Page 62 of A War of Crowns

Oracle Tsukiko walked alongside the king, a vision as ever in her white and gold veils. But the woman on King Edmund’s opposite side gave Seraphina pause.

“Surely that is not the dowager queen,” she murmured aside to Duke Percival and Duchess Edith. The raven-haired beauty promenading with the king looked more of an age to be his sister than his mother.

So far as she knew, though, Edmund Hargrave didn’t have a sister.

But before yesterday, she would have sworn he no longer had a brother either.

Duke Percival considered the woman across the green for just a moment and muttered, “Unfortunately for us, that does appear to be Charlotte Hargrave, yes.”

Seraphina balked. “But she isfar too young.”

Duchess Edith sighed. “You must keep in mind the dowager queen was only eighteen when she was married to King Warwick, Your Majesty.”

Eighteen? The very thought turned Seraphina’s stomach. King Warwick would have been in his forties at the time of their union.

Her heart went out to the Drakmori woman when the king, dowager queen, and Oracle Tsukiko halted in front of Elmoria’s royal box. Her attention was only for the king, though, when he hooded his umber eyes and presented her with an inviting smile—the sort of smile she imagined a cat might gift to a wounded bird.

“Your Majesty,” he called. “At long last, we meet.” His smile took on a more mischievous cast when he suggested, “Won’t you come down and greet an old fiancé with a kiss?”

Seraphina quirked an eyebrow before lifting her fingers to her mouth. She blew him a kiss instead. “There is your kiss, Your Majesty!” she called back, relishing the look of surprise he so desperately tried to hide in the wake of her rejection. “Though I fear I dare not come down.” Leaning forward, she braced her hands against the railing and confided to the king, “After the latest surprise Drakmor has dealt us, one can only wonder at what others you might yet have in store.”

Though the dowager queen huffed out a quiet breath and looked away, clearly studying the faces of the Elmorian courtiers who still filtered into the tourney grounds, the king but deepened his smile for her.

His right cheek dimpled with the expression.

“You can only mean my brother, Your Majesty. How terribly sorry I am to have caught you unawares.” Placing his right hand over his heart, he bowed his head and added, “But just as Elmoria has brought her champion to the tournament, so have I brought mine.”

Seraphina raised both her eyebrows at that. Was the Crow truly the best Drakmor had to offer?

As if merely thinking about the man was enough to summon him forth, she soon spied the Crow in question in the distance. He rode a massive black destrier, with all twelve of the fighting men her Master of Ceremonies had mentioned riding just behind.

Just as before, the man was dressed like a mere common mercenary in a suit of black armor she could only imagine was roasting him alive. He wore a black eye patch and a scowl to match.

While she watched, the dark-scaled usuru Alyx had taken such a liking to suddenly abandoned its play in favor of swooping toward the Crow. She blinked when the creature promptly tangled itself about the man’s shoulders, as Alyx so often did to her.

She had yet to meet anyone else who kept an usuru for a pet.

When the Crow’s one good eye abruptly seared a path toward her, though, she looked away and returned her attention to the younger Hargrave.

Seraphina gifted the king another of her smiles. “I did not realize one must be remade a prince to serve as Drakmor’s champion,” she sweetly commented.

King Edmund’s smile was just as saccharine when he countered, “I did not realize the titles were mutually exclusive.”

Seraphina held the king’s gaze for a time before she finally shifted her attention to the dowager queen and prompted, “Your Majesty, I have a present for you.”

Charlotte Hargrave’s eyes were as sharp as obsidian blades when they cut back her way. “A present for me, dear child? You did not have to.”

Child? Seraphina was less than a decade younger than she.

“It was my pleasure to do so,” she insisted with another smile. Reaching to the side, she accepted the gift from Duchess Edith. “I am so terribly honored to meet you at last.” Leaning further over the railing, she held out her present for the dowager queen to take.

Charlotte merely stared at her for a few moments more before finally accepting the gilt-inlaid box. “It is a rare treat to meet in the flesh the first woman ever to sit a throne of Avirel,” the other queen murmured at last. “Though from one woman to another, my dear, might I advise you invest in a larger parasol?”

Charlotte Hargrave’s gaze flickered across her in cold study when she added, “The one you have now doesn’t seem capable of protecting…all of you. And it’d besucha shame to ruin your complexion.”

Whatever sympathy Seraphina had felt for the dowager queen and her circumstances were doused in an instant. She forced another smile to her lips.

“Thank you, Your Majesty, for your wise counsel,” Seraphina managed through the tight set of her jaw.

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