“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t believe—I still don’t believe—that you have anything to worry about.”

“How can you say that? She’s a noble woman, she’s known him for years—I saw them together!”

“Hush.” Larel tried to calm Vhalla’s hysterics. “When you are together, Aldrik looks for you, only for you.”

“He spent a lot of time with her.”

“He did,” Larel conceded. “But he never looked at her the way he looks at you. He never reached for her the way he reaches for you. Vhalla, Aldrik cares for you deeply, I know he does.”

“You don’t know anything,” Vhalla mumbled.

Larel just sighed and rubbed Vhalla’s back as the younger woman cried softly.

Vhalla was shocked later when a messenger brought her an Imperial summons. It was a tri-folded card sealed with the blazing sun of the Empire in black wax.

“Are you going to open it?” Larel asked after Vhalla’s tenth lap of the room.

“I will,” she said with false confidence.

“Today?” Larel had the audacity to tease her.

Vhalla shot the other woman a glare, and Larel was only moderately apologetic. The Westerner hadn’t changed her tune that Aldrik had no interest in Elecia.

“I will,” Vhalla repeated, placing her finger under the seal. She took a breath and unfolded the note before her hands dropped it from shaking so much. “Your presence is requested,” she read aloud. “Prince Aldrik C. Solaris.”

“That’s it?” Even Larel seemed surprised.

“It’s better this way.” Vhalla threw the note onto her pack, rummaging through the clothes on the floor that had never made it into drawers. “It is. I’ll go and tell him I know everything.”

“Vhalla,” Larel sighed.

“We can stop this sham, and I’ll just do what I need to for my freedom,” Vhalla vowed, tugging on a clean shirt and leggings.

They walked down the stairs in silence, Larel seeing her out of the inn and all the way to the fancy hotel where the Imperial family was staying. Vhalla spent the walk attempting to shield her heart as much as possible. She imagined each rib a barbed wall that nothing could enter into or get out of. She would do whatever Aldrik and the Emperor needed, and then she would go. She didn’t even want to bring up what she’d seen. It wasn’t her business after all; she had trespassed on his privacy.

By the time Vhalla arrived at the glittering building on the main square, she had scripted and repeated so many conversations in her head that she felt prepared for every possible outcome. No matter what, she would keep it together and leave as quickly as possible. Yet none of this stopped her heart from threatening to burst out of its thorny cage as she pushed open the door, leaving Larel behind.