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Before Gilly could answer, marching footsteps rounded the corner.
Gilly retreated behind Naya as three people approached, their steps in sync.
"I tried to tell you this was serious," Gilly whispered. "Please go with them, Your Highness. Your parents insist."
Uncle Torin, her father's commander, led the small group. He was a lean pillar of stone; gray and stern and immovable. An effective commander for her father, but boring and restricting to Naya—especially when she was growing up. Her father’s Talent-crafters flanked him on each side. While some leaders in the history of the Known Lands had groups of Talent-crafters to wield magic for them, her father needed only two. The powerful twin Alpha sisters wore identical clothing in the Lox Empire colors; one always in red, the other always in black. They were even more devoid of personality than Uncle Torin, but no one could question their skills.
They stopped in front of Naya.
"Your parents request your presence in the Great Hall." Uncle Torin’s concrete expression indicated he didn’t approve of having to collect her. “I’m sure your aide has explained.”
Gilly almost broke her neck nodding.
"I have a short meeting that was already scheduled,” Naya said, calm and professional. “I’ll follow on after."
"We’ve been sent to escort you," one of the twins said.
Her voice was measured, but Naya noticed the twins’ stance, the way they tensed when she refused to go. Had her parents really sent them to drag her to the Great Hall? Uncle Torin was one of the most impressive warriors in the Lox army. His exceptional skill had taken Naya years to best, but she’d finally beaten him. And it was the same with the twins. Her father had insisted she improve her control of magic by sparring with them magically, but she’d bested them too. Granted, if her parents wanted to drag her anywhere, Commander Torin together with the twins would be the most effective option, but she could still resist them if she wanted. It would be an extreme action, but so was sending trained warriors to collect their daughter.
She refused to allow it to stop her.
The twins were there under instruction, but Torin was their commander and the person she needed to convince.
She stepped forward and lowered her voice so only Uncle Torin could hear her. "I have no problem with you escorting me, Uncle. But it will be in a few moments. They can wait a few moments.” She pointed at the door to her left. “I’ll just be in there for a little while. You can stand right here, I have nowhere else to escape to."
Uncle Torin glanced at the door, and a flash of something resembling warmth broke through his stoic exterior. His chest heaved and the tension went out of his body. “This isn’t a good use of your time,” he said, lowering his voice to his scolding tone. “You know that. Your parents need you to be focused on the right things.”
“This is the right thing, Uncle.” She tried to keep the exasperation out of her voice. “And I am an adult, I can decide what things I need to focus on. You shouldn’t be sent to collect me like I’m an unruly rebel about to destroy the empire. You and the twins have more important things to deal with. They shouldn’t be using you for this.”
Torin’s mouth crooked in the flicker of a smile, but it was quickly smothered. “They are worried, Naya. Parents never stop being worried.”
Naya’s eyes slid to the door. “They can worry for a few moments more.”
Torin sighed. He moved to stand outside the door and the twins flanked him. "If I have to come in there to drag you out, it will not go well," he warned.
Naya smiled sweetly. "You won't need to."
Gilly watched them, jittering with indecision for a long moment, before she finally sighed and stood next to the commander.
Naya walked to the door and took a breath to refocus. Pulling on her innate senses, she called on magic and carefully, she unraveled the magical blocks surrounding her body. They faded slowly, like body armor reducing into fine dust and drifting away. As soon as she no longer felt any trace of them, she placed a hand on the door handle and allowed a fragile hope to bloom. If this worked.…
Opening the door, she stepped inside.
An Alpha sat on the opposite side of a table in the middle of the small room, elbows leaning on the table, his head jerking up at the sound of the closing door.
Lonn.
With a sharp gaze, low-cut hair, and a down-turned mouth that rarely smiled, Lonn was one of the most talked about warriors in Naya’s father’s army. Having developed a fierce, brutal combat style, Lonn had won almost all his sparring sessions and impressed even the most fastidious of Lox generals. He had been given more responsibilities, and it was rumored he would soon become the youngest general on record if he kept impressing his superiors.
But that wasn’t how Naya first knew him.
As the firstborn child of Emperor Drocco, the most celebrated warrior and leader in the Known Lands, Naya had grown up training harder than any other warrior in his army. He’d bought her first sword at age five and spent years teaching her how to put it to good use. By the time she was nine, she was sparring with the likes of Lonn—young teenage Alphas just starting their training for the Lox army. But Lonn had been different from the rest. He never went easy on her once. His blows landed as heavily as when he fought everyone else, and Naya never won a match unless she’d earned it. At first she hated sparring with him, but her improvement had been swift. Soon she looked forward to finding ways to best him, and did so repeatedly. But they’d never had a single conversation.
When she started training more exclusively with her father, she hadn’t seen him much, but his career trajectory—and the undercurrent gossip that speculated about his romantic affairs—was part of the frequent rumors that whirled through not only the palace but the rest of Ashens.
“Naya.” He rose from his chair, his height and bulk making the room shrink.
Naya hadn’t paid much attention to his looks before. At the age of nine, he was just another sweaty young man she had to beat. But that was before she’d officially come into her dynamic as an Omega. Even though everyone knew she was an Omega before she was born, her hormones had developed at age eleven, just like everyone else.
