Seraphim. Michele Hauf

after a few more gesticulations and widemouthed gasping, couldn’t express his obvious dismay with any more than, “I’m just so sorry.”

      Sera rubbed a hand over her scalp, assuming his chagrin to be directed at her hair. “’Twill grow back.”

      The sound of her own voice, abraded and sore, was an odd thing. She did not recognize the deep rasping tones. New, shiny scar-flesh had begun to appear beneath the scabbed wound on her neck. Little pain lingered. Save that which seeped from the tear in her soul.

      “But…it’s so—oh—Mother of Malice! Why did you command me do such a thing in the dark of night, my lady? It is hideous! You look a sheep shorn by a swillpot. It juts here and there and—Heaven forgive me!”

      His dismay made her smile. Briefly. Soon as she realized her swing toward mirth, Sera checked herself and drew on a frown. Much easier lately to touch sadness than any sort of joy.

      “It is but hair, Bernard.”

      “Baldwin is my name, my lady, I have it on very good authority from my mother and father.”

      “If you insist.”

      The man was not averse to correct her; nor should he be. His forthright manner was one of many reasons Sera had invited him along on her quest. Baldwin Ortolano would do whatever the situation required to survive, be it honor-bound or criminal. A favorable ally to have.

      There was also his plea not to be left behind at the castle d’Ange in the blood-curdling wake of battle. Sera could not have ridden away, leaving the teen alone, fearful, and so lost. Especially when she felt virtually the same. Alone, lost—but not fearful. Never choose fear.

      One final scrub over her lighter, choppier coif brushed off a scatter of half-melted snow. “It will grow back.” Her words did not work to cease the man’s sorry head shaking. “Come, Baldwin, I find it quite refreshing. I have lived four and twenty years, each morning being a struggle to pull a comb through such a long tangle of hair. So many treacherous curls, all coiling and slipping over my…shoulders.”

      She made sure her sigh was as inaudible as possible. So much had been lost in so little time. Now, the last vestments of woman had been shorn from her head, making her more an anomaly than she had ever before felt.

      But regret would not serve her mission.

      “Now, you see, I’ve only to give my head a shake and it is done.”

      “’Tis a fine circumstance we’ve not a mirror in our supplies.”

      Sera yanked her leather hood up over her head. Lined with thinning white rabbit fur, the hood provided a bit of softness to ease the mental pain. “I shall keep it covered if it vexes you to look upon it.”

      “That is all well and good, but I fear your reaction when finally you do come upon a mirror. You were always so beautiful, Seraphim—”

      A twinge of regret spiked in her breast. “The removal of my hair has made me ugly?”

      “Oh, er…nay.”

      Sera straightened her neck, lifting her head regally. Insistent revenge pounded back the regret with relentless gall. The luxury of her past was no more. Tomorrow only promised trial, which must be faced with iron will. “I should hope so. As you have said, I cannot risk anyone discovering I am a woman.”

      Mustn’t allow any more time to ruefulness. Last night had been for Henri de Lisieux, her fiancé. Five days ago, in memory of her brother Antoine, Satanas de Morte had fallen. The future held justice for her mother and father.

      And Seraphim d’Ange.

      “With your hood up and those smudges of dirt on your face, I wager you shall pass as a man in the next village,” Baldwin offered. “But you mustn’t bat those long lashes or allow any man to look upon you too closely.”

      She felt for her dagger, secured at her waist inside a thin leather baldric. “You could cut my lashes, as well.”

      “Don’t be silly, I would blind you in an instant. What a fine pair we’d make, the blind black knight and the postulant-cum-squire-former-toad-eater, traveling the countryside seeking to extinguish the minions of Lucifer de Morte.”

      The black knight. At both battles Sera had heard the moniker. Issued in awed wonder as she’d exacted her revenge with a mighty swing of her blade and then, mission accomplished, had ridden off into the darkness.

      The armor she’d plucked from the dead body lying in the bailey of her family’s castle had been of smoked steel, dark enough to be considered black. With little time to pick and choose, she’d lifted a set of scaled gauntlets and slid them over her blood-stained fingers, following with a breast plate. It was the only armor that would fit her frame; tall and slender, with broad shoulders and remarkably muscled arms. She hadn’t the stout torso or powerful, heavy thighs of a spurred knight. But on more than one occasion Antoine had teasingly accused her of hailing from a lost tribe of Amazons.

      Indeed, the lot of d’Anges were a hardy breed. Sera had gotten her height and persistent work ethic from her father; her thick black hair, blue eyes, and undaunted pride from her mother. Years of practicing in the lists alongside her father’s knights had gifted Sera with the arm strength to swing her sword and deliver the killing blow.

      Ah! Two weeks ago she would have never thought such a thing. The killing blow? ’Twas a term used only by knights and thieves and, well…men. Much as Sera had always embraced her power, her freedom and lack of feminine wiles, her mind-set had been irreversibly altered by one vicious act.

      And she would not rest until that act was served the justice it deserved.

      “I don’t like it,” Baldwin muttered. “Not at all.”

      “I have already told you I shall keep my hood upon my head. Cease with your whining, squire.”

      “I am not a squire, I am a postulant. I’ve subscribed to the Catholic church. Get that straight. And it is not your damn hair I am whining about!”

      Sera chuckled, her breath freezing before her in a manner to match the clouds that puffed from Gryphon’s nostrils. “For a man who wishes to serve the church you’ve quite the cache of oaths spilling from that mouth.”

      “Aye, and I’ve paid penance for them a thousand times over. I cannot control my tongue. There are just so many words, and at times so very few of them to express my feelings. I try to control it. I know the Lord cringes with every damn—every bloody—every—”

      “Squire!”

      “Forgive me, my lady.”

      “It is, my lord,” she corrected with a stern rasp. With a painful jerk of her head, she shot him a steely look. “Don’t forget it, either.”

      He ceased what might have been another tirade at her casting of the eye. She’d honed the evil eye to an art form on the lackwit scullery maids that dallied more than dutied in her father’s home. That, and the mongoose eye always served her silence when she wished it.

      “Now, pray tell what it is you do not like besides this new coif with which you’ve gifted me?”

      Sera slowed Gryphon and Baldwin sidled up beside her. His pale blond lashes were frosted with tiny icicles. “What you have become,” he said boldly. “What you are becoming. This is not you, Seraphim. You have killed two men—”

      “I know what I have done.” She heeled Gryphon in the flank and the gelding clopped two paces ahead of the squire. “It is what is necessary,” she called back, the deep grit in her voice gifting her with an authority more suited to a man. “I am adapting. A week ago my soul was torn to shreds and stolen away by Lucifer de Morte. With that evil triumph in hand he stole my family’s souls, as well. I will not rest until I can reclaim what was taken from me. An eye for an eye, squire.”

      Gryphon dug heavy hooves into the snow and pounded ahead, leaving the shivering squire in a wake of fine, diamond-glittering