Her eyes widened with shock. “How dare—”

“That is enough,” her father cut in.

Though his face was dark red with suppressed anger, he did not say anything else. Sarani waited. Surely, he wouldn’t stand for the man’s insult! But then her eyes met his, and when she saw the resignation in them, her heart tumbled to her toes. Perhaps Rhystan was right, after all. Her father didn’t have any power. Not with men like Markham speaking on behalf of the powerful British Crown. Their wardens. Their smiling oppressors.

“Papa?” she whispered, forgetting herself and her place.

“You will be wed to Lord Talbot,” her father said, a note of regret in his voice.

Sarani gaped. “And if I refuse?”

“You will cease this nonsense.”

Flinching at the harsh whip of her father’s command, she pinned her lips between her teeth and clenched her fists. He had never spoken to her like that before. Ever.

Tears filled her eyes when he beckoned her close and dismissed the rest of the people in the room. “You would sacrifice me to him?”

“Sacrifice, Sarani?” The words held so much sadness, so much pain. For the first time, he let some remorse show, though it did nothing to reduce her ire. “We are rulers. Sacrifice is a necessary part of duty. He is a British earl. You will be an English countess by marriage. What could this discredited Huntley offer you? He is nothing and no one—a third-born, soon-to-be-disowned pauper. We cannot risk the ire of the English or the agreements in place. You are a princess of Joor.” His voice hardened, his dark eyes showing the merciless streak he was reputed to have. “Your duty is to your people.”

She lifted a blazing gaze. “You speak of duty? Is it our duty to give in to tyranny? Because that is what this is, and you cannot see it. These men are nothing but pirates plundering in disguise. Look at what they did to Bengal. They are our enemy, can’t you see that?”

Fear burst in his eyes at her heedlessly hissed words, and she knew then that her father would not listen. “Quiet, daughter.”

“Silence has never done any woman any favors.”

Her father didn’t stop her when she ran from the room and closeted herself in her bedchamber, her body racked with hard sobs. She would have to let Rhystan go and marry a man three times her age. Duty would always come first.

Duty, and the will of powerful men.

She was no more than a pawn…a piece to be played on a board. Such was her fate.

Her very hollow future.