Page 177 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

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LONG MAY SHE RELUCTANTLY REIGN

Enora

“Take her to a medic, now!” I barked at a bewildered archer standing near us as I dumped Sasha onto them. She swore, they swore and then apologized, but I was already running for the closest tower.

My bargain mark burned so badly, my left hand had cramped into a fist, and I couldn’t parse how many things were causing tears to build in my eyes.

I wiped roughly at my face, even though I was covered in Sasha’s blood, as I bolted down the tower stairs and broke out into a sprint across the camp.

The once neatly organized formations to my left had lost their containment as soldiers traded panicked words and wide eyes and their commanders fought to keep them at attention with barked orders. Between my gasping and the furious rushing of my blood, it was nigh impossible to make out many words, but I didn’t need to.

Something had gone horribly wrong.

Whatever the squads thought their orders were, they had not involved Maksym being shot out of the sky.

I had to dodge bodies left and right as I ran, trading apologies and curses, until Jasper materialized at my side through a wisp of darkness, and I yelped in surprise. “What the fuck did he just⁠—”

“No time. Come with me.” Jasper grabbed my arm, unsettling tension fully seizing his face, and my senses shuddered into a dark blur.

We stumbled outside a sprawling tent at the furthest reach of the camp, and Jasper pushed me through the flaps with a highly uncalled for shove. I was ready to spin back and lay into him, but the sight inside the tent had me going stiff.

Not that a planning tent was anything out of the ordinary—but the gathered Elixia and lords with their piercing stares had my hackles raised.

It was a mix of faces I knew from the barracks and the Keep, and ones I didn’t recognize at all: Umbrites, shifters, and other dark fae races all spread around a hastily constructed table, draped with maps and a plethora of markers.

But they were all looking at me, and their gazes did not falter when Jasper stepped around me and joined the group. His stare might have been the most unsettling.

Jasper was the first to sink to one knee and dip his head.

Something icy flushed through my veins, and my mouth dried as half of the room followed suit, dipping down and bowing their heads as they muttered…

“Long may she reign.”

My knees knocked together, and I coughed out, “Excuse me?”

A couple of scoffs came from those still standing, and I rushed over to Jasper as he rose. He wore something painfully apologetic on his face that did nothing to ease my confusion.

I stared at him. “What the ever-loving fuck is going on?”

More annoyed sighs traveled through the group as my only anchor at the moment retrieved a rolled piece of parchment from the table. He motioned me over, and I was shocked my legs carried me there as the weight of dozens of eyes refused to lift from me.

Jasper handed me the scroll, and my fingers, crusted with Sasha’s dried blood, shook as I unrolled it over the surface of the table.

My eyes roved its contents once.

Twice.

An utterly disbelieving third time.

“No way… I did not sign this…” I breathed, even though my signature was scrawled right beside Maksym’s own at the bottom of a fucking marriage certificate—declaring me not only his wife, but his equal sovereign in life, death, and calamity. It was dated from weeks ago.

My eyes flickered up to Jasper, and he regarded me with a devastatingly sad smile. “Are you sure? That’s your hand, isn’t it?”

I tried to will some moisture back into my mouth, running my tongue over my bottom lip as I stared at the parchment. It was my hand. The same blotch of ink I always left at the end of my last name. The same shaky swoop at the start of Wynn that I had never mastered. Even the E in my first name was the same ugly loop that tutors always berated me for.

But I hadn’t signed this. I would’ve remembered.