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Story: A War of Crowns
Chapter fifteen
Seraphina
S he never wished to sail again. Ever.
And yet Seraphina knew she would have to board the Silver Lady in just three days’ time to return to the shores of Elmoria.
Her stomach churned at the thought.
But for the moment, Seraphina praised the Lord on High for the relatively solid ground beneath her feet as she stepped onto the shifting sands of Nerina Reef’s western beach.
Alyx dozed in a lazy drape about her shoulders, basking in the heated caress of the late afternoon sun. The island’s air was warm and thick—like a bowl of stew.
She didn’t particularly like it.
But the beauty of Nerina Reef more than made up for any such unpleasantness. The little cove where they made their berth was well secluded from the rest of the world by the high cliffs rising on either side. The sand of the beach glittered like crushed pearls. Overhead, some manner of colored birds winged across the cloudless sky and filled the day with their sweet melody. In the distance, sand melded into lush grass and a verdant jungle beyond that.
It was all so very breath-taking.
Lifting a hand to stroke beneath Alyx’s scaled head, Seraphina shot a glance over her shoulder. Her Queensguard, godparents, and Oracle Tsukiko and her Redguard had yet to disembark from the Silver Lady themselves, leaving her alone and restless.
After two weeks spent trapped aboard the ship, she was beyond ready to stretch her legs and explore.
Drawing in a deep breath, Seraphina faced forward again to study the edge of the jungle looming in the distance. The warm breeze ruffled the trees, sending them waving at her as though in invitation. Curiosity gnawed at her.
She had never seen a jungle in person before.
“Well, it’s not as if we will get into any trouble out here,” Seraphina reasoned with the still sleepy Alyx. “At least not in the time it would take for our guards to reach us, no?”
It seemed like sound logic. Perfectly reasonable.
But she soon realized she was wrong.
Her steps carried her only a few paces toward the treeline before she stepped wrong on the sand and rolled her ankle. Her arms wheeled. She rocked on her heeled slippers, struggling to remain upright .
And then a hand clamped about her right wrist like a manacle and wrenched her back upright with such force, she slammed into something.
A strong, warm something.
“I beg your pardon?” Seraphina breathed, surprise and indignation mingling into one creature in the lilt of her words. She turned her head to look at the person who had dared grab her and yank her about like a doll.
It was a man. A small Drakmori man.
The stranger she stood nearly pressed against was far shorter than she. The top of his head only just reached her chest, which left them in an awkward sort of predicament, what with him glaring up at her at present.
Many scars laced his tanned skin and disappeared beneath the cropped stubble of his dark beard. An eye patch shrouded his right eye from view. His hair was a disheveled mess of salt-and-pepper. He wore black armor. His arms and legs seemed out of proportion to the rest of him—oddly short for his frame.
But above all, the Drakmori had the audacity to be frowning at her , even though he was the one currently out of line.
Eyes wide, Seraphina stared at the stranger, dumbfounded past the point of speech. She had never before seen such a man, let alone been touched by such a man. But there he stood, still holding her wrist.
She ripped her arm from his grasp and took a full step backward to retreat from his brazen nearness. But even then, he stood too close .
And the memory of his touch still thrummed against her skin.
“I beg your pardon,” Seraphina repeated, again trying to prompt the man into giving an apology.
While she waited, Alyx finally woke from her doze. No doubt the feisty little usuru was moments away from hissing at the stranger. Perhaps she would even bite him as she had Lord Tiberius. That would teach the little man some manners.
But Alyx did none of those things.
Seraphina frowned when her usuru stretched her wings and gave a lazy chirp before abruptly taking to the skies. Clearly, the creature was just as unbothered by all the tension as the Drakmori standing in front of her.
“There’s no need to beg me for anything, Your Majesty,” the stranger rumbled at last, breaking the silence which had fallen between them. His voice was deep and rough. Gravelly and unpleasant. If mountains could speak, they would possess such a voice.
Seraphina’s jaw nearly tumbled to the beach at his words.
The sound of another man chuckling lured her attention away from the little man and toward another fellow who lingered several paces behind the first. She blinked when she finally took note of him. Had he been standing there the entire time?
She hadn’t noticed.
But perhaps that was because the second man was rather average in size and monochrome in hue—the sort of man who could easily become lost in a crowd. His skin was bronze. His hair was bronze. And even his eyes were bronze, though with a canted quality to them that put her in mind of Oracle Tsukiko and her Shield, Ichiro.
Was this new man part Kunishi?
Seraphina’s curiosity only lasted a moment, though. And then she remembered her previous indignation.
The little man had called her Your Majesty . He knew who she was. And yet he had not bowed. He had not apologized for grabbing her.
Her father would have had him flogged for such insolence.
Seraphina was just about to tell him as much when the rude man leaned to the side and glanced around her. His frown deepened at whatever it was he saw there. She followed his lead and tossed a look over her shoulder.
But she saw nothing at all.
“Where are your guards?” the man asked.
“Why is that any of your concern?” she posed back with a lift of her chin.
But the little man did not relent. He but speared her with his one eye—dark and expressionless as it was—and observed, “You should not be wandering the beach alone.”
So many questions bubbled to the forefront of Seraphina’s mind, each one more desperate to be voiced than the last. The sheer clamor of it all left her paralyzed for a few moments before she finally decreed, “I am perfectly safe.”
What was there to fret about? Her Master of Ceremonies and Her Lord Constable, Sir Easome, had both ensured Nerina Reef was fit for her arrival. All the pirates and the smugglers who had once made the island their port were surely gone by that point.
Were they not?
As if sensing her sudden shred of doubt, the strange man looked up at her and quietly asked, “Are you?”
A note of alarm trilled its way through her blood, sending her pulse to racing. She took another step back. “Is that a threat?” Seraphina whispered, though every fiber of her being told her to run. To scream.
The ship was still close. Her guards could be there in moments.
But would that be quick enough?
“Oh, no, Your Majesty,” the taller man said. He even had the decency to bow while he did so. “The Crow isn’t the sort of man to make threats, you’ll find.”
Time rattled to a halt. The wind stood still. All of Nerina Reef fell away, consumed in an instant by a ravenous darkness which roiled in from all sides.
She heard screams in the distance. She tasted ash on the air.
Seraphina recoiled from it all. No . She didn’t wish to See. She never wished to See again.
But it was too late. There it was—the strange crow. The gruesome, blood-drenched crow bound by chains.
The crow bearing only one eye.
“Who are you?” Seraphina demanded as the world came flooding back all at once. Time resumed. Her breath returned.
But the stranger did not answer .
Seraphina set her jaw and stepped toward the Crow. But where she advanced, he retreated, frowning all the while.
Still, she did not relent. She could not relent.
She had to know. She had to understand .
What did it mean? What did any of it mean?
“Who are you?” Seraphina demanded a second time.
The man still retreated, silence his only answer.
“You will tell me who are you,” she insisted in the midst of her pursuit.
Was he the key? The key to saving Mysai? Was he friend or was he foe?
She had to know.
Yet again, he did not answer.
Gritting her teeth, Seraphina suddenly snaked out her hand and grasped the man by the collar of the undershirt peeking out of his armor.
At her touch, his nostrils flared. His one eye narrowed. He finally spoke, but only to rumble, “Release me, woman.”
“Not until you tell me your name,” she whispered.
She stood close to him now—so close she was aware of this Crow’s scent. He smelled like horse and sweat and sea. But she no longer cared about the impropriety of his nearness. She simply had to know who he was.
“ Tell me.”
His one-eyed gaze flickered across her features, taking in the sight of her own eyes, her mouth, and finally, her throat. Heat crawled its way through her cheeks when his attention lingered upon that latter point far longer than it ever should have.
She swallowed.
“Aldric,” the Crow finally rasped, his voice husky and low.
Seraphina’s brow furrowed. She knew that name. Where had she heard that name before?
The man looked up at her, his one eye hard and his frown deep. Taking a full step backward, the Crow wrenched himself from her hold and finished his introduction on a cold snarl of, “Aldric Hargrave.”
Table of Contents
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