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“I will tell you as soon as Demos arrives. Now, Lady Lordes, please tell my brother about the discussion you had with Sierra.”
Lordes sat back down, placing the books to the side of her. “The omega is very upset, Captain. I’m not sure how much an effect Lysander’s wooing her has had on her. She’s very hard on herself, thinks she is unfit, sullied, by her time with the Servant during her estrus.”
Fadon felt a pain in his chest at the seer’s words. “Unfit? She is Omega! There’s not an inch of her unworthy.”
Lady Lordes held her palms up. “I tried to explain that, and I think I got the message across to her. But there’s another thing. She doubts the claiming. Was quite pale with embarrassment when I mentioned the process, but then worried aloud about it, in her words, ‘not working.’”
“The claiming not working?” Fadon asked, confused. “Why would she even think that?”
Lady Lordes was silent, her lips opening and closing. She looked at the queen. Fadon did as well.
“Fadon,” Mari said, moving closer to him until she was standing a foot away from him. “Do you remember exactly what words you said the day you stood in for Ander’s oath in Providence, when you signed the Fealty Agreement?”
He gave her a look. “What?”
She pressed her lips together in annoyance. “Do you remember the words said that day?”
“The words. When I married her?”
Her eyes lit up and she almost smiled. “When you married her by proxy. Yes, those words. The exact wording.”
“Why?”
“Oh, for the love of Titus and Ongar, will you ever answer a simple question? The fucking words, Fadon! Demos has the document in his room, perhaps even on his person, which wouldn’t surprise me. But since he’s not here, and your memory is known to be so superb—”
“Fine.” Fadon ignored her mocking and recited the words he’d agreed to that day, “‘Captain Fadon Trajan, representing the Ongarhi and standing in by proxy for your brother, the betrothed, Prince Lysander Trajan of House Trajan, agree to these terms, accepting this woman, Lady Sierra Deidra Linden of Providence, as Fealty, holding these promises this contract details, in good faith…’”
Mari’s eyes brightened, her smile huge and quite mischievous. “Excellent. Lordes, recite the Prophecy of Delphos.”
Fadon was beyond confused now. Had he stepped into some kind of theatrical rehearsal, some kind of play the Ongahri would put on during the celebration tomorrow?
“What is going on?” Fadon asked. Mari hushed him.
“‘An eternal winter will set,’” Lady Lordes began, “‘upon the land as the sun breathes its last breath, heralding lament and great turmoil, a cold unlike any other. Brothers will fall. Sisters will weep. Mothers and fathers will perish. All will be lost. The Ongahri blood has but one hope…’”
“‘The White Queen, the embodiment of Melos, the Living Heart of Ongarhi,’” Fadon provided the rest. A shiver ran from the top of his head and to his feet as he said to himself the rest of the words. With eyes like the oceans of Stenos and Larkus, and hair of moonlight, she will heal them.
He blinked, staggered back. Mari gripped him by the forearm.
“Fadon,” she said, her voice clear and strong. “Sierra is too important to risk.”
“She’s…” But Fadon couldn’t finish the thought.
“Lordes saw it,” the queen confirmed. “This changes everything, Brother. Everything. We both know that. Therefore, you will marry her.”
Chapter 42
Sierra
I was beyond restless.
When I got to my room, having retired from the drawing room and saying goodnight to everyone, all I planned on doing was changing out of my gown, washing up for bed, and sinking into the satin sheets in hopes I’d sleep like the dead. Given that last night I hadn’t slept well at all, I figured sleep would come easily. But that was not to be.
Instead, I hadn’t even changed into my nightgown, only paced the room, feeling like a caged animal. The drapes on the windows and door of my balcony were open, and I longed to go out into the cold night, but that particular space had been tainted.
I poured myself a glass of wine, gulping it down, hoping it would help. It didn’t, only sat sluggishly in my stomach.
“I need to be outside,” I said aloud. I grabbed my cloak, put it over my shoulders, and broke the news to my guards that I was going out.
