A Marriage of Swords
But the image stayed with her: the broken prince clinging to the frozen one.
Where blood painted the walls and madness as the only salvation.
The next morning, a different crisis arrived.
It came in the form of a mud-spattered, exhausted messenger in the colors of a western trade baron, collapsing in the main courtyard. The news spread through the castle servants like wildfire, reaching the ladies’ solar just as the royal bell began to toll a slow, ominous rhythm.
“Pirates,” Adelaide whispered, her face ashen. “In the Serpent’s Strait. They’ve taken the Silver Dawn, a merchant vessel out of Cresthaven. They’re flying the Red Jolly.”