Page 106 of A War of Crowns

“Iwas thinking we should throw a ball,” Edith suggested, studying Seraphina’s face in profile.

But her goddaughter had eyes only for the view of Goldreach gliding past beyond the carriage window. She didn’t so much as blink in reply to those words.

Perhaps she hadn’t heard.

The past week, ever since they had first returned home from Nerina Reef, Seraphina had been prone to long silences and vacant stares. Gone were her easy smiles and bright laughter.

Their absence made Edith’s heart ache.

Pursing her lips, she gently teased, “Perhaps we might also hire some dancing pigs and juggling bears for entertainment.”

Seraphina turned a hollow-eyed stare her way and finally asked, “What?”

“A ball, darling,” Edith repeated on a softer note as she reached over to take her goddaughter’s hand in her own. “Next month. For your birthday.”

Seraphina’s nose crinkled in a way that made her look so much like her mother, Silvie. “I amnotabout to authorize the Lord Exchequer spending money on something so frivolous.”

Edith bit back a chuckle. Seraphina might have looked like Silvie, but she most certainly sounded like Percy. “His Grace warned me you would say that…which is why I wish to pay for it myself. As my birthday present to you.”

When her goddaughter looked away again, Edith leaned forward and pressed, “I know you don’t feel like celebrating, but it’s important for you to celebrate all the same.”

“What is there to celebrate?” Seraphina gloomily questioned as the carriage rumbled to a halt outside the grand cathedral of Goldreach.

It was a glorious piece of ancient architecture, fitted with airy spires and stained-glass windows. The afternoon sun sparkled off the latter, making each pane glitter in the light. There was something terribly bittersweet about those windows, given the scenes they depicted.

The once numerous dragons of Avirel, winging through the heavens. Before the Enemy corrupted them all and led them to bathe the world in fire.

Before they nearly sundered the world.

Edith accepted aid from the footman who opened the door for them, and she stepped out into the sunshine while answering, “There is your success with the summit we still need to celebrate. And the fact that there is to be a royal wedding…at some point. Perhaps.”

Seraphina twisted her lips to the side and dryly quipped, “And the fact that I am stepping foot into a house of the Lord for the first time in months?”

“Well, yes,” Edith agreed with a quiet laugh. “But I wasn’t going to say anything about that. You’ve been…a bit busy.”

“That hardly feels like a good excuse.”

“Well, there’s never agoodexcuse, my love,” Edith whispered under the hustle and bustle of the busy square. “We make time for the things that are important to us. But we must remember always that the Lord is not confined to mere buildings of glass and stone. He is everywhere. All around us. He meets us where we need him most.”

Her Majesty’s Queensguard, in their blue and gold livery, pressed in close on all sides as she and Seraphina made their way through the bustling square. The unspoken threat of the weaponry they carried kept the common people of Goldreach at bay.

But those people’s curious eyes followed their queen all the way up the marble steps and through the great double doors into the cool shadows of the cathedral’s interior beyond. Especially when that iridescent usuru of hers swooped down from the cloudless sky above to tangle itself about Seraphina’s shoulders with an ear-splitting shriek.

Edith winced at the sound and hurried to keep up. “And might I add you are doing an excellent job at being queen, Your Majesty.The mere fact that youarequeen deserves a celebration of its own.”

Seraphina didn’t seem so sure. “It hardly feels like I am doing a good job,” she murmured under her breath. “I feel as though I am making mistakes at every turn. And…” But whatever else the young woman intended to say simply trailed into silence.

Edith laid a hand on her goddaughter’s arm and insisted, “Well, your mother would be proud of you. As I am proud of you.”

Seraphina’s brisk steps finally drew to a pause at that. “Would she truly?” the queen asked, flashing her a glance.

Edith’s heart threatened to crumble into motes of dust at the sight of defeat shining in her goddaughter’s eyes. “Of course,” she whispered. “I knew your mother better than anyone, and I can say with the utmost certainty that she would…”

Trailing off, Edith wet her lips and studied Seraphina’s face in the light spilling in through the cathedral’s many windows.

The queen was the very picture of her mother as if the Lord had decided He simply had to craft another. Such was Silvia de la Croix’s beauty.

Except where Silvie had been spun from sweetness—raised in a quiet hamlet, far away from life at court, by parents who loved her dearly—Seraphina had been forged in the fires of a childhood spent in Goldreach. Her spirit had been sharpened on a whetstone of lies and intrigue.

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