Page 84 of A War of Crowns

“And what might that plan be, if we may ask?” Duchess Edith lightly pressed, drawing Seraphina’s attention back that way with the question.

Seraphina offered a weary smile and explained, “We’re going to play the strongest card we have.”

Chapter twenty-four

Seraphina

Dawn came too swiftly.

But when it came, Seraphina was finally ready.

“I still wish you would eatsomething,” Duchess Edith murmured under her breath as they all settled into their seats. Together, they waited for the final event of the peace summit to begin. The general assembly. “You need your strength.”

Seraphina shook her head. “I have strength enough.” She didn’t think she could eat anything, anyway. Her stomach was far too full of butterflies.

Most of her court had arrived already, and the air hummed with the murmur of their pleasant conversation. Tsukiko and her Redguard were likewise present, though they sat in a central location within the room. No doubt for the sake of neutrality.

Beyond the confines of the pavilion, morning still broke across a cloudless sky. Alyx winged beneath that painted canvas, surely eager to soak up the last of Nerina Reef’s warmth before they sailed for Elmoria’s shores once more. They weren’t supposed to leave until the morrow, when the summit formally concluded.

Seraphina intended to set sail the moment the general assembly ended.

“Where are these Drakmori?” Duke Percival complained. “We were supposed to begin some time ago.”

Seraphina masked a yawn behind her hand and observed, “His Majesty does seem fond of his dramatic entrances.”

Exhaustion weighed heavily upon her. She hadn’t slept the night before. And yet her excitement far outweighed her sleepiness. Seraphina felt like a girl trying to control herself in the hours leading up to a Wintertide gift exchange.

Except the present was from herself to herself.

And the gift within would be the look on King Edmund’s face once he realized what she had done.

When an excited chirp from Alyx disrupted the pleasant murmur of conversation within the pavilion, every muscle in Seraphina’s back drew taut. Her head turned. She spied the dark-scaled serpent now flying alongside her own.

He had arrived.

The Crow.

The blare of trumpets heralded the king and dowager queen’s entrance in the next moment. Seraphina rose to her feet with the rest of her court out of respect for her fellow monarchs. But hereyes skimmed right past King Edmund and his mother parading past. She didn’t care about their matching emerald silks, nor their flashing jewels.

She was much more interested in the elder Hargrave, who trudged in their wake, looking like nothing more than a bodyguard in his customary black armor.

Just the night before, the man had seemed incapable of keeping his one-eyed gaze off her. Yet in that moment, he refused to even glance her way in passing. He walked by her as if she wasn’t even there.

As if she was unworthy of his attention.

Seraphina set her jaw and jerked her own gaze away.

It did not matter. In the grand scheme of things, it did not matter what Aldric Hargrave did, nor what he thought. He was not even a player in the game.

He was merely a card from King Edmund’s hand that had already been played.

And now it was her turn to make a move.

It took every ounce of her willpower to keep a smile from curving her lips as she retook her seat and looked toward where her Master of Ceremonies stood, waiting to call the general assembly to order.

Her moment was almost at hand.

“And now, Your Majesties, my lords and ladies,” her Master of Ceremonies, the Viscount of Arlund, announced, “it has come time for us to discuss the terms of the new treaty.”

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