Page 43 of To Desire

“Master Pembroke.” She found the steward coming from the hall, now completely cleared from the midday meal. “I must find Sir Darien. Immediately.”

With very little expression, he pointed in the opposite direction from where she came. “He will be in the solar chamber. I will escort you⁠—”

Without waiting for him to finish, Liana ran past more than one recruit and two servants and toward the direction the steward had pointed to. He called to her, but Liana did not stop until she realized there were two doors at the end of the corridor.

“If you had but waited for me,” Pembroke said, frowning. “He is with⁠—”

“I must speak with him,” she said, attempting to discern which of the doors was Castle Blackwood’s solar chamber. She was about to open both to find him.

Pembroke moved to the one closest to her. “Very well.”

He opened the door, but she did not wait to be announced. Without a thought to who might be inside, Liana rushed into the chamber and found him with Roland, Alden and Sir Eamon.

“Apologies,” she began as Darien stood, concerned.

“Is all well?” he asked as Pembroke closed the door behind her. “Liana, is something amiss?”

Knowing she could speak freely in front of these men, and glad to have found Darien with his inner circle, she nodded. “Aye. And nay.” She could not get the words out fast enough. “My mother was correct,” she began.

Darien blanched. “You’ve had a vision.”

“I read the runes,” she clarified. “And it has become clear to me.” Skipping the earlier part of her reading, the one concerning them, Liana said, “She was correct, that Empress Matilda will not take the crown.”

Darien reached for the back of the chair he’d stood from, as if needing it to stand. He appeared just as his father had the day Liana’s mother had made her own prediction. But the earl had been working with Liana’s mother for many, many years. He took her at her word. Believed in her. And though Darien had done the same with Liana in many ways, he’d also been clear that forging his own path was important to him as well. He’d not follow her blindly.

But Liana was certain. The runes did not lie. He had to believe her.

Glancing briefly at the other two men, she blurted out the rest.

“She will not take the crown. But her son will.”

Liana turned back to Darien, whose eyes, as wide as she’d even seen them, sought her own. Nodding, she willed him to believe her.