Page 95 of A War of Crowns

Olivia pulled from her grasp and flashed a lopsided smile. “Well, of course you did. I’m a delight. Now, tell me everything. We have Drakmor’s aid?”

“Yes, but—”

“Good, good,” Olivia said, not sounding the least bit surprised. “And where is Sir Dacre? I told him to keep close to you.” The other woman narrowed her eyes and huffed out a sigh. “He’s probably retching off the back of the ship, isn’t he?”

Seraphina’s heart sank to her knees. “No, Olivia.”

She had been dreading this moment the entire voyage. What was she to say? What could she possibly say?

“I…” Seraphina began, though she never finished. She trailed off when she saw Olivia freeze in place while staring at something over Seraphina’s shoulder.

She turned and followed Olivia’s gaze; her heart finished its plummet as they watched Sir Tristan’s stretcher being carefully maneuvered down the gangplank. Beneath the midday sun, the knight resembled a corpse.

But she knew he breathed on.

“He’s not dead,” Seraphina hastily reassured her friend, earning a dull-eyed stare from the woman beside her.

“What is he, then?” Olivia asked, a sharp edge to the question.

“He’s…sleeping. No matter what we try, he will not wake.” Olivia pursed her lips even as Seraphina explained, “I had hoped you might think of something.”

Olivia’s gaze followed Sir Tristan as the servants finished easing his stretcher off the ship. They stepped to the side to await a wagon from the Church to be brought around.

“We already sent for Father Perero,” Seraphina explained to Olivia, luring her friend’s attention back her way.

Olivia scowled. “Why? He needs a physician, not a Shepherd.”

“He needs all the help he can get at this point,” Seraphina contradicted while she glanced back to theSilver Lady, to watch her godparents descending in Sir Tristan’s wake. Poor Duchess Edith looked just as ill about the edges as she had felt mere moments ago.

The sight of Duke Percival’s valet walking behind, trying to carry her godfather’s enormous varhound down the gangway, might have lured a chuckle from Seraphina’s throat had not such a dark cloud lingered over the docks. With that reminder of Sir Tristan’s condition hanging over them all, it would have felt disrespectful to laugh.

“Olivia, dear,” Duchess Edith called the moment she stepped off the gangplank. “It’s so good to see you.”

And though her friend looked a good deal more sullen now, still Olivia swooped in to claim an embrace and a cheek kiss from the duchess while muttering, “It sounds as if you all had a bit of excitement on Nerina Reef.”

Duke Percival grunted. “One hopes you had a good deal less here. No doubt you’ve already heard the news?”

“About Sir Dacre?” Olivia asked. “Yes, I heard.”

Duke Percival frowned at that. “No, not that. I mean, yes.Yes, that is a sad bit of business.”

Seraphina presented a tight smile when her godfather shot her a look over the rim of his spectacles and continued on with, “I was more referring to the fact that Aldric Hargrave is apparently still alive and was reinstated as a Prince of Drakmor shortly before Her Majesty proposed a marriage alliance with him and promised to one day name him king.”

Olivia slowly swiveled back her way, moving with all the woodenness of a carved figurine. Seraphina reluctantly met her friend’s gaze.

Blinking the once, Olivia asked, “What?”

“It’s a long story,” Seraphina murmured under her breath before a horse’s sudden scream pulled her attention back to the third ship moored nearby. Her eyes traced the path of a great black stallion the dock workers were now trying to coax off the vessel while she promised, “I’ll tell you later. But let’s be off for now.”

A growing sense of urgencygnawed at the pit of Seraphina’s stomach.

She needed to be away from here. She needed to be properly home and to relieve the Lord Exchequer of his duties as the temporary Steward of Elmoria. She needed to learn of what all had happened in her absence and to bring her Privy Council the news.

It was that last thought that saw her lips twisting with distaste as the carriage driver brought the coach around.

She was all too happy to share the good news—that King Edmund had already authorized his troops to mobilize before they left Nerina Reef. A letter by way of usuru had been sent immediately after the general assembly.

Soon, the siege on Mysai would be at an end.

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