for your own claim to Drakmor. The High Shepherd has yet toanswer a single one of my missives. The Emperor of Lothmeer has been equally silent.”
Her Crow’s brow furrowed.
She wet her lips. “So…I just would like to know…why you would wish to still help me? When it would be so much easier to just…leave?”
That final word hung in the air between them for the span of a single heartbeat before his hands dropped from her face. Before he pulled away. “You clearly don’t know me at all if you need to ask that question, Sera.”
His words felt like a slap. A dismissal.
With his features shuttered once more, he bent to retrieve his torch.
Seraphina wrapped her arms around her midsection and simply watched him, wishing all the while that he would come back to her, that he would cradle her face again. That he would crush his mouth against hers.
Strange voice or no voice, she would be willing to risk it tonight.
Feeling quite small and foolish, she asked, “Are you returning to the throne room, then?”
With all his usual brusqueness, he snapped, “Not unless you are.”
She clenched her jaw, fighting against the urge to flinch away from the sharpness of his tone. “I would like to go to the chapel, actually,” she softly revealed, studying his face in the flickering light. “I think it best that I spend the night in prayer before I make a final decision on what to do about Coreto.”
Her Crow’s expression remained hard. Dull. It didn’t change in the slightest, not even when he bit out, “Time is of the essence now, Sera. You have none left to waste.”
Despite his words, he thrust out a hand to her, clearly intent on helping her to her feet. Slipping her fingers into the clasp of his, she accepted his aid and marveled quietly all the while at his understated strength when he effortlessly hauled her upright despite the fact that she was so much taller than he.
“You’re right,” she breathed, steadying herself on her feet. Without thinking, she rested her free hand on his shoulder again.
Her Crow’s muscles coiled tighter beneath her touch.
“But I refuse to make a decision right in this moment based on fear and desperation alone,” she continued, reluctantly letting her hand slip from his. “Not now. Not when the fate of Elmoria hangs in the balance.”
For a single, heart-rending moment, she could have almost sworn that she smelled ash on a gust of wind that couldn’t possibly have existed there in the passageway. As if the vision that plagued her every night was intent on reminding her of what else was at stake here.
Beyond the lives of her subjects. Beyond even her own head.
The fate of all Avirel was what truly hung in the balance now.
For the sake of all peoples, she could no longer afford to make a wrong move.
Chapter thirty
Aldric
Acold wind ripped past, tearing at his clothing, flinging sand into his gaze. Black sand. Inky swells of it stretched as far as the eye could see.
Dark clouds boiled across a midnight sky.
Crimson lightning sought to rend the heavens.
In the distance, he heard a scream.
