When I finished and turned my phone back on, I had three messages from Mom telling me to get home as soon as I could. I felt so annoyed. My family treated my entire high school adventure like it was a hobby or a fad. Something I did that wouldn’t really matter. Meanwhile, in school, every teacher and coach preached college nonstop. You went to college, or you were a loser.

I had studied my ass off for those exams. I didn’t even get a good luck or how’d it go?

I got home, sensed my mom in our garden, went there, and when I stepped outside, into my carefully nurtured botanical wonderland, I smelled this terrible bitter smoke. We were hosting a large group from the Dominion and the Six Star Supremacy. They were an extended family traveling on a sightseeing trip to celebrate their reunion. That morning, while I took my exams, they had set their hair and clothes on fire.

I walked through the garden among people smeared with ash, moaning and weeping, some catatonic, rocking back and forth, until I found my mother. Mom could handle any emergency the universe chose to throw at her, but that morning, she stood there, glassy-eyed, unable to stop their suffering.

It was the day Caldenia murdered Kosandion’s father.

“Kosandion isn’t just trying to score points,” I said. “By involving the whole nation in his choice of a spouse, he is letting them feel like they matter. Even if their preferred candidate doesn’t make it to the altar, their opinion still counted. They were engaged, they were given a voice, and they were a part of it.”

“It goes deeper than that,” Caldenia said behind me.

She had been heading our way for a bit now. I wasn’t sure if she was looking for me or if she was just hungry. Apparently, she was looking for me.

The observers turned to her.

“Kosandion will choose his spouse, and he will make sure the Dominion feels it is also their choice. They will be loyal to that person because they have chosen them, and when the child is born, they will transfer that loyalty to Kosandion’s heir. That child will be beloved and cherished, and the entire Dominion will be invested in their future. That is how dynasties persist and thrive.”

Wow.

Caldenia looked at me. “If I could have a word?”

I rose. “Of course, Your Grace.”

12

When we last left Dina and Sean, the introduction ceremony had finished and everyone enjoyed one of Orro’s sumptuous dinners. Dina reminisced on the complete emotional breakdown the Dominion guests experienced at her parents’ inn when they learned that Caldenia murdered her brother, Kosandion’s father. The dinner ended with Her Grace wanting to have “a word” with Dina. Uh-oh…

“I wish to visit Lady Wexyn.”