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Erienne, princess of the powerful Samaria, is faced with one of the most dreaded situations of all time: an arranged marriage. Bound by a blood oath, she marries her unwilling groom. As circumstances shift out of her favor, Erienn...
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AZRIEL ATE HER SUPPER WITH VIGOR.
It had taken a little over three weeks for Azriel to finally be fully conscious. It still hurt to walk, but the king had ordered a makeshift be fashioned so she could travel through the halls. Ever since she'd been able to be carried, the king made sure he dined with her every night. Now, she could finally enjoy it. Her appetite was back.
"What made you want to come to the Selection?" Markus asked.
"It was my father's dying wish. He told me I was meant for a better life." The king peered at her.
"Do you believe it?"
Azriel wiped the corner of her mouth and looked upwards, in thought. In truth, it made her very nervous to look the king directly in the eye. "Do you mean to make me your queen, Your Majesty?"
"I chose you as soon as my rings touched your fingers. Besides, there is no one left to satisfy the requirements," Markus pointed out. Azriel swallowed at this truth. The first thing that had been mentioned when Azriel was fully lucid was the hangings of all of the perpetrators of her attempted murder.
All except Hora. It burned her blood that out of all of them, it was she who lived. Not unscathed, of course. But it was the duchess—now princess—herself who had orchestrated the whole thing.
"I'd always dreamed of being nobility before my father got sick. Obviously when he became impaired, the hope faded. I'm happy that I'm in the position to aid my family—that's all I really wanted. But now...after surviving the attack...I wonder what type of queen I could really be. People resent that I'm a commoner and I possess no skills someone of my future status should have. I can only speak in one tongue, and my accent betrays how little I know. I can hardly read or write, and thus, I know next to nothing about our history and literature. But it's...politics that scare me. I have no idea how to navigate the royal court, how to read behind people's motives. And that is much too dangerous when the mastermind of your attempted murder is your sister-in-law."
Azriel held her hand to her chest. Saying the last sentence aloud scared her. It made the reality more vivid than it already was. Markus stared at her with eyes that reached across the table.
"I hear you. I promise I won't leave you in a situation where you feel at loss or ill-equipped. I'll make sure I employ you ladies-in-waiting belonging to men that I trust. Women who you can trust."
Azriel smiled. "Thank you, Your Majesty."
"There's no need to thank me." Markus paused as he forked a smoked vegetable. "I know you don't have the best view of nobility. But there was always one thing I really hated. The way nobles sired illegitimate children and neglected them. I made sure my family wouldn't have the same legacy."
"Your Majesty?"
"My father had a child with a concubine before he married my mother. His names was Reyes, after his mother, Reyna. She was incredibly beautiful, I'm told, more so than my mother. I was born a couple years behind him and was regarded as the heir to the throne. I knew of Reyes' existence through rumors. but I never saw him. He worked as a servant boy in the palace. My father had three other children with my mother after me, all girls. I don't know whether it was because I was the heir or the only son he chose to acknowledge, but he didn't hide that I was his favorite. I always asked my father about him."
