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Chapter twenty-nine

Seraphina

D arkness fell before she had a moment to sit down and relax after her long voyage. The hour grew late. Exhaustion weighed heavily on her.

But at least she could finally speak with Olivia in peace.

“Remind me why we proposed to this Crow first?” Olivia asked. With deft fingers, her friend shuffled their deck of Sovereign cards.

“Remind me why I agreed to let you deal the cards?” Seraphina countered, squinting at the other woman’s hands. By the light of the single candle illuminating the table within her bedchamber, it was difficult to see just what Olivia was doing over there.

Olivia cracked a grin. “You trust me with your life, but not with your Sovereign cards. Typical.” The other woman stretched out her left leg and propped it atop the stool Seraphina kept beneath the table just for that purpose. “But my question still stands. ”

Seraphina sighed and accepted the cards Olivia dealt. She frowned when she noticed her friend had given her all Queens, though. “Because if I didn’t set the terms of the arrangement first, Edmund was intending to declare I had to marry his brother and name him king before he would mobilize troops to Mysai.”

“You still agreed to name him king, though. At some point,” Olivia was quick to point out.

Seraphina looked away. “It was the one concession Edmund demanded,” she softly explained as her gaze sought Alyx’s dark silhouette. The usuru already rested for the night, coiled atop the bed. For a moment, she envied the creature. There she lay, not a care in the world. “We’ll just cross that bridge when we get there.”

Olivia played her first card facedown and suggested with all her usual joviality, “We could always toss him off the bridge first.” In the wake of those words, her friend chuckled.

But Seraphina could only frown.

“Be serious,” she commanded, not in the mood for Olivia’s inappropriate jests. She knew her friend couldn’t help it. But it made it no less uncomfortable when they were discussing something so weighty as a man losing his life. When she looked back Olivia’s way, though, it was to find her Spymaster no longer smiling.

By the light of the candle, Olivia looked rather solemn while whispering, “And what if I am being serious?”

Seraphina stared at the other woman, waiting for the inevitable giggle that was sure to follow. She searched her friend’s eyes in the darkness, hunting for the usual sparkle hinting at a jest lurking beneath her words .

But the giggle never came. The sparkle was absent.

“You can’t truly be suggesting we murder a man?” Seraphina asked, slamming her entire hand of cards facedown on the table.

Olivia ticked those cards a look. “It’s your turn to play, you know.”

“Well, what’s the point when you’ve stacked my hand with all Queens? I’ll just win every round.”

Olivia’s lips twitched into a smile. “Not if I’ve stacked my hand with all Knaves—where are you going?”

Seraphina scowled, already on her feet. “I’m not going to just sit here and listen to you make light of killing a person simply because they’re an inconvenience,” she explained as she made for the double doors leading out to her balcony. “What happened to, ‘When have I ever intentionally tried to kill someone?’”

“This is different and you know it,” Olivia hotly argued, following her out into the night. “But if the thought truly bothers you, then just send the man to the front and pray he never returns.”

Seraphina closed her eyes and let the breeze wash over her. The night air was pleasant. The heady scent of roses drifted upward from the palace gardens.

With her eyes still closed, she traced her fingers against the smooth stone of the balcony railing and observed, “That man would never go to war for me. He would never sail to Mysai simply because I told him to.”

“Then he has an accident here instead,” Olivia’s voice suggested from nearby .

Seraphina’s eyes flew open once more. She flashed her friend a look. “You’re speaking of murder again.”

“I’m speaking of accidents ,” Olivia softly corrected. “People fall from high places and tumble off their horses every day without anyone batting an eye.”

“Not the brother of our strongest ally,” Seraphina hissed. “How long do you think Edmund will continue to support us in Mysai if his brother has an accident while under our care?”

When Olivia suddenly shushed her, Seraphina’s pulse hammered out a staccato rhythm. She followed her friend’s gaze into the night and narrowed her eyes.

But she saw nothing.

“The Oracle and her Shield warned you this man has murdered thousands, did they not?” Olivia breathed against her ear while gently nudging her chin a little more to the left. Finally, Seraphina saw it. Movement in the near distance. It was easy enough to recognize the Crow even within the darkness, given his unique height and gait.

He walked alone.

Seraphina’s breath caught in her throat. “What is he doing out there at this time of night?”

“Stalking his prey,” Olivia whispered without pause, and Seraphina twitched away from her friend. But the other woman’s words lingered.

And they chilled her blood straight through.

“That man had every opportunity to kill me on Nerina Reef and he did not,” Seraphina reminded as she fled back indoors .

Olivia followed and shut the balcony doors behind them. “A hunter knows to wait for the best moment to strike.”

Seraphina whirled to face her friend and asked, “Why are you trying to frighten me?”

“Because you should be frightened,” Olivia hissed within that nearness. “A little boy you once insulted just thrust his murderous older brother on you, and instead of running away as any sane woman would, you’ve invited the murderous older brother to play wedding.”

“What else was I to do? Let Mysai continue to suffer?”

“No.”

Seraphina tightened her jaw and further pressed, “Let Drakmor declare war on us instead?”

Olivia sighed and looked away. “No…you did the best you could with the options you had.” Her friend cut a glance back her way and continued with, “But now we have a problem, and I wish you would let me deal with it.”

“You wish I would allow you to kill a man—”

“I wish you would allow me to protect the only family I have left against a man who has already pushed one of our own to death’s doorstep.”

All of Seraphina’s rising anger bled from her with those words. “Olivia,” she whispered, reaching for her best friend. But Olivia pulled away. “Olivia, I’m sorry. I know you are just trying to protect me. I know…”

She trailed off and her arms fell back to her sides, awkward and useless. She folded them across her chest instead. “How is Sir Tristan?” she finally asked.

The question earned a shrug from Olivia and a dull answer of, “He sleeps still.”

“I will go visit him tomorrow,” Seraphina promised.

But no sooner had those words departed her lips than Olivia was stepping in close again, her jaw hard, her amber eyes cold. “And what about the Crow?”

The vision of the one-eyed crow returned to Seraphina’s mind in a flash. One moment, she was standing there, staring at Olivia.

And in the next, there was only the vision.

It came unbidden, as it always did. With no warning.

And no escape.

She shook her head, trying to free herself of the crow’s gruesome visage. But still it remained. Its one eye burned with the reflection of her, wreathed in golden fire. Its bloodied feathers gleamed in the low light. Heavy chains clanked about its ankles, digging into the flesh there.

Behind the chained crow yawned a star-filled sky. In the distance, she heard a roar. She smelled smoke on the air. She tasted blood on her tongue. And while she watched, the stars fell.

One by one, they blinked out of existence, just as they always did.

Seraphina knew what was to come next. Next, the earth would shatter. The ground would shake. Entire cities would be swallowed whole. And a great darkness would spread across all of Avirel .

Before those catastrophes could come to fruition within the theater of her mind, strong hands gripped her shoulders. “Sera,” whispered Olivia’s voice at her ear. “Sera, what’s wrong? What do you see?”

The vision slowly unraveled, leaving her standing there, wrapped up in Olivia’s embrace. Olivia, her oldest friend.

And the only sister she had ever known.

“I see the end of it all, Olivia,” Seraphina admitted with trembling lips. Tears pricked at her eyes as she tried to rid herself of what threads from the vision still lingered on.

She didn’t wish to cry, though. Crying wouldn’t solve her problem. And Olivia was right. She had a problem.

A problem prowling through the darkness just outside her window.

“Let me deal with this Crow,” her friend whispered while still holding her close. That sweet promise of easy relief plucked at Seraphina’s heart, tempting her with its siren’s song. “Don’t worry about it. Don’t even think about it. You have bigger things to concern yourself with. Just let me take care of our Crow infestation when the right time comes. Once we know Mysai is safe. Once we no longer need Drakmor’s aid.”

A bitterness coated Seraphina’s tongue. “If only it were that simple,” she breathed.

But it never was.

How could she possibly explain it all to Olivia in a way her friend would understand? How could she explain what part the Crow might still have to play in the dark days to come when she herself didn’t even understand it?

“It is that simple, Sera—”

“No.” That single word fell from Seraphina’s lips with all the finality of an executioner’s blade. She pulled from Olivia’s embrace and insisted, “I will not let you darken your soul for me.”

Olivia made a face. “You know I don’t believe in that sort of thing.”

“It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not.” Seraphina’s hands rested on Olivia’s shoulders. “It is still true. We will not be killing the Crow. We will find another way.”

But Olivia was unmoved. “And what if there is no other way?” her friend countered, leaving Seraphina unsure of what to say next.

She didn’t have any answers. The Lord Himself might have gifted her with a glimmer of foresight, but it was a future shrouded in smoke and blood.

She could make no sense of it. She could not read the signs. Unlike Oracle Tsukiko, she was neither navigator nor compass.

She was the ship lost at sea.