Page 130 of A War of Crowns

Sir Tristan Dacre.

“Mistress Olivia,” Sir Tristan gasped as he slid to a stop in front of her. “You must come with me at once.”

Olivia bit the inside of her cheek and ignored the ridiculous way her cheeks warmed at the knight’s sudden nearness. But the moment she stopped moving, the fire in her left leg roared back to life and chased away all other thoughts. She happily embraced that Pain rather than entertain whatever nonsensical notion she had been about to think.

Already, the effects of Minerva’s poison were taking hold of her heart; it hammered wildly within her chest.

“Why?” she snapped before asking the far more important question of, “What are you doing out of bed?” followed by, “Are you even supposed to be running?”

She scowled at the man. Whole weeks of her life she had wasted helping him get back on his feet and there he was, determined to undo all that hard work. They still didn’t fully understand just what had happened to him. Nor did they know what was causing the agonizing headaches he now had to endure on a weekly basis.

Within the dimness of the corridor, he looked terrible. Pale.Sick.

But rather than answer her latter questions, Sir Tristan set his jaw and whispered in response to the first, “It’s Her Majesty.”

Olivia cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes.

Though there was no one about to hear them, Sir Tristan kept his voice quiet when he explained, “There’s been an assassination attempt—”

Seraphina.

Without thinking, Olivia broke into a dead sprint and left Sir Tristan standing there in the corridor. Her satchel jangled and thumped against her back as she ran, utilizing what precious moments with the viper poison she had left.

Running was no longer a luxury she could afford on a usual day. But with the venom, for once she had the strength needed to manage it.

She pressed her fingers against her left wrist as she flew down the corridors, keeping track of her wildly racing pulse.

With each step, her left leg burned. Her hip ached. The pain of trying to use that nearly useless limb for such exertion would eventually end up in her lower back. She knew this from experience.

But that would be a problem for future Olivia.

Present Olivia needed to see the queen.

An assassination attempt.Each of those words clawed at her, threatening to rip her racing heart straight from her chest with each swipe. Assassination attempts wereherpurview.

She should have known about such a thing. She should have been the first to know. She should have prevented it.

But she hadn’t. She didn’t.

Olivia shoved that thought aside as she ran. She’d have plenty of time to blame herself later.

When she finally arrived at Her Majesty’s private wing, Sir Tristan in hot pursuit, Olivia was greeted by the sight of nearly the entire Queensguard buzzing about outside those chambers.

She slowed only long enough for her own knightly escort to bark out a simple, “Make way,” before she continued on through the queen’s receiving chamber and sitting room, and finally into her bedchamber.

Relief washed over her when she saw Seraphina sitting at her table, pale yet alive, bundled up in a dressing gown with her usuru in her lap. Rogue lay on the floor at her feet.

Duke Percy, Duchess Edith, and the queen’s personal physician,EugeneBonagethe snake oil hawker himself, were already fussing over her as well. Sir Arkwright stood grimly by the door.

“What happened?” she asked the moment Sir Arkwright shut the door behind her, barring Sir Tristan from following her inside.

But that was for the best. He needed to rest.

And she needed to work.

“I’m fine,” Seraphina promised on a whisper, though she certainly didn’t look fine. “I was only scratched.”

“You shouldn’t have been scratched at all,” Duchess Edith snarled with all the protective energy of a mother usuru before she shot Olivia’s cane a glance. Thankfully, the queen’s godmother didn’t remark upon it or otherwise draw attention, though.

---