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Chapter eight

Seraphina

T wo weeks.

It had been two weeks since last she'd received a report from Mysai. None of the usuri they sent demanding news from the fort returned. Only silence seemed to await them across the Straight.

“You’re going to make your fingers bleed again,” Duchess Edith warned under her breath, snapping Seraphina back to the present. There she sat in the royal library, chewing her fingernails again.

What was left of them, at any rate.

Seraphina stopped at once and dropped her hand back to her lap. She pasted on a smile. Across from her sat Olivia and Sir Tristan. Both watched her with entirely too keen an interest .

Though the knight had originally suggested he and Olivia play a game of Sovereign when he first joined their table, her dear friend had declined and insisted she wished to play against her instead.

Seraphina’s eyes skimmed the cards she held in her left hand. It was a decent hand. She could easily win.

But her heart was no longer in the game.

“It’s your turn, Your Majesty,” Olivia reminded her.

Seraphina laid her entire hand of cards facedown on the table and slid them toward Sir Tristan. “Tristan will finish the game for me.”

Those words caused the knight’s face to brighten.

But Olivia frowned. “Where are you going?”

“I wish to find a map of the Straight,” Seraphina explained. When Olivia rose from her seat, she frowned at the other woman. “ Stay ,” she ordered, earning for herself an even more sour look from her oldest friend. “And finish your game of cards. I’ll only be a moment.”

Laying her hand atop her godmother’s shoulder, Seraphina added in a stage whisper, “You must stay as well and chaperone these two for me, Your Grace, while I find my map.”

Though Sir Tristan ducked his head and cleared his throat, suddenly devoting the entirety of his attention to studying the cards now gripped in his hands, Olivia stared up at her. Her friend’s eyes were like twin amber daggers, promising revenge at the earliest opportunity.

Seraphina presented a sweet smile .

Chuckling, Duchess Edith patted her hand and promised, “I will stay right here and ensure nothing untoward happens, Your Majesty.”

“You two are utterly ridiculous,” Olivia complained as she unhooked her flask from her belt. She took a swig. “I can hear you, you know.”

But Seraphina was already off, threading her way down an aisle between two bookcases. If Drakmor was going to continue to ignore her missives, then she would just have to settle for inviting His Majesty to an in-person meeting.

But just where they could meet was the ultimate question.

She had no desire to sail all the way to Drakmor, just as she knew the king would have no desire to sail all the way to Elmoria. Which left precisely one option available to them.

Nerina Reef—the deserted island their two kingdoms had both claimed for their own since the days of the Great Conquest.

Alyx made for a comforting weight about her shoulders while she walked. By the time she made it halfway through the first aisle of books, though, the winged serpent’s contented purrs shifted to a warning hiss.

Seraphina turned, prepared to chastise Olivia for fleeing from Sir Tristan yet again. But it wasn’t Olivia stalking her through the library. It was Lord Tiberius.

Her stomach fluttered the moment he offered her one of his bright smiles.

“You’ve been avoiding me all week,” the baron accused as he drew in close. “So I finally thought to just come find you myself. ”

Seraphina crinkled her nose at the very idea. “I have not been avoiding you. I have simply been…” But the words stalled on her tongue when Lord Tiberius tilted his head to the side and arched an eyebrow at her. He always looked so terribly roguish when he did that. “Busy,” she breathed before whirling about and returning to her hunt for a map. “We are at war, you know.”

“Yes, well, the last I checked, there is no law against you taking a break every now and then. Not even the queen need spend all her time in council meetings and fretting in the library.”

Seraphina shot Tiberius a playful glare over her shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be off making every young lady of the court swoon and their fathers scowl?”

The question earned a strange smile from Lord Tiberius. “Actually, that is the very matter I wished to speak to you about, Your Majesty. If you have a moment.”

Her breath caught in her throat. She froze in the very midst of rising up on tiptoe to reach the scroll case containing every map of the known seas of Avirel. “You have found a wife at last?” she whispered without even bothering to look at him. She was aware of him, though, standing directly there behind her.

Close. Entirely too close.

Lord Tiberius’s words brushed against the curve of her ear when he softly admitted, “No, not quite,” and she immediately snatched for the scroll case before sidling away from his nearness.

Her stomach churned at the implications of his words.

Seraphina had been dreading this day ever since her coronation—the day her old friend would finally come to her and ask her to find him a wife. It was in her power. As the queen, she had to approve all noble matches.

And she could compel them as well.

But how could he possibly expect her to look another woman in the eyes and command her to marry a perfect stranger? A perfect stranger who was sure to anger many a noble father and set entire Houses against the Crown?

“I can’t possibly, Tiberius,” Seraphina admitted to him, clutching the scroll case against her chest. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to look at the man. “I don’t wish to disappoint you, but—”

Tiberius’s warm chuckle washed over her like a summer breeze. “You are already rejecting me and you haven’t even heard my proposal?”

Seraphina’s attention snapped back his way. Her eyes widened when she saw the small box in his hand. Inside, nestled against the dark velvet, sparkled a glorious opal ring surrounded by sapphires and diamonds.

Dumbly, she stared at it. “What?”

“ You , Sera,” Tiberius whispered, and her silly little heart skipped a full beat. “It’s you I wish to marry.”

In the wake of those words, she quite forgot how to breathe.

Marry… her ?

Her mind scrambled to make sense of this new development. Why now? she wished to ask. There was no point wasting breath voicing such a question, though. She already knew the answer, deep down.

And her heart ached with the truth of it .

Here was her one childhood dream, the single thing she had wanted as a girl—the chance to marry for love rather than duty. The chance to marry him .

But it was only being offered now because now she was queen. Now there was some gain to be had in it.

Tiberius Beaumont was, first and foremost, a businessman. For all that she had loved him once, for all that she admired him still, she recognized that about him. She knew he never made any sort of decision without having analyzed the potential profit first.

The feel of Alyx’s feathers brushing against her throat when the usuru suddenly stretched was enough to snap Seraphina out of her current daze. Still, the baron watched her, clearly waiting for her reaction.

But if he was waiting for her to swoon into his arms, he would be waiting for a good long time further.

“You wish to marry me ? Now? When I must look to Elmoria’s well-being first?” Swallowing, Seraphina looked down at the scroll case in her arms.

She had work to do. Maps to study. Plans to make. She didn’t have time for this…childish nonsense .

And yet, she couldn’t stop the words from pouring out like water when she suddenly asked, “And where was this desire to marry me fourteen years ago when I”—squeezing her eyes shut, she drew in a slow breath—“when I begged you to run away with me?”

Her eyes flashed back open to find Tiberius now frowning when he softly reminded her, “You were already engaged— ”

“To a five-year-old I had never met,” Seraphina snapped as all those old feelings bubbled to the surface again. It had been so long ago. She thought she had forgotten it all.

But clearly, she was wrong.

She’d never asked to be born a woman. She’d never asked to be nothing more than a mere pawn, suitable to be used as nothing more than a bargaining chip in a marriage alliance with Drakmor.

But she had.

And when she'd begged Tiberius to save her from that fate, he had refused. The Beaumonts had more money than they knew what to do with. She and Tiberius could have fled west to the city-states or east to Lothmeer, far beyond her father’s ire and reach, and lived out comfortable lives, even in exile.

Together.

But that wouldn’t have been profitable, now would it?

Seraphina shook her head and took a step backward from him— Tiberius Beaumont , the man she had loved when they were young and stupid and could give themselves over to whimsical fancies. But she had squashed that love long ago. She had set it aside.

Because he had told her to.

Lifting her chin, Seraphina asked, “What happened to, ‘There can only be friendship between us?'”

Tiberius’s lips thinned. “That was a great many years ago, Sera—”

“What happened to, ‘I must marry a woman who will raise my family’s standing, not darken our reputation with the scandal of elopement?'”

Tiberius’s hand suddenly shot out to grasp her shoulder. He held her in place, halting her retreat. “What would you have had me do, Sera? We were children. Your father would have had me executed. Or worse. He would have stripped my family of their lands and title. Do you have any idea how hard my father worked to raise us to this point? From mere merchants to nobility?”

His grip on her tightened when he hissed, “Do you have any idea what it would have meant to him if I had lost it all?”

Seraphina trembled at the baron’s touch. No man ever touched her these days—aside from her godfather’s rare embrace or Father Perero’s blessings. She was far above such things now. She was forbidden.

And yet Tiberius Beaumont grabbed her as if he had any right to do so.

She hated the way a small part of her heart trilled with a desire to know what it would feel like to be properly wrapped up within his arms. But the fear of being discovered swiftly smothered that trill. The gossip would be wretched.

Already, the world sang about the Queen Who Dodged the Ring and the handsome peacock who had seduced her into scorning the King of Drakmor.

It wasn’t true. It wasn’t the least bit true. She had severed her longstanding engagement for her own sake and no one else’s .

But the scandal of it all was far too salacious for anyone outside her inner circle to consider there might be another side to the story.

“Release me, my lord,” Seraphina softly commanded, “and we…we will forget this moment ever happened. You know you are one of my oldest friends, Tiberius. And I do not wish to jeopardize that now, not when I need my friends the most.”

But Tiberius didn’t listen.

“We were children , Sera,” he continued to argue with her instead. “Beholden to the will of our parents. But now we’re grown. Now we’re free to do as our own wills dictate.” The baron scowled. “If you won’t consider me for your own sake, then consider me for the sake of Elmoria. Think of how many mercenaries my gold could hire. Think of how many more ships we could build. You wouldn’t even need Drakmor. You could save Mysai without having to prostrate yourself before the boy - king and beg for his aid.”

Lord Tiberius’s words were, in equal measure, both a siren’s song and a wounding blade. He was right. By the Lord, he was right.

And the fact that he was left a bitter taste on her tongue.

She needed aid from their closest ally, Drakmor, or she needed more gold, whether that be a loan from a banker lord of the city-states or by forging an alliance with House Beaumont itself.

One would sink her country into debt and leave them beholden to a foreign power. The other would anger every one of the Great Houses of Elmoria and thin her list of allies even further.

It was an impossible decision.

Drakmor was still her safest option .

But before she could tell him just that, Seraphina saw movement flash out of the corner of her eye—a blur of iridescent scales and flickering wings—as Alyx suddenly struck out at Lord Tiberius and bit him. The usuru’s fangs sank into the meat of the man’s hand between his thumb and forefinger.

Tiberius’s abrupt scream echoed through the otherwise quiet library.

“She bit me!” the baron shouted as he tried to wrench his hand away from Alyx.

But the usuru held fast.

“Oh…oh my goodness…” Alyx had never bitten anyone before, and Seraphina floundered for a few moments, unsure what to do. Olivia would have known. The madwoman kept a viper for a pet.

“Alyx,” she finally said in her sternest tone, “you will release him at once—”

“She’s not a dog , Sera.”

“Well, stop pulling! You’re going to hurt her.”

“Hurt her ? She’s hurting me .”

A thundering of booted steps preceded a call of, “Your Majesty! Is all well?”

When Seraphina glanced past Lord Tiberius’s shoulder, she spied the captain of her Queensguard, Sir Arkwright, and Sir Tristan both hurrying toward her, with Olivia and Duchess Edith not far behind. Relief flooded her at the sight.

“Olivia! Please! Alyx has bitten His Lordship and I just…” Seraphina trailed off when her Spymaster laughed openly at the predicament, her eyes narrowing .

She knew the dream petal her friend constantly medicated herself with made everything seem a good deal funnier. But she also knew it was probably safe to assume the dream petal was not to blame in this current instance. Olivia and Tiberius had never gotten along, no matter how many times she had tried to build a bridge between them over the years.

“How is this possibly funny?” Lord Tiberius snarled even as Olivia slinked forward and, without a single word spoken to either of them, pinched her fingers on either side of Alyx, just behind the serpent’s head.

The usuru released Tiberius’s hand at once, leaving behind rivulets of blood which dripped onto the polished floor in a solemn patter.

Seraphina winced. “My lord, I am…so terribly sorry.” When next she looked to the baron, she saw the ring was no longer in his hand. He must have tucked it away before the others arrived.

But the proposal that had accompanied that ring still blazed white-hot in her mind.

Duchess Edith gingerly stepped about the growing puddle of blood and drew alongside her. A worried frown etched deep lines between her godmother’s eyebrows. “Goodness, what happened?”

Alyx swiftly squirmed out of Olivia’s hold and fluttered back to Seraphina’s shoulders, where the serpent twined herself about her throat again like a living necklace. Lifting a hand, she stroked her fingers along Alyx’s body—in part to calm her, but also in part to hold her in place just in case the usuru should lunge again .

“I’m not sure,” Seraphina admitted. “But I think we should see His Lordship taken to the infirmary.”

Tiberius shot her a look. “Are usuri poisonous?”

“No,” Olivia drawled, still smiling as though this was all good fun. “I can’t say I’m too surprised, though. Usuri do rather like the taste of ra—”

“Sir Tristan,” Seraphina suddenly called, speaking over her friend before the other woman could finish her thought. “Please escort Lord Tiberius to the infirmary and ensure his hand is seen to.” Looking back to the baron, she added with a frown, “I truly am sorry, and I hope you heal soon. Let us pray it never happens again.”

Though Alyx seemed quite at peace now, back to her contented purring, Tiberius still watched her as if expecting her to strike again. After a few tense seconds, he finally snapped his gaze back to her own and tersely murmured, “Just as I will pray you sincerely consider my offer, Your Majesty.”

Seraphina’s heart quickened. She watched in silence as the man gave her a stiff bow while holding his wounded hand.

And then he turned to go, Sir Tristan at his elbow.

Her eyes followed them all the way out of the library right until the moment Olivia abruptly asked, “What offer?”

Seraphina tightened her grip on her scroll case and turned away from the prying eyes of both her best friend and her godmother. “Nothing,” she hedged in the midst of bustling her way back toward her previously occupied table. “Come, let us study these maps together. ”

But Tiberius’s words—his proposal—harried her with each step she took. She had been so certain that Drakmor was the way forward. But now?

Now her stomach roiled as she settled herself at her table and carefully eased the maps out of the scroll case.

Now she wasn’t so sure.