Page 11

Chapter ten

Seraphina

“ S eraphina.”

That familiar voice floated toward her through the darkness, though she couldn’t see the speaker. But she didn’t need to see Olivia to recognize her.

She wondered where her friend had come from, though. Olivia never attended petitions.

“Seraphina,” she heard her godmother whisper next. “Wake up. Please…please wake up.”

She tried to tell them she already was awake, but her lips wouldn’t obey. When she tried to open her eyes, her eyelids similarly ignored her.

She remained trapped within the dark haze of her mind.

But at least the vision of the strange, bloodied crow had dissipated, taking the searing pain of the Oracle’s "gift" along with it. Some memory of that pain remained, though, low in her abdomen where it throbbed in time with her heartbeat.

Or perhaps that was simply her monthly coming early.

But now she was awake, it all came rushing back to her at once. Mysai, crowned by a black smog the usuri could not breach. Goldreach, ablaze. The stench of death. Bodies.

Bodies everywhere.

At last, Seraphina’s body moved, though of its own accord; it rolled to the side so she could retch all over the floor. The humiliation of knowing she had just vomited in front of all her court scorched her almost as hotly as the Oracle’s blessing.

But when she finally opened her eyes, she found herself not in the throne room, but in her bedchamber. Olivia's and Duchess Edith’s faces both swam into view first, with her personal physician, Eugene Bonage, not far behind. Alyx hovered in the air with a steady beating of her shimmering wings. Off in the corner, Duke Percival and Father Perero quietly conversed with the Oracle.

The prophetess’s Redguard stood nearby—silent and out of the way, but present.

The world outside her balcony doors was dark. Seraphina frowned, trying to make sense of it. It had just been early afternoon a few moments ago.

“What time is it?” she croaked while Alyx chirped and swooped in to claim her usual perch, tangled up around her shoulders. Giving her usuru an absentminded pat, she turned her attention to Duchess Edith and Olivia.

A lone tear streamed down her godmother’s cheek when their gazes met. “Percy! Percy, she’s awake.”

Olivia pressed a glass of water into her hand and breathlessly threatened, “Don’t scare me like that again.”

Seraphina tried to conjure a smile for her friend and godmother, but smiles were entirely too much effort at the moment. “What time is it?” she repeated between frantic gulps of water. Her throat felt raw, as if she had swallowed a mouthful of burning coals.

It was Duke Percival who finally answered her with a brisk, “It’s late. You’ve been out for hours,” in the midst of hurrying to her bedside.

“Late?” Seraphina’s eyes flashed between all those gathered. They all watched her as if expecting her to crumble into ash at any moment.

All save the Oracle.

She couldn’t even begin to decipher the emotion shining from the prophetess’s silver gaze.

“How late?” Seraphina asked, looking back to her godfather. “My dinner with the ambassador—”

Duchess Edith gently interrupted, “—has been canceled.”

“What?” Returning her glass of water to Olivia’s hand, Seraphina flung back the blankets piled atop her and made to climb out of bed. Her body trembled with each movement. Her muscles ached as if she were recovering from a fever.

But she ignored it. She ignored it all. She had things to do .

“No,” Seraphina insisted. “We must move forward with this peace summit, now more than ever. I will see Ambassador Ezzo at once.”

Olivia laid a hand on her shoulder. “It’s the middle of the night. Your meeting will have to wait until tomorrow.”

Tomorrow?

Seraphina thinned her lips. “But Mysai needs our help now .”

Could her people breathe in that smog? Was it slowly smothering them one by one? She shook her head and swatted Olivia’s hand aside. There was no point in agonizing over all the unknowns.

Mysai needed action, not anxiety.

“Please,” Duchess Edith implored when Seraphina finally struggled to her feet. She carefully avoided the puddle of her own sick while her godmother pleaded, “You’re unwell. You should rest.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted, even though she didn’t feel fine. She felt… odd . But there was no point in telling her godparents that and worrying them further. “I must have just fainted from the vision.”

“Vision?” Duke Percival echoed with a frown. “What vision?”

Some of the exhaustion melted from the deep lines of Father Perero’s face when he asked, “You’ve had a vision, my child?”

Seraphina trailed a slow look toward the Oracle, who now stood in a corner of the chamber with her Redguard, a mere silent watcher. “…You did not tell them?”

“Tell us what?” her godfather asked, a bit more gruffly this time.

Oracle Tsukiko’s voice was as soft as ever, and yet each note filled the room when she murmured, “It was not my story to tell. ”

Seraphina swallowed and glanced toward Physician Bonage. Like everyone else in the room, he watched her most attentively, clearly waiting for what she’d say next. “Physician Bonage, you may go.”

The man protested, “But, Your Majesty, I must ensure you’re well—”

“I’m quite well now. You may leave.”

Seraphina tracked the physician through her bedchamber until the door finally closed behind him. Only then did she look back to her closest advisors—the only family she now possessed—and confessed to them, “I saw…a vision.”

It was strange even uttering such a thing aloud. Who was she, to see such things? She still didn’t understand why the Lord had shown her what He did.

What could she possibly do to stop such a calamity?

And what did the chained crow represent? What did it mean?

Her godfather’s lips twisted into a frown as he growled to the Oracle, “You had us thinking she had fallen ill. We thought it was another outbreak of the wasting sickness—”

“Percy, please,” Duchess Edith whispered, her eyes still wet with what tears she hadn’t yet shed. The sight of them made Seraphina’s heart lurch. “She is well. All is fine.”

The wasting sickness that had swept through Goldreach nearly twenty-two years ago had been devastating. There had been no cure. No one could say from whence it came. But it had taken many lives and ruined countless others .

It had taken her mother and Olivia’s. It had withered Olivia’s left leg and left her friend plagued by constant pain. And it had taken her godparents’ youngest child—their only daughter, Odette.

Seraphina reached over and squeezed Duchess Edith’s hand. “I’m not sick,” she promised. “I’m going to be fine.”

After a few moments of tense quiet, Father Perero softly encouraged, “Tell us,” as she settled herself back onto the edge of her bed with her godmother’s hand still in her grasp. “Tell us what you saw, Your Majesty.”

Seraphina swallowed against the rawness of her throat. “I saw Mysai…and I saw a great, black smoke hanging low over it. I saw…usuri falling from the sky.”

Duke Percival frowned again. “Mysai? Are you sure? You’ve never visited Mysai, Your Majesty.”

Seraphina nodded as a great weariness burrowed its way into her bones. “I recognized it well enough from our history books. It was Mysai.”

Olivia took another swig from her flask and muttered, “Well, that’d certainly explain the silence.”

Duchess Edith asked, “Did you see anything else? Did you see a way to dispel the smoke?”

Seraphina frowned and looked toward Oracle Tsukiko again, but the prophetess stood silent once more. “I don’t know. It was all…” She shook her head and clenched her eyes shut, trying to recall all the many odd details. “…so very strange. I saw…”

She swallowed hard. She didn’t wish to tell them about Goldreach .

But she knew she had to.

“…I saw Goldreach fall,” Seraphina whispered, her eyes still closed. A collective gasp rippled through the room. “I saw Goldreach burning. I saw so…so much death.”

When her godmother squeezed her fingers, Seraphina opened her eyes and gently squeezed back. “I saw…stars falling. I saw the ground ripping open. I saw a great darkness consuming all.”

She didn’t bother mentioning the crow. Nor the oddly colored stars.

They had enough troubles to contend with without adding yet more mystery.

In the wake of her words, her godfather paced the room, his cane thumping against the rugs with each step. Father Perero looked pensive. Duchess Edith frowned and stroked her hand. Alyx purred in that way all contented usuri seemed to do—happily oblivious to the worries of the humans within the room.

But Olivia simply drained her flask before clipping it back to her belt. The other woman’s voice was dubious when she asked, “Are you trying to tell me the fate of the entire world hinges on Mysai ?”

At last, the Oracle spoke, but only to say, “It is impossible for us mortals to see and understand how the threads of fate are woven together.”

Olivia twisted her lips. “Well, that’s… supremely unhelpful—”

“The Lord will guide us through these troubled times,” Father Perero reassured them all. “He has brought us this warning.” The Shepherd looked to her rather than the Oracle, as if she had any idea at all what they should do next. “That must mean there is still time to change things.”

But she didn’t know. She didn’t know anything.

You do , the Oracle whispered directly into her thoughts yet again, stopping Seraphina’s heart completely in its tracks.

Drawing in a shaky breath, she looked toward the prophetess. The Kunishi woman’s strange silver eyes pinned her in place as yet more words unfurled within her mind.

You already know what to do.

The peace summit? Drakmor? Seraphina chewed on the inside of her lip.

But what if he refuses?

Still, that shred of doubt nagged her. What if this was all an ill-advised gamble? What if she allowed her Master of Ceremonies to spend coin they truly couldn’t afford to spend on a peace summit that ultimately came to naught?

What if the king continues to ignore us ?

But whatever doubt plagued her didn’t seem to affect Oracle Tsukiko, given how the Kunishi woman didn’t hesitate for a single moment before replying, He won’t.