That first lesson was brief, unlike the hundreds to come. By the end of it, my father left me with one final bit of information. “Serenity?”

My hand was already on the door. I turned back to face him.

The wrinkles around his eyes and mouth deepened. “As an emissary, if an accord is ever to be reached between us and the Eastern Empire, you will likely be a key player in it.”

I swallowed and nodded. I now carried a heavy responsibility.

“Do you know what that means?”

I waited for him to finish.

His gaze lingered on me a long time before he finally answered his own question. “One day you’ll meet the king.”

That day had come.

The room is quiet as my father contacts the representatives. I barely made eye contact with him after my kiss with the king. I couldn’t. The whole situation still gives me the heebie jeebies.

My dad, for his part, seems to be at a loss for words. So we wait in silence, until the representatives flash onto the screen. We do the usual greeting, and then there’s a pause.

“Serenity,” General Kline says, “you gave the world quite the show. The Internet’s blowing up with it.”

What he doesn’t say is that everyone’s calling me a traitor, a whore—whatever unoriginal names they can come up with. There will be no honor to my sacrifice. Women who have filled the role of temptress have always been looked down upon.

“I got King Lazuli to make another agreement,” I snap, my voice bitter.

My father turns to me, surprised.

“Tomorrow,” I say to the general, “if there’s a semi-decent bone in the king’s body, the WUN should have a fair and equitable peace treaty.”

All’s quiet for a moment, and then my father speaks. “What did you agree to, Serenity?” he asks, worry tingeing his voice. The rest of the representatives wait for my answer.

I glance down at my hands. “I don’t exactly know.”

I’m not surprised when I hear knocking on the suite door. I glance at my father’s closed off room. He’s locked himself away in there since our talk with the representatives. His excuse is that he’s relaying updates to those nations who couldn’t send their own emissaries. I know better. I heard his muffled weeps. He can’t stand the situation, so he’s hiding from it.

Now the room’s ominously quiet. My father knows what waits for me in the hallway, just as I do, and he’s decided to ignore it.

If only I had that luxury.

Be brave, Serenity, I tell myself, because no one else is here to comfort me in this moment.

I rise from my seat, setting aside the WUN’s proposal, and answer the door.

Marco stands outside. “The king requests—”