Page 148 of A War of Crowns

But before that moment came, a hand suddenly shot out and gripped her forearm. A hand bound by heavy chains about its wrist.

“Aldric?”

Seraphina blinked against the swirling sands stinging at her eyes and lifted her head just enough to stare at the sight of the Crow of Drakmor now kneeling in front of her. He looked as he had the night prior—wearing naught but his nightshirt and a pair of trousers, with blood soaking the fabric from collar to hem.

Except now it was he bound in chains, just as the one-eyed crow had been.

“What?” he asked her over the howling of the wind. “What do you want from me, woman?”

What did she want from him?

Nothing, she wanted to scream. She wanted nothing—nothing beyond the ability to finally be free of that vision. Free of all the uncertainty that now haunted her night and day.

But perhaps asking what she wanted from him was the wrong question. Perhaps it had never been a question of what she wanted at all.

Perhaps it was a question of what sheneeded.

That realization left a great bitterness smoldering on Seraphina’s tongue. She didn’t want to say it. She would rather be back in thatpavilion on Nerina Reef with Edmund, enduring the feel of his fingertips clawing against her bare back, than say it.

In her silence, the wind howled louder. The thunder rumbled closer. And Aldric’s touch began to recede.

His hand loosened its grip on her. His fingers withdrew.

“No,” Seraphina bit out through clenched teeth. “Wait. Please.”

But there was no more waiting. The end of the world would not wait for her.

Like the storm-tossed waves of the Straight, that darkness suddenly crashed down upon her and Aldric both, snuffing out what meager light was left by which she might see. He was lost to her sight. She could barely feel him.

Within that darkness, she drowned.

And Aldric drowned right along with her.

It was too late. But still, she finally swallowed her pride and whispered, “I need you.”

In the wake of those three little words, a single pinprick of light flickered into being within the inky nothingness. It was such a small flame. Weak.

Within the harsh gale, it flickered, on the verge of being snuffed out at any moment.

“…What?” her Crow’s voice rumbled from the darkness, barely audible over the howling of the wind.

Seraphina bowed her head. Her stomach roiled. Shame burned its way across her cheeks. She had always wanted to do this on her own. She had wanted to save her people by herself. But now, sherealized she couldn’t. She simply wasn’t strong enough to do this on her own.

What did she know of war? What did she know of being a queen?Nothing. No one had prepared her for this life.

But there before her knelt the Crow of Drakmor. One of the most dangerous men alive. Infamous. Deadly. Underestimated by all.

The king who was meant to be, but never was.

At last, sheSawhim.

But it still pained her. It still burned like the very heat of the Lord’s light when she parted her lips and repeated, “Ineedyou, Aldric Hargrave.”

Before the last word dripped from her tongue, the vision was gone, and she was back in her throne room, kneeling on the marble floor. With him.

Aldric.

She was aware of her family surrounding her as well. As if from a great distance, she heard her godparents, Olivia, and Sir Tristan all asking if she was all right. She felt their collective worry, like an oppressive weight about her shoulders. Or perhaps that was simply Alyx.

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