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“Kat, tell me what you are looking for. Maybe I’ll know where it is,” Anya rushes to say, not standing by my side.
“My mother’s jewelry box. I need it and can’t for the life of me remember where I put it last.”
“I know where it is. I stored it away just to be safe,” Anya explains, going to the other side of the room. She lowers herself on her hands and knees and stretches her arm under a dresser.
“Got it!” she exclaims, pushing my mother’s jewelry box out of its hiding spot.
“Oh, thank the gods!” I clasp my hands in gratitude. “Here, give it here.”
Anya hurriedly puts the antique jewelry box in my hands and I in turn place it on top of my bed, opening it immediately. It doesn’t take me long to find what I’m looking for.
“Anya, get me a small purse or a satchel.”
She nods and proceeds to open up drawer after drawer to find me what I need. As she plants a white silk purse in my hands, Inessa returns with my rider.
“Here, Your Highness. I got you your rider. The fastest in your service,” Inessa proclaims, looking out of breath from running to find him for me.
“Thank you, Inessa,” I say and walk over to the young man waiting for my instructions. “What’s your name?”
“It’s Mikhail, Your Highness,” he says before bowing his head.
“Well, Mikhail, is it true you are the fastest rider that I brought with me from the north?”
“It is, my queen.”
“Good, for I have a task to give you that is of most importance.” I then place my mother’s heart-shaped diamond necklace that I wore on the night Levi danced with me so long ago in the small purse and tie it with a string before handing it off to Mikhail. “I need you to ride east as fast as the wind will take you. I need this to be hand-delivered to King Levi. Not his man or anyone else—only the king must lay eyes on it.”
Mikhail nods.
“It shall be done.”
“Good. Thank you.”
“Is there a message that you wish me to give him?” he asks.
“There is. Please tell King Levi this, ‘For what is a heart of any use if it’s not in the hands of its rightful owner.’ Understand? Do you need me to repeat it?”
“No, my queen.”
“Then go and meet us in Huwen after it’s done. Go, Mikhail! Go as fast as you can, for my very happiness depends on it.”
Mikhail doesn’t stand idly around and breaks into a fast sprint. If he rides as fast as he runs, then I’ll be happy.
“What now? What are you to do?”
“Pack our belongings, for we head west as soon as we can manage it,” I tell her.
“West?” Anya’s eyes go big and fearful. “But we weren’t to leave for another week.”
“That was before.”
Before I found out that the man I was falling in love with all over again had killed my king’s parents.
Does he know you like to be tied up to be used and abused by the man he dreams of killing one day?”
At the time he said those words, they didn’t make any sense to me. I brushed them off since I was too committed to the fight we were having. But now it all makes sense. All of it.
“Where are you going?” Anya all but shouts when I start heading out of the room like a woman possessed.
