[Seraphine’s POV]
The great hall had always felt too large to me—vast stone walls, banners hanging like heavy judgments, torches casting tall shadows. That morning it felt larger still, filled with the scrape of armor and the low rumble of voices.
Aldric stood at the center of it all. He looked like a man carved out of war: jaw locked, shoulders taut, and his eyes fixed on the map spread across the long table. Lords, generals, and captains ringed him in a tense semicircle. I kept to the shadows near a pillar, half-hidden behind the tapestry of Eryndale’s old crest. No one noticed me slip in.
Rowan had told me Aldric summoned the war council before dawn. I expected to hear him declare a full assault on Blackharrow—torches lit, armies raised, with the revenge delivered by fire and steel.
Instead, I heard—
“No siege,” Aldric said, his tone clipped but controlled. “No invasion. Blackharrow wants provocation. We will not give it.”
The council stuck in confusion. I went still.
Aldric continued, stabbing a point on the map with two fingers. “We take a small, fast reconnaissance team. Knights who can move without drawing eyes. We track the cart and find the children.”
The children. These words nearly brought me to my knees.
A lord protested, “Sire, they have your heirs—your own blood! Should we not crush them for such an insult?”
Aldric’s voice cut him clean in half. “If they are unharmed,” he said, low and deadly, “I will stay my hand. But if Blackharrow has harmed them in any way—”
The air thickened. Every man in the room held his breath.
“—I will make his territory a wasteland.”
The hall fell into absolute silence. This was not the blind rage I expected. It was more terrifying: a blade sharpened with purpose. A king willing to scorch earth, but not recklessly. It stunned me.
For months I had seen only Aldric the conqueror. Now, for the first time, I saw the man who had learned to hold a kingdom together while pieces fell away. And he was holding himself together now only by threads.
A hand touched my arm.
“Seraphine,” Rowan whispered, pulling me deeper behind the pillar. His face was pale, tight. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I need to hear this,” I said.
“You need to think,” he corrected. “Aldric is focused on Blackharrow. It’s the safest moment for you to flee. If he finds the twins first—”
“I’m not running.”
He sucked in a breath as if I’d struck him. “If you stay, he will—”
“If I flee, I’ll look guilty,” I whispered fiercely. “He will hunt me, and then he will hunt them. I won’t give him cause.”
Rowan clenched his jaw. “He won’t believe anything you say.”
“No,” I said. “But he might believe what I do.”
I stepped from the shadows before Rowan could stop me.
When the council adjourned, Aldric remained hunched over the map, braced on clenched fists. I came forward slowly, my footsteps whispering across the stone. And he sensed me before he saw me.
“Seraphine,” he said, straightening, voice like ice cracking. “Spying now?”
“I was listening.”
“To what?” His eyes were cold, unreadable. “To how quickly I should march to avenge your secrets?”
“Don’t twist this.”
He inhaled sharply. “Then say what you came to say.”
I stepped closer. The map between us felt like another wall I needed to cross.
“I’m going with you,” I said.
His eyes flared. “No.”
“I have a right—”
“You forfeited that right when you lied to my face for months.” His words hit hard, but I didn’t look away.
“You need me,” I insisted. “The twins will respond to my voice. My presence. They know me.”
Aldric’s jaw locked. “Your presence will slow the riders.”
“I’m not some fragile ornament,” I said angrily. “I endured childbirth without medicine or comfort, and you think I cannot sit on a horse?”
His eyes cut to my abdomen. “Your body is still recovering from that childbirth.”
The words were soft—almost pained—but they gutted me more effectively than any accusation.
“You should be in bed,” he said. “Not riding into enemy territory.”
“Those babies are all I have,” I whispered. “I won’t stay behind.” I felt the sting in my eyes, but I forced my voice steady. “You think this is about you? This is about two innocent children trapped in the hands of men who would use them to tear kingdoms apart.”
“And you gave them that opportunity,” he shot back. “You handed them to the wolves, Seraphine.” His expression twitched—regret, maybe—but he didn’t retract the words.
“Aldric- I-”
“Enough,” he said. “You’re not coming. And you won’t leave your chambers until this is finished.”
He turned toward the guards stationed near the hall doors.
“You two,” he called. “Escort the queen back to her rooms. She is not to leave the western wing without my command.”
I shook my head. “Aldric—”
But his face was stone again. “This is not up for debate.”
I opened my mouth, desperate to change his mind, when the hall doors slammed open. A messenger stumbled inside, breathless, mud streaked across his boots.
“Your Majesty!” he gasped. “Forgive me—urgent missive from Blackharrow.”
Aldric froze. “Bring it here,” he ordered.
The messenger hurried forward and handed over the sealed parchment. Aldric broke the wax with a single swipe of his thumb. His eyes moved quickly over the page, and his breath left him in one sharp exhale.
“What does it say?” I demanded.
Aldric didn’t look at me at first. The hall felt suddenly too small and too quiet. When he finally lifted his gaze, something cold and terrible smoldered there.
“He requests a private negotiation,” Aldric said slowly. “And he names the terms.”
“What terms?”
“The sons of Blackthorn,” he said. He looked at me then—really looked—and in that moment, something passed between us. Horror. Understanding. And the undeniable truth:
The twins were no longer simply stolen. They were being weaponized: political pieces in a game I never meant to start.
Aldric folded the letter with controlled precision. “Our children,” he said, voice low, “are now bargaining chips.”
I felt the world drop out from under me. The twins had become the spark that could ignite a kingdom. And Aldric and I—whether united or broken—were now trapped in the center of that fire.