Page 13 of Heart of the Villain

“The Curia’s ultimate goal is to ensure that our lineage stays as strong as possible. It’s why we still have the twelve original bloodlines. It’s why we marry off the children we can to the strongest in someone else’s family.” He gestured to Khort.

Marlena’s eyes wandered to the two faces she’d never seen before sitting side by side at the table across from Khort.

Two boys close to her age from families who’d kept them locked away like lost treasure. One had the skin of both of his parents, warm and dark, but his eyes were the color of bright amber. It was almost possible to see the fire he controlled simmering behind his stare.

The other… He didn’t even meet her wandering gaze. He stared straight ahead, his jawline like a sharp arrow pointing across the room. His jet-black hair was cut shorter on the sides, the top styled back and away from his face.

He looked nothing like his father, the commander of Tolevarre’s army, who sat directly beside him. Lucius’s blond hair was the color of sand on a warm beach, his eyes a gray-blue like the Sea of Ros during a storm.

The boy was a spitting image of the Viator line, of his mother sitting adjacent to his father, and his Fraus seat holder uncle across the table.

Marlena knew all the current leaders, had been in rooms like this with them hundreds of times before.

Her focus readjusted to her father, who had stopped talking to watch his daughter’s reaction. She wouldn’t give him one. Not yet.

“It is unheard of for a second child to take over rule unless a death occurs or the firstborn is unable to take on the task of leading. It has only happened a handful of times, but your mother and I believe that in this circumstance, we have no choice but to make the decision to offer Vega up as the Curia seat holder for Aeris and Amora. She is sent from the gods, hand-chosen with power we’ve never seen before.”

The reality of his words sank in, and Marlena jumped from her chair, sending it flying behind her with a clatter. “No.” Desperation settled in, and she lost sense of the composure she was always expected to hold.

Her mother and a few others gasped at her reaction. Marlena hadn’t thought about it, acting on impulse rather than thinking it through—typical for her.

“I know the ins and the outs. This is what I’ve trained my entire life for. I am strong, and I have fought hard, worked hard for my place here.” Marlena eyed her father, ignoring the others in the room like they were the only ones in it.

“Not hard enough.” Jonan spoke, metaphorically slicing Marlena’s throat.

Ryanna reached out and gripped Marlena’s wrist. “Sit. We will put it to a vote as always.”

Marlena wiggled out of her mother’s touch, eyeing each of the Curia members boldly. “If you listen to my parents, to what they’re saying, remember that I got both of their powers. Powers they don’t seem to think are too small or too weak when it pertains to them. They aren’t too weak to sit at the end of the table during every Curia meeting, pretending to be better than the rest of you.” Speaking out against them publicly was risky, but it had to happen. She’d been tormented by them almost all of her life—she didn’t care what they did to her later as punishment. The voting would transpire whether she liked it or not, and if she lost, she’d be forgotten, left behind. Marlena couldn’t imagine what her life would look like if she was removed as the ruling heir.

Would they do to Vega what they’d done to her all her life? To prepare her? Would they beat the golden child to make sure she was ready to rule? Or was that saved specifically for the daughter they wished Vega could have been? Marlena couldn’t allow her parents to lay a finger on Vega.

“Vega wasn’t born to rule. I was, and choosing her would be a mistake.” Marlena didn’t only look at her parents. She let her eyes wander the room, guaranteeing they knew she was talking to every single leader. “If you choose Vega, you lose a secondary bloodline from the Caelums with two abilities, because I will never, never marry inside this room. If you think I’m to be demoted to the birthing heir, you’ve got another thing coming.”

For Vega. I am doing this for her safety.

Her parents stared at her with stone-cold features, never giving a hint as to what was going on behind their perfectly placed masks.

“You’ve heard the child’s declaration… and now we vote.” Fraus’s leader, Dacian, spoke up, staring Marlena down like she was a lamb headed to slaughter.

She swallowed the knot in her throat but didn’t sink back down in her seat like her parents would have wanted. Marlena kept her eyes locked on Dacian’s as her father spoke.

“All in favor of allowing Vega to become our heir, raise your hand.”

The person beside her raised her hand, jarring her gaze away from Dacian, whose hand stayed put at his side. Her eyes wandered over the people with their hands up, noting the nervous looks on their faces when she locked eyes with them. If they were going to vote against her, they were going to do so by looking her in the eyes.

“Six,” her mother said through a breath, her hand coming down to her side.

They’d had someone with a distant Vates bloodline stand in for the sake of the vote, and of course, they voted against Marlena—as they’d certainly been told to do.

“All opposed.” Her father’s usually booming voice had lost some of its confidence.

Six new hands shot up.

“A tie.” Ryanna sighed. “Well, Commander Dimico, I guess that’s why you’re here. To be our tiebreaker.”

Marlena held on to a tiny piece of hope. A sliver so thin she already felt as if she’d lost.

Lucius’s son watched out of the corner of his eye as his father stood.