Sylvia stood with her hands folded neatly behind her, watching from the shadowed corner of the study. She had been the one to arrange the meeting Lorraine requested with Prince Damian, yet, for the first time in ten years, Lorraine had gone without her.
The exclusion still burned. She had tried to keep the princess away from the prince, he was dangerous for her, and Sylvia knew it, but she hadn't expected to be shut out by the princess entirely. For a decade, they had been side by side in all things. How had it come to this? Should she tell Lorraine that the prince suspected her loyalty?
Since returning from that meeting, Lorraine had barely left her desk. For almost five days, with only two days short of the Imperial ceremony, she had sifted through every scrap of news from the capital, parchment and missive strewn like battlefield debris. Sylvia doubted she had slept at all.
Lorraine was looking for something.
