Page 73 of A War of Crowns

She had to think.

Her ladies would be upon her soon. Her guards would be upon her even sooner. And her godparents would be upon her even sooner than that.

But right at that very moment, she just needed to be alone. She didn’t need anyone fussing over her. She didn’t need anyone touching her. She didn’t need anyone asking her what was wrong.

Knowing her people would look for her within her own pavilion, she veered off the path and stumbled into a copse of trees edging their makeshift village. Sticks and rocks pricked at her stocking-clad feet, but she ignored the pain in favor of diving deeper into the shadows.

She stopped only when she was certain she could not be seen from the path. Bracing her back against the nearest tree trunk, she tried to catch her breath.

Edmund thought he had her backed into a corner. He thought he had her pinned. He thought he had her bested.

But he thoughtwrong.

All she needed was a few hours alone with her thoughts and she would think of a way out of this. She always thought of something.

But she didn’t have a few hours. She had a few minutes at most before someone found her out there in the dark.

Or perhaps even less time than that.

“I am beginning to find your utter lack of self-preservation bewildering,” rasped a low voice from somewhere behind her, and Seraphina whirled to locate the speaker while fumbling for her bodice dagger.

“A lady may be a damsel, but she should never allow herself to be put in distress,”Duchess Edith had often told her when she was younger.

She was quite glad for that advice right at that moment as she turned to face the Crow, her blade in hand. He lurked in the darkness behind her, mounted on that monstrously large destrier of his again. Man and horse loomed over her, sending her heart racing.

“Comeanycloser and I will gouge out your other eye,” she snarled to the man.

The Crow did not listen, though. He but nudged his horse in closer, causing Seraphina to stumble backward to keep from being crushed by the beast. Her back thumped against another tree trunk.

“We both know you won’t,” he rumbled, quietly calling her bluff.

“What do you want, then?” She held up her dagger so he could see she was armed. Not that she knew how to use it beyond the basics. Duchess Edith had insisted on that much. But Seraphina had always preferred books to blades. “Have you come to beat mewithin an inch of my life as well?” Lifting her chin, she sneered, “Or have you come to gloat like your brother?”

He cocked his head to the side in the wake of her words, though it was several long moments more before he rasped out a simple answer of, “No.”

The memory of how the tournament had ended suddenly flashed to the forefront of her mind, leaving her nauseated all over again. “You nearly killed him,” she whispered around the taste of bile burning in the back of her throat. “You nearly killed my friend.”

She had been so sure Sir Tristan was dead just a few hours ago. He had lain so still. But Tsukiko had promised he would be all right.

Even though he had yet to wake, she had promised he would live.

But that didn’t excuse Aldric Hargrave from the fact that he had struck a man not wearing a helm with such force he had pitched him into an unnatural slumber.

Seraphina sneered, “How could you possibly think I would wish to marry a man like you after such a display?”

The Crow’s answer to that was immediate. His words slithered toward her through the darkness on a low hiss of, “Let us not pretend as if you ever would have wished to marry a man like me in the first place.”

“And yet you still follow me into the darkness to press your suit—”

He barked out a laugh—a harsh, discordant sound. “Do not flatter yourself. I was here already when you came crashing into the trees like a drunkard.”

She shifted her grip on her dagger and frowned at the man. “Then you may leave me, Crow. I need to think.”

Silence was his only reply for several moments before he dully questioned, “You can’t think unless you’re alone?”

Seraphina snapped back, “I cannot think when there is amonsterlurking in the darkness with me.”

Though she could not make out much of his features within the darkness, what with so little moonlight filtering down through the leaves, she could see plainly enough the way the Crow leaned toward her to snarl, “I would rather be a monster than a fool.”

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