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No!My heart feels like it’s about to explode out of my ribcage.I can’t believe this is happening!
But I always knew this day would come. Father has been waiting for such an opportunity. He’d been planning that trip to the capital for months.
I take a deep, shuddering breath. Close my eyes for a moment. Curse my stepmother for being incapable of saying a single word, but then again, why would she, when she herself was married off in exactly the same fashion?
Poor Lady Dorava.
“Who is he?” I barely recognize the sound of my own voice. It sounds like death warmed up.
My father doesn’t answer straight away. He allows the silence to stretch out, enjoying my fraught anticipation. “Finley Solisar, you must be grateful that I am a good negotiator, because the man you will marry is far above your station. Most would consider himfartoo good for someone of your rank and temperament, but considering his approval of the match, Emperor Duthriss seems to look favorably upon our family.”
“Who,father?” My impatience spills through the brittle cracks in my composure.
“After lunch, you will arrange for the maidservants to pack your belongings. Make sure you take your thickest coats, because I hear the winters in Tyron are brutal. Although I’m sure the Archduke will have plenty of resources at his disposal to ensure that you are outfitted with garments befitting of his station, it is best to be prepared.”
My insufferable father pauses, savoring my shocked silence.
Tyron.
I blink.
The silver fork handle digs into my palm as my grip tightens.
Tyron.
That inhospitable, mountainous region to the south.
The biggest of Rahava’s territories.
It widely considered untamable… that is, until the Archduke took over the Mountain Fortress.
No. This isn’t possible.
I stare at my father, my anger momentarily swept away by sheer disbelief. “I… I am to be betrothed to Corvan Duthriss?”
My future husband is not some old geezer, as I’d feared.
In many ways, this is worse.
I’ve heard the rumors; the stories. They talk about him in the village square, in the halls of the castle, in the kitchens and the stables. My own family speaks of him at the dinner table.
The Emperor’s firstborn, Corvan, was once regarded as the obvious heir to the Rahavan Throne.
But everyone knows the story of the crown prince; the former Imperial Commander who waged a brutal campaign in the north to defeat the barbarian hordes.
Everyone knows he was a changed man when he returned from the war. Once highly respected; a swordsman without peer and the most eligible bachelor in all of Rahava, he refused to present himself to the Court.
Without warning, without giving reason, he relinquished his claim to the throne and became a recluse, accepting the dukedom of Tyron— the territory that nobody wanted.
It’s a vast and inhospitable land. Cold and barren. Crawling with monsters and terrifying beasts.
Rumors swirl around the capital. That the ravages of war drove him mad; that he was cursed by some barbarian witch.
What kind of horrors does a man have to endure to make him give up the entire world that once lay in the palm of his hand?
They say he did terrible things during the war.
They say he is even more ruthless than his father.
