[P] to never do anything by half-measures;

[Seraphina]

S E R A P H I N A

in the absence of everything
ABSTAIN FROM FEAR

--

At his words, she dipped her dead; she offered no response to his half-smile, no ghostly curvature of her charcoal lips, but perhaps her frigid gaze was just a touch warmer than it had been before. “Thank you.” Seraphina was unaccustomed to praise, and she still wasn’t sure how it made her feel. In the past, she had simply existed, floating without purpose or direction. As much as Seraphina liked to think that she had been in control of herself and the course she had been set upon, autonomy had fluttered just out of her grasp – and now she was making choices, she was in the position to shift the course of not only herself but the rest of the Solterrans, as well. She still wasn’t sure what this meant, much less if it was really the freedom that their counterparts in Denocte seemed to be so preoccupied with. It was better that, way, she thought. Ambitions and hopes muddied the water. As she was, her only master was her duty.

She would do what she was tasked to do. Routine, as always, kept her from thinking too deeply about matters that she had no business concerning herself with.

Dedicated. That was one way of describing the citizens of Denocte, she supposed. She supposed that they were dedicated, though to what ends she was unsure – for all the time they spent trying to convince the rest of Novus they were merely misunderstood, they were a court of assassins and spies, of liars and thieves. No, the silver mare did not doubt that they would send a spy to the lands of Day, if not to all the courts…and she didn’t doubt that, with a bit of clever planning, their spy could be smoked out. Solterrans excelled in brute force, naturally, but the desert bred clever, tactical thinkers; it would be the night realm’s mistake to underestimate them. If Denocte were fool enough to send a spy into their midst before the new regime had even provoked them, as, given the night court’s knowledge of Rostislav just after his arrival, she imagined their spy had to have slipped in before he arrived, she had no mercy to offer them. Maxence offered no direct reply to her comment, but it was impossible to miss the grim look that crept across his features; she wondered if she hadn’t been the only one suspicious of Denocte’s eyes in the court.

She didn’t ask. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know if he agreed – and she was even less certain if she wanted to know what he would do with the spy if they caught him.

She nodded reluctantly at his last statement. “As you wish.” He intended to venture into the Night Court alone? Privately, she thought it foolish; she might have applauded his courage, but it had no place in matters of life and death. The last thing that Solterra needed was to be without a Sovereign again, though she supposed that, in his absence, Avdotya would be set to ascend the throne. (That presented another set of problems. She wasn’t sure if the other mare wanted anything to do with court politics, in truth.) She made no attempt to dissuade him from his venture, however. Denocte was far too clever, she imagined, to brazenly attack another court’s Sovereign.

Nevertheless, as she watched Maxence’s receding form, Seraphina couldn’t shake the feeling that she stood in the face of an approaching storm.

@


aaaaand formally complete