More than a few matriarchs had lifted their heads enough for her to catch their look. The look was competition.
Her cheeks went rosier, but her chin did not drop as she declared,
"And I..."
She let the word hold.
"...have also been warming his bed. I have kept his heart full and never wanting."
The blush on her face and the supremacy in her voice did not contradict each other once.
The matriarchs closest to the front were no longer looking at Ayame's belly.
They were glaring at Seraphiel.
Seraphiel's composure held for exactly as long as it needed to.
Then she jumped.
Off the hilltop, off the crest, clean into the air above the road. Her ceremonial posture vanished somewhere in the descent. Her arms opened wide before she hit the bottom of the arc.
Quinlan caught her.
