Seraphim. Michele Hauf

away to retrieve—most likely—more inedible meat.

      In the main room of the tavern, two knights who had been quietly exchanging defense instruction, now clanged weapons in a good-natured display of method. Metal rivets studded the leather jerkin of the barrel-chested fighter and clinked with the misplaced touch of a sword. The moonlight knight didn’t pay them a glance. Instead, his dark velvet eyes remained fixed on…Sera.

      She quickly looked away and drew a finger along her crusted trencher, as if the food now promised great gastronomic delight. “He’s looking at us,” she hissed to the squire.

      Baldwin, already breaking his rye trencher in half and preparing to devour that as well, glanced to the dark recess at the back of the tavern, making great display in turning his body completely, so anyone who might be looking would know his intentions.

      “Don’t do that,” she pleaded hoarsely.

      “He’s not looking at us,” Baldwin replied around a bite of bread. “He’s looking at you.”

      “Me? N-no. Really?” The damask- and silk-clad damsel that Sera had been but a week earlier shivered beneath the chain mail and scars and butchered coif. To capture the eye of such a dashing man—was no longer thinkable. “Let’s be off, Bertrand.”

      “I’m not finished.”

      “Finish it in the stables. Our horses need tending.” She stood, but the squire made it clear he had no intention of moving until every last crumb of the gravy-soaked trencher swam in his gut.

      Sera cast a sideways glance toward the knight sitting in the darkness. He inclined his head in acknowledgment at the pair.

      “Aren’t you going to answer that?” Baldwin wondered.

      “I did nod,” she lied. “Hurry. Methinks you are making me wait apurpose.”

      “Dominique San Juste!” A gray-bearded man, dressed in olive hosen and wool cloak, crossed the room and set his tankard on the table before the moonlight knight.

      Dominique? Sera toyed with the name in her mind as she placed a hand on Baldwin’s shoulder, staying him for the moment. ’Twas a fine enough name, honorable, elegant and…beguiling.

      The one who’d called out the name was a burly old man with young blue eyes flashing above his long beard. A scar pinched the corner of his left eye shut and dipped to his nose. ’Twas a match to the scar that puckered the flesh on Sera’s throat.

      “Good to see your ugly face again, man.”

      Sera had to close her eyes and concentrate most fiercely to hear Dominique’s reply.

      “You say Abaddon de Morte has plans to ride on Clermont in two days?”

      “That was the word that blows on the wind,” the scarred man said. “Was, that is. There’s serious doubt the Demon of the North will leave his lair now with half his numbers obliterated by the black knight. They had been sent to aid Mastema’s siege, and did but a handful return to their master.”

      “Ah yes, the infamous black knight. You wager he has set the rest of the de Mortes to a cowardly shiver behind their castle walls?”

      The bearded man shrugged, scratched his generous belly. “Abaddon’s the biggest and strongest of them all. If any of the de Mortes were to stand off a single, armored man, it would be him. Though rumor tells Lucifer has hired a mercenary to stalk the black knight and cut him down before Abaddon need worry of breaking a sweat.”

      “A mercenary? Lucifer not up to the task himself?”

      “Perhaps shivering like a coward in his stinking lair. The black knight is a force! They say he rides into battle on his great dragon of a steed, the beast blowing smoke from its nostrils.”

      Dominique waved his hand dismissively. Sera did not miss the mocking gesture. “Gossip tends to grow a man’s muscles tenfold and his amours by many hundreds,” he said.

      “Aye, but the black knight swung his sword and severed Mastema de Morte’s head from his body with one swift and mighty blow.”

      Baldwin shot up like a rabbit bit in the tail by a curious mastiff. He pressed his hooded visage close to Sera’s face. “You severed the man’s head?”

      Sera looked away from the greasy-faced squire, zoning in on Dominique San Juste’s furrowed brow. The beguiling knight took great humor in listening to the man’s tale. He didn’t believe a word of it, she could fathom as much from the smile that wriggled his lips. Such white teeth beneath the thin black mustache. Captivating, in a most alarming way.

      A hand clamped over her wrist, forcing Sera to redirect her attention. “You cut off the man’s head?”

      She shrugged out of Baldwin’s greasy clutch and whispered, “So?”

      Taking the eyeshot of a nearby traveler as warning she might speak too loudly and reveal more than she wished, Sera turned and stalked out of the tavern, followed closely by Baldwin. The slam of the heavy wood door released a mist of snowflakes upon their heads.

      Baldwin skittered up on Sera’s heels, her pace intent for the stables. “That’s so…so…barbaric!”

      She raised a brow, smirked, but did not slow her pace.

      “That’s not you, you’re not that—bloody saints!—wicked!”

      “I was mounted in the midst of battle,” she hissed under her breath. “The man needed to be taken down. I did what was necessary.”

      He gained her side, a sad shake flapping the ragged wool hood on his head back and forth over his still-chewing cheeks. “You’re changing, Seraphim. This is no life for a woman.”

      “You are not my lord and master, Bernard.”

      Breathing in a deep breath, Sera put the squire’s comments from her thoughts. It would not do to think on what was wrong with her life. Only, she must focus on what must be done to avenge her family. With that vengeance would come peace for many thousands of French villagers who every day suffered at the hands of the de Mortes. The villains raped and pillaged and burned for reasons no more obvious than that of their own twisted pleasure.

      For each de Morte slain, dozens of families would benefit.

      The chill of nightfall slipped between her cheek and the rabbit fur lining her hood. Sera shook off a shiver and strode through muck of mud and snow to the stable.

      Here in the stables it was warm, dank, and sweet with hay and animal-scent. Gryphon nuzzled into her cupped palm. Sera did the same against the magnificent beast’s warm neck. She slipped a hand over the knobby row of witch knots that Antoine kept braided into the glossy black mane. Fond memories of helping Antoine feed the horses and oxen early each morning before the sun broke the horizon filled Sera’s thoughts.

      She recalled her insistent daily question to her brother. “When will you let me ride Gryphon?”

      Antoine would always smile his wide, devil-take-me smile and chuck a knuckle under her chin. “You do have a way with Gryphon, I can see that. This beast won’t allow any but the two of us to touch him without putting up a raging fuss.”

      “Today then?” she’d eagerly wonder, her fingers already curling around the saddle horn in preparation to mount.

      “Soon,” Antoine would always say.

      And Sera’s hopes would wilt. She knew he hadn’t been ready to share with her his one private passion. For she shared his every other passion, such as sword-fight, tending honor through patience and diligence, and respect for their parents.

      “You were good for him,” she whispered now against Gryphon’s smooth black coat. She drew her fingers over the silky and thick hide, shimmery in the rush-light glow. “I know you miss him, but you serve your former master well in allowing me to ride you now. Thank you, Gryphon. Together we will avenge my family’s cruel demise.”

      “Not