Page 39 of A War of Crowns

Seraphina tried to conjure a smile for her friend and godmother, but smiles were entirely too much effort at the moment. “What time is it?” she repeated between frantic gulps of water. Her throat felt raw, as if she had swallowed a mouthful of burning coals.

It was Duke Percival who finally answered her with a brisk, “It’s late. You’ve been out for hours,” in the midst of hurrying to her bedside.

“Late?” Seraphina’s eyes flashed between all those gathered. They all watched her as if expecting her to crumble into ash at any moment.

All save the Oracle.

She couldn’t even begin to decipher the emotion shining from the prophetess’s silver gaze.

“How late?” Seraphina asked, looking back to her godfather. “My dinner with the ambassador—”

Duchess Edith gently interrupted, “—has been canceled.”

“What?” Returning her glass of water to Olivia’s hand, Seraphina flung back the blankets piled atop her and made to climb out of bed. Her body trembled with each movement. Her muscles ached as if she were recovering from a fever.

But she ignored it. She ignored it all. She hadthingsto do.

“No,” Seraphina insisted. “We must move forward with this peace summit, now more than ever. I will see Ambassador Ezzo at once.”

Olivia laid a hand on her shoulder. “It’s the middle of the night. Your meeting will have to wait until tomorrow.”

Tomorrow?

Seraphina thinned her lips. “But Mysai needs our helpnow.”

Could her people breathe in that smog? Was it slowly smothering them one by one? She shook her head and swatted Olivia’s hand aside. There was no point in agonizing over all the unknowns.

Mysai needed action, not anxiety.

“Please,” Duchess Edith implored when Seraphina finally struggled to her feet. She carefully avoided the puddle of her own sick while her godmother pleaded, “You’re unwell. You should rest.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted, even though she didn’t feel fine. She felt…odd. But there was no point in telling her godparents that and worrying them further. “I must have just fainted from the vision.”

“Vision?” Duke Percival echoed with a frown. “What vision?”

Some of the exhaustion melted from the deep lines of Father Perero’s face when he asked, “You’ve had a vision, my child?”

Seraphina trailed a slow look toward the Oracle, who now stood in a corner of the chamber with her Redguard, a mere silent watcher. “…You did not tell them?”

“Tell us what?” her godfather asked, a bit more gruffly this time.

Oracle Tsukiko’s voice was as soft as ever, and yet each note filled the room when she murmured, “It was not my story to tell.”

Seraphina swallowed and glanced toward Physician Bonage. Like everyone else in the room, he watched her most attentively, clearly waiting for what she’d say next. “Physician Bonage, you may go.”

The man protested, “But, Your Majesty, I must ensure you’re well—”

“I’m quite well now. You may leave.”

Seraphina tracked the physician through her bedchamber until the door finally closed behind him. Only then did she look back to her closest advisors—the only family she now possessed—and confessed to them, “I saw…a vision.”

It was strange even uttering such a thing aloud. Who was she, to see such things? She still didn’t understand why the Lord had shown her what He did.

What could she possibly do to stop such a calamity?

And what did the chained crow represent? What did it mean?

Her godfather’s lips twisted into a frown as he growled to the Oracle, “You had us thinking she had fallen ill. We thought it was another outbreak of the wasting sickness—”

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