Lips peeling back in another snarl, Aldric was quick to point out, “There’s no guarantee your way of doing things is going to succeed either.”
Sera closed what distance remained between them in the span of a single step. Her chin lifted. Her eyes flashed once more—fierce and challenging. “I willnotsacrifice my king for the sake of a mere pawn,” she hissed, the declaration but a breath shared in close quarters.
My king.
Two simple words—yet they slammed into him with the force of a blade to the heart. He knew her words meant nothing. He knew it was mere wordplay. An echo of what he had shouted at her weeks ago.Chess. His wife was speaking of chess. He knew it was foolish to read anything more into it.
And yet, his traitorous heart still stuttered. And yet, a wave of heat still coursed through his chest, stoking something back to life he thought had died long ago.
A hope for somethingmore.
“Very well,” he rumbled, fighting to keep his expression smooth, his voice calm, to keep his blasted kirei from learning just how easily she could bend him to her will these days—from a single glance, a mere soft word.
This woman was going to be the death of him.
Death.
Suddenly, his mind wheeled backward. Back to that nightmare. That cursed image he feared was now branded into the darkest corners of his soul. Sera limp at his feet. Her eyes glassy. The witchblade that had killed her gleaming in his hand.
The memory crushed the air from his lungs. It reminded him just how fragile his wife truly was. Just how easily he could lose her.
Just how close he had once come to killing her himself.
Sera’s brow furrowed. Her eyes narrowed. “Are you all right?”
Drawing in a ragged breath, Aldric forced himself to focus back on the present, to watch as the rising light of the day poured through the windows just behind his wife, wreathing her in gold, giving her the appearance that she was alight with a luminescence all her own.
A woman on fire from within.
“I’m fine,” he lied, edging past her and stepping off the dais. “I just have some matters to see to before your latest farce begins.”
Sera’s hand caught on his arm, holding him in place. “I know we can do this, Aldric,” she murmured, warm breath unfurling against the top of his head. “I know that we can finally turn the tide of this war back in our favor.” Softer still, she added as if to herself, “The Lord willing.”
A strange ache speared him just beneath his ribs at the desperate hope within his wife’s voice, hollowing him out from within. “I hope you’re right, kirei,” he whispered back, pulling free from hergrasp. He wanted to stay. To linger in her presence. He would admit that much to himself.
But there was no time. Not if she truly expected the troops to march no later than that afternoon. And he now had his own preparations to finish—ones Sera would never approve of, but ones that might very well save her life.
Assuming the worst should happen.
It had been so long since he last prayed to the Lord on High that he could not even remember the last time he had done so. Perhaps before his mother died. But even so, he found himself praying right then, like a fool, as he made his way across the throne room toward the exit.
Like the fool his infuriating kirei was inspiring him to be.
Lord, if you’re truly out there, if you’re truly listening…don’t fail this woman now. She needs your help. She needs a blasted miracle.
The sight of Father Perero lingering by himself, gazing out a window, drew him up short. His thoughts nagged at him. Memories of his nightmare still swirling in the darkest corners of his mind despite his best efforts to eradicate them.
He veered toward the Shepherd, gritting his teeth over the way his wounded foot smarted with each step. “Father?”
Father Perero’s attention shifted his way. A tired smile crinkled the corners of the older man’s eyes. “Your Majesty. To what do I owe this pleasure?”
Aldric thinned his lips.Pleasurewasn’t the right word. But he had the feeling he would have no rest from his thoughts until heasked the question that had been gnawing at him since Sera first revealed she had given the witchblade over to the Shepherd.
He had to know what had become of it.
“That witchblade,” he whispered, stepping even closer to the holy man for fear of being overheard. “The one that was found in the queen’s chambers. She told me she gave it to you to dispose of?”
Father Perero’s smile died at once.
