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Chapter thirty-seven

Seraphina

A witchblade.

Had she truly been struck by a witchblade?

Seraphina’s stomach burned with the memory of the assassin’s knife ripping through her nightgown and slicing across her flesh. But she couldn’t remember if she had ever seen the blade the man wielded.

Everything had been a blur.

All she could remember was the sight of Aldric Hargrave standing there, covered in blood. All she could recall was the feel of his arms holding her up after she had fainted. The strength of his chest pillowing her head.

The thrum of his heartbeat.

Seraphina pressed her lips together to mask their trembling as she turned to look at her godmother.

Duchess Edith’s eyes swam with tears. Shaking her head, her godmother simply whispered, “No.”

Behind her stood her godfather, his hands gripping her shoulders with a strength she wouldn’t have thought he still possessed. She could not see his face. But she could hear him well enough.

The sound of his quiet sobs gutted her more thoroughly than the assassin’s blade ever had.

“My dear child,” Father Perero said when next she looked his way. The Shepherd’s wizened face was etched with worry. “I need you to understand the risks. A Truth-Reading can be fatal.”

“Only if I lie,” Seraphina whispered, blinking against the tears threatening her own vision. She glanced to Olivia next. Olivia, her best friend. Her sister.

The woman currently staring at her with a blankness shrouding her gaze.

Seraphina breathed in deep and sighed, “But we must know. I accept the risks.”

Olivia’s hands visibly trembled where they gripped her cane. Her friend stepped forward and breathed out a quiet, “I’m so sorry.”

But Seraphina shook her head. She wanted to offer some comfort. She wanted to reassure them all she was fine. That everything was going to be fine. But she had no comfort to give .

For all that the Lord, through Oracle Tsukiko, had cursed her with that strange vision of crows and stars, she still had no notion of what the future might truly bring. She still had no answers.

She didn’t even know if she was still fully herself.

“Olivia,” Seraphina commanded, “I want you to lead the questioning. You’re the one with the most knowledge of the witch faith.”

Seraphina had only seen a Truth-Reading once. They were rare in Elmoria. Only the most heinous of crimes ever required a Truth-Reading to uncover the full details of what had taken place.

When she was ten, her father had forced her to watch a man accused of treason being Truth-Read in front of all the court. Father Perero had been a good deal younger then. But the Shepherd had seemed to age before her very eyes when the man accused had resisted the Truth-Reading and died within Father Perero’s arms.

“Duchess Edith,” Seraphina commanded her godmother next without glancing at the older woman. She couldn’t bear to see the pain in the duchess’s eyes again. Not now. Not when she needed to keep her nerve. “Please hold Alyx until the Shepherd has finished.”

Her usuru still lingered about her arm, clinging to her. Alyx had already attacked two men for her that night, and Seraphina had little doubt she would attack another the moment she deemed poor Father Perero to be a threat.

It would be easier for them all if Alyx was restrained for what was to come.

Silence descended over them all as Duchess Edith peeled Alyx away .

The moment her arm was unburdened, Seraphina extended her hand to Father Perero.

The Shepherd bowed his head and offered a quiet prayer before finally, reluctantly, taking her fingers within the clasp of his own.

When their hands locked together, a heat similar to the one that had consumed her when Oracle Tsukiko imparted the vision coursed throughout Seraphina’s entirety. It swallowed her whole with tongues of golden flame that burned away all thought, all sensation beyond that of mere heat .

But where that golden fire had brought with it an excruciating pain the first time she experienced it, there was naught but a warm familiarity this time.

Like coming home to a father’s embrace.

Gold tinged the edges of her vision. Everything shimmered as though with waves of heat, save for Olivia, who seemed to be clouded by an odd, oily sort of shadow.

Even Alyx glittered, as if crushed pearls dusted the usuru’s scales and wings.

The beauty of it all stole Seraphina’s breath away.

She had expected pain. She could still remember the horrifying screams from the man she had once seen Truth-Read. The way he had writhed and thrashed.

But Seraphina simply floated within that golden glow, feeling warm, protected. Safe.

She watched Olivia’s mouth move, but her friend’s voice was slow to float through the air toward her. As if from far away, she finally heard the other woman ask, “What is your name? ”

Your name, your name, your name , the question echoed within her mind until her lips moved of their own accord to give her answer. “Seraphina de la Croix.”

“And were you injured tonight during the attempt on your life?”

Seraphina responded without pause again. “Yes.” That answer, just like the last, escaped her throat unbidden. As if Father Perero had plucked the words straight from the very depths of her soul.

“Were you struck with the witchblade during the attack?” Olivia asked next, frowning. The shadow clouding her friend rippled as though within some unseen breeze. “Does your soul now belong to the Lady Below? Are you now the thrall of a witch?”

“One question at a time, Olivia, please,” Duke Percival pleaded from his place standing behind her, keeping her restrained.

Olivia’s unanswered questions echoed on the air. They traced their way through her thoughts. They coursed through her form. Like the very thrum of her heart.

Witchblade, witchblade, witchblade .

More heat shimmered through Seraphina in the wake of those echoes, searching for the answer. Hunting for the truth.

“I don’t know,” she uttered aloud. She hadn’t seen the witchblade. She didn’t know if it had struck her during the fight.

Olivia’s voice immediately returned. “Is your soul still your own?” her friend asked.

Soul, soul, soul, soul .

Somehow, Seraphina knew that was the wrong question to ask .

Witchblade or no, how could she claim her soul was her own? When she often felt like nothing more than a card waiting to be played by forces far more powerful than she?

The Lord on High had gifted her a taste of foresight.

But to what end?

So she could suffer every night, watching the people of Elmoria who looked to her for protection dissolve into ash and shadow?

What could she possibly do to fight against such darkness? Such destruction?

Father Perero’s grip on her hand tightened. That heat radiating from the clasp of his fingers still quested for her answer. The truth.

Was her soul still her own?

No . She knew in her heart that it was not.

It was not her own. It was marked for something else. Something greater.

But neither did it belong to a witch of the darkness and the false flame.

Compelled by Father Perero’s Truth-Reading, Seraphina’s lips parted of their own accord yet again. “I am Seraphina de la Croix, the Queen of Elmoria and the last of my House,” she proclaimed to the room. “And no witch will ever lay claim to my soul.”

The moment those words were ripped from her, Father Perero released her hand. With the absence of his touch, that heat dissipated, and the golden glow along with it.

Panting for breath, the Shepherd sank to his knees next to her and whispered, “She speaks the truth. ”

“Praise the Lord,” Duke Percival sighed as his own hold upon her loosened.

But Seraphina’s attention remained on the Shepherd. She reached for the elderly man with a frown.

He looked so weak. Sweat dappled Father Perero’s brow. His breath came in short gasps. The Truth-Reading had clearly taken more from him than it had from her.

Guilt pricked her heart when she gripped his shoulder and asked, “Father, are you well?”

When the Shepherd lifted his head to look at her, she frowned all the more at the sight of tears shimmering within his eyes. But it was not sadness she saw within in his gaze. It was not pain.

It was awe.

“The Lord has bestowed upon you a great gift, my child,” the Shepherd whispered for her ears alone as he moved his hand to cover hers. “A truly wondrous gift.”

Seraphina huffed out a breath and offered Father Perero a weak smile. “It hardly feels like a gift, Father. The Oracle’s vision. But she did warn me such knowledge would be a double-edged blade.”

Father Perero’s brow furrowed at those words. “No.” His eyes searched her hers, leaving more confusion sparking to life within her heart in the face of the holy man’s sudden scrutiny. “No, Your Majesty, I mean—”

But whatever the Shepherd intended to say was swallowed by a sudden flurry of activity. Duchess Edith and Alyx both descended on her at once. Even her godfather’s varhound shoved his large head back into her lap, clearly refusing to be completely forgotten .

“I’m so relieved,” her godmother whispered in the midst of peppering her cheek with kisses. “Are you hurt? Are you hurt at all? How do you feel?”

“No, I’m not hurt,” Seraphina was quick to reassure the duchess. After a moment’s pause, she even realized it was the truth.

The whole truth.

Her stomach no longer burned where the assassin’s blade had sliced across it. Now, she simply felt tired. It had been a long night filled with far more questions than there were answers to go around.

“Our dear girl,” Duke Percival sighed again while sinking into a chair on her other side. He joined his wife in wrapping an arm about her shoulders and pulling her in for a tight embrace. “Our brave, brave girl.”

Joy and agony mingled as one within Seraphina’s heart. Her own father had dismissed her. Scorned her. Reynard de la Croix had died utterly certain she would spell the end of their House and all that their ancestors had built.

And yet there sat Percival Umberly, holding her. Loving her.

As a true father should.

“I love you,” Seraphina whispered to her godparents, earning for herself fresh squeezes from them both. Alyx, caught in the middle of it all, ruffled her feathers in protest but was ultimately ignored.

Instead, Seraphina’s gaze sought Olivia next through the fresh haze of tears misting her vision. But her friend didn’t rush to join in their shared embrace .

Still, she stood apart, head bowed, her hands tightly gripping her cane.

Seraphina lifted her head from Duchess Edith’s shoulder and frowned. “Olivia? Olivia, what’s wrong?”

When her best friend looked her way, Seraphina saw the other woman’s cheeks were streaked with tears. But the set of her jaw was hard. Her mouth was stern when she asked, “Sera, you said that you stabbed the prince, did you not?”

Seraphina’s fingers twitched at the memory of how easy it had been to stab her betrothed. She had never stabbed anyone before. She had always assumed it would be a difficult thing. That it would take a great deal of effort.

But it had taken very little effort at all.

“Yes,” she whispered in reply. “I did.”

The tight set of Olivia’s mouth remained when she tilted her head a little to the side and asked next, “And did the prince arrive in your bedchamber before the assassin? After the assassin? Or did they arrive in the same moment?”

Those three questions slammed home into Seraphina’s mind, jolting her out of the haze that had formed where Aldric Hargrave was concerned.

It hadn’t made sense, her fiancé being there when he had. On top of her. Pinning her down. Smothering her with the harsh press of his hand.

Seraphina’s lips thinned as she stroked a hand through Rogue’s silky fur. But even the familiar warmth of her godfather’s hound wasn’t enough to soothe that sudden bout of shame .

She might have laughed if her own foolish didn’t smart so badly.

She was a fool. To think he had been there to protect her. To swoon into his arms and let him hold her. She had even thanked him.

Thanked him.

But at least Olivia had seen it, where she had not. Blinded by the Crow’s sudden, strange heroism and the hope that she had solved the riddle of her vision at last.

“Father Perero?” Seraphina softly prompted. Her stomach churned with what she knew she must ask the Shepherd to do next. But there was no other way. “Forgive me, Father, but I must ask you to Truth-Read again.”

“What?” her godparents asked in unison, their shared confusion a palpable thing.

But Seraphina did not answer.

Her eyes were still for Olivia and Olivia alone when she firmed her jaw and swallowed against a sudden and all-consuming anger roaring to life deep within her.

There were far too many questions and not nearly enough answers.

Gaze locked on her best friend, Seraphina uttered four simple words from between clenched teeth: “Bring me the Crow.”

She would have her answers soon.