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Chapter twenty-four

Seraphina

D awn came too swiftly.

But when it came, Seraphina was finally ready.

“I still wish you would eat something ,” Duchess Edith murmured under her breath as they all settled into their seats. Together, they waited for the final event of the peace summit to begin. The general assembly. “You need your strength.”

Seraphina shook her head. “I have strength enough.” She didn’t think she could eat anything, anyway. Her stomach was far too full of butterflies.

Most of her court had arrived already, and the air hummed with the murmur of their pleasant conversation. Tsukiko and her Redguard were likewise present, though they sat in a central location within the room. No doubt for the sake of neutrality .

Beyond the confines of the pavilion, morning still broke across a cloudless sky. Alyx winged beneath that painted canvas, surely eager to soak up the last of Nerina Reef’s warmth before they sailed for Elmoria’s shores once more. They weren’t supposed to leave until the morrow, when the summit formally concluded.

Seraphina intended to set sail the moment the general assembly ended.

“Where are these Drakmori?” Duke Percival complained. “We were supposed to begin some time ago.”

Seraphina masked a yawn behind her hand and observed, “His Majesty does seem fond of his dramatic entrances.”

Exhaustion weighed heavily upon her. She hadn’t slept the night before. And yet her excitement far outweighed her sleepiness. Seraphina felt like a girl trying to control herself in the hours leading up to a Wintertide gift exchange.

Except the present was from herself to herself.

And the gift within would be the look on King Edmund’s face once he realized what she had done.

When an excited chirp from Alyx disrupted the pleasant murmur of conversation within the pavilion, every muscle in Seraphina’s back drew taut. Her head turned. She spied the dark-scaled serpent now flying alongside her own.

He had arrived.

The Crow .

The blare of trumpets heralded the king and dowager queen’s entrance in the next moment. Seraphina rose to her feet with the rest of her court out of respect for her fellow monarchs. But her eyes skimmed right past King Edmund and his mother parading past. She didn’t care about their matching emerald silks, nor their flashing jewels.

She was much more interested in the elder Hargrave, who trudged in their wake, looking like nothing more than a bodyguard in his customary black armor.

Just the night before, the man had seemed incapable of keeping his one-eyed gaze off her. Yet in that moment, he refused to even glance her way in passing. He walked by her as if she wasn’t even there.

As if she was unworthy of his attention.

Seraphina set her jaw and jerked her own gaze away.

It did not matter. In the grand scheme of things, it did not matter what Aldric Hargrave did, nor what he thought. He was not even a player in the game.

He was merely a card from King Edmund’s hand that had already been played.

And now it was her turn to make a move.

It took every ounce of her willpower to keep a smile from curving her lips as she retook her seat and looked toward where her Master of Ceremonies stood, waiting to call the general assembly to order.

Her moment was almost at hand.

“And now, Your Majesties, my lords and ladies,” her Master of Ceremonies, the Viscount of Arlund, announced, “it has come time for us to discuss the terms of the new treaty. ”

No doubt the poor viscount had planned for this portion of the summit to be a rather dry and boring affair. An event in which the Elmorian and Drakmori lawyers nitpicked each other’s proposed clauses while she and King Edmund stared off into the ether until it came time for them to sign the new treaty.

But Seraphina had other plans.

“Your Majesties,” she suddenly called to King Edmund and his mother, earning for herself a startled glance from the former and open suspicion from the latter. The Crow, seated on the king’s right, didn’t so much as blink, though.

He kept his attention fixed on his lap, still not looking her way.

“My lords and ladies,” Seraphina addressed the rest of the assembly next as she rose from her chair. “Oracle Tsukiko.” The Kunishi woman dipped her head in acknowledgment. “Your Highness.” She saved her address for the Crow last, though she only spared the man the briefest of glances with the words. “I wished to offer my most sincere apologies.”

“Apologies?” her Master of Ceremonies echoed, his eyes darting this way and that. “Your Majesty, forgive me—”

“What is this?” King Edmund asked, speaking over the viscount’s confusion. “What is going on?”

“I acted in haste when I broke my original marriage contract with His Majesty, King Edmund Hargrave of Drakmor,” Seraphina further declared, with a glance flicked toward Edmund himself.

When their eyes met, a frown etched itself between the king’s eyebrows.

At last, she let her lips curve into a little smile .

“And that haste has led to an unfortunate strain between our two kingdoms,” Seraphina announced to the room.

The king jolted to his feet and stalked toward her. “What are you doing?” he hissed in her ear.

But Seraphina ignored him. She had a captive audience, and she played to it. “Which is why it is with great pleasure and humility that Elmoria presents new terms of peace to Drakmor.”

Her lawyers had been up all night with her, drafting new terms for said treaty as dictated by her in the wee hours of the morning. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the disheveled pack of men scrambling to draw out that lengthy scroll now.

But it was to the Crow she directed her full attention next, her eyes fixed on his scarred visage. Where the King of Drakmor was ever so easy to read—as transparent as a pane of glass—his older brother was infuriatingly opaque. Where she could feel Edmund seething beside her, his barely continued rage roiling off of him in hot waves, the still-seated prince was another story.

She could have gleaned more from a pitch-black room than from his blank expression.

“I hereby offer my hand in marriage to His Highness, Prince Aldric Hargrave,” Seraphina announced, earning a chorus of gasps from all sides of the pavilion—both Elmorian and Drakmori. “In a binding betrothal,” she continued, speaking over the rising cacophony, “before all these witnesses.”

Lifting her chin, Seraphina did her best to raise her voice further, though at that point, she had to shout at the Crow over the noise, “A de facto betrothal.”

At last, the elder Hargrave looked at her, and her breath caught in her throat at all the raw malice that crackled within the depths of his eye when his gaze hooked with her own.

Other than that, the Crow had little reaction to her proposal. He did not balk. He did not so much as frown.

King Edmund was another story.

“You cannot do this,” he hissed again, his hot breath caressing her skin in a way that made her skin crawl. “You cannot just… take my idea and make it your own.”

“And yet,” Seraphina whispered, cutting off his tirade before it could progress further, “I just did.” Peeking up at King Edmund, she softly advised, “Next time, might I suggest not showing me your cards before you play them, my dear ?”

The assembly descended into pure chaos. Excitement, confusion, and trepidation mingled. Murmurs rose and fell.

Her Master of Ceremonies visibly sweated. The dowager queen’s lips pursed so tightly, Seraphina would have believed it if someone told her the other woman had just consumed an entire lemon.

And her poor godfather looked as if someone had just tossed a varhound puppy off a cliff. Duke Percival had spent a good portion of the night begging her to reconsider. But King Edmund had left her with little choice. This was the strongest card she had to play.

Herself.

Had she allowed Edmund to present his terms first, she would have been backed into a corner—forced to concede a good portion of her power to secure the aid her people so desperately needed.

And that aid still wouldn’t have arrived for several months to come.

Weddings and coronations took time they couldn’t afford.

At least this way, merely betrothed to the monster rather than married, she would have the time to think of a more permanent solution for her Aldric Hargrave problem while still ensuring Mysai had the troops it needed now. Assuming the Crow didn’t refuse her proposal.

A part of her hoped he might.

Pulling away from the king, Seraphina drifted the final few steps toward the elder Hargrave. Eyes locking with his, she extended her left hand.

He looked at it as if she were offering a dagger to him, blade first.

“If you will accept my proposal, Your Highness?” Seraphina asked, doing her best to keep her voice pleasant, even while she prayed he would say no.

Clearly, he didn’t want to be here. Clearly, he didn’t want to do this.

Here is your opportunity , she wanted to whisper, but dared not for fear of being overheard. Reject me and go back to whatever it was you were doing when the world thought you were dead .

“We will have order in the assembly,” the Master of Ceremonies shouted. His assistants joined in trying to command the various courtiers and officials into silence. “We will have order!”

The quiet that descended was absolute, leaving Seraphina painfully aware of the sound of her own breath and the distant cries of Alyx still cavorting with the Crow’s usuru .

In that silence, she waited.

She waited until the hand extended toward the Crow of Drakmor trembled from the effort of holding it aloft and steady. She waited until she began to question whether the man intended to answer her at all.

When the Crow abruptly jolted forward and grasped her hand, a gasp escaped her lips unbidden. Her natural instinct was to flee from this man. To pull herself from his hold.

To run. To never look back.

As if sensing the sudden spark of fear within her soul, the Crow narrowed his eye and tightened his grip.

“I accept Her Majesty’s proposal,” he rumbled into the stillness of the pavilion.

And the world erupted in a fresh bout of chaos.

Surprise pricked at Seraphina’s heart, while the members of both the Elmorian and Drakmori royal courts tried to make sense of what had just happened. The lawyers bickered. King Edmund fumed.

And Seraphina stood there, staring down at the Crow of Drakmor, waiting for him to release her hand.

But he didn’t. He didn’t let her go.

Seraphina’s pulse sounded out a warning trill as the man’s fingers remained coiled about hers. His hand was warm. His skin was rough. It might not have been a wholly unpleasant experience were he not a cold-blooded killer.

How many innocent people had been struck down with the very hand now wrapped about her own ?

“Release me,” she softly commanded.

But still, he did not listen.

Instead, the Crow lifted her hand and dragged it closer to his face with an excruciating slowness. Within his grip, her fingers trembled.

What new game was this? Was he toying with her? Taunting her?

But just when his lips hovered but a hair’s breadth away from her skin, just as the heated caress of his breath bathed her knuckles, the Crow stopped and looked up at her.

“You just made a grave mistake, wife ,” he growled under his breath, leaving her heart racing anew. Only in the wake of those words did the Crow finally release her hand with a dismissive flick of his wrist.

She didn’t know what he meant by that, but she didn’t care. She had what she wanted—Edmund outplayed.

She would worry about the rest later.

In the haste of her retreat, Seraphina nearly stumbled into her defeated opponent headlong. As she stared up at him, King Edmund’s eyes flashed a dark warning of their own. For once, she saw the resemblance between the two Hargrave brothers.

With a modicum of a smile on her lips, Seraphina greeted him with a cordial, “Brother, there you are.”

And the king hissed, “Don’t you dare,” from between clenched teeth.

“Surely, we can now talk about the deployment of Drakmor’s troops, Your Majesty,” she continued without pause, unfazed by the boy-king’s venom. “You cannot possibly deny your brother and sister-in-law the aid they need to defend one of their holdings.”

King Edmund ducked his head in close and whispered against her brow, “You are not my sister-in-law yet. I want you two fully wed before we discuss anything at all.”

Seraphina weathered him suddenly encroaching into her personal space without so much as flinching. Instead, she turned her face away from him and shared her smile with the rest of the pavilion—playing the part of the happy bride-to-be. “In the eyes of the Church, we are as good as wed,” she murmured back to the king. “A de facto betrothal is as binding as any marriage vows, as you well know.”

She cut a glance back up at him from beneath her eyelashes when she further noted, “Which means you must agree to my terms or risk losing face in front of all your people. Not to say anything of the Church. What do you think the High Shepherd will think about the King of Drakmor himself refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of a de facto betrothal witnessed by an Oracle of the Lord?”

Seraphina watched Edmund out of the corner of her eye. She observed the way his jaw worked as he mulled over her words.

Finally, he withdrew from her personal space. The laughter that followed sounded false to her ears, but she joined in all the same—more than happy to paint a picture of unity for the sake of the courtiers watching them both.

“Sister,” His Majesty greeted her with a hand braced against her shoulder and a kiss planted on her cheek. But his lips lingered against her skin even after the chaste kiss should have reached its natural conclusion, his nearness stretching on far past the point of polite.

Clearly a family trait.

Within that pause, he whispered directly against her cheek, “You think yourself rather clever, don’t you?”

“I do, yes,” Seraphina breathed back, unable to stop herself from goading the king just a little in that moment. “Thank you for noticing.”

That utterance seemed to amuse the King of Drakmor, for some reason. She spared her fellow monarch a frown when he pulled away from her and engaged in a proper peal of laughter.

Rather than press the man on his sudden hysterics, Seraphina swiftly retreated to her original perch and settled in between the bodies of Duke Percival and Duchess Edith. With her theatrics concluded, the originally planned proceedings could continue.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Your Majesty,” her godfather groused under his breath the moment she rejoined him. “Your engagement to His Majesty was never solidified before witnesses. But this— ”

The sensation of someone watching her lured Seraphina’s attention away from her godfather’s speech and across the pavilion to where the Crow bored another stare straight into her soul.

She averted her gaze, her attention returning to Duke Percival just in time to hear him grumble out a last, “—cannot be broken. You truly are engaged to Aldric Hargrave. ”

“Good,” Seraphina softly declared. “Because that is the only way we’re going to ensure the king does our bidding.”

Our time together draws to a close .

Seraphina’s heart skipped a beat at the abrupt sound of Tsukiko’s voice flitting through her mind. She glanced across the way and sought the familiar gleam of the Oracle’s quicksilver gaze. But the Kunishi woman’s attention remained fixed on the Elmorian lawyer reading aloud the rest of their freshly proposed treaty terms.

Seraphina drew in a breath and looked toward the lawyer as well. Will I ever see you again?

It was strange, the pang lancing her heart when she considered the possibility she might never again cross paths with the Star of the East. She had known Tsukiko for so short a time. And yet, in the Oracle, she had found another true friend, like Olivia.

For a small time, silence was all that greeted her. But it was a comfortable sort of silence—a silence punctuated by the strange sensation of early summer breezes unfurling within the very confines of her mind.

They reminded her of Elmoria, those breezes. They reminded her of sunny days spent in the palace gardens, teaching Olivia how to read while curled beneath the shade trees.

Suddenly, she ached for home.

Yes, Tsukiko finally breathed in answer. In the next moment, a golden warmth flooded Seraphina in her entirety and chased away every shadow of a doubt that still haunted the corners of her soul.

A final blessing from the Lord .

She wished she could bottle that feeling. She wished she could carry it with her always. But she knew it would fade, as all such blessings did.

Tears misted her vision when Seraphina next stole a glance toward the Oracle. But that time, Tsukiko met her gaze, and those silver eyes of hers glowed with all the beauty of the very heavens when she promised, The Lord willing, we will see each other again before all is said and done.