Lyanna looked at her mother and saw a stranger.
"Do you love me?" Lyanna asked. "Or am I just a political pawn to you, like everything else?"
"I love you more than you could understand. But love doesn't change reality. Love doesn't make impossible choices disappear. Love doesn't protect us from the world we live in." She squeezed Lyanna's hands. "I love you, which is why I'm preparing you. I'm telling you all this, even though it's horrible, because that's the only gift I can give you now."
Over the next few weeks, the poisoning became worse.
"He keeps a harem, you know. Vampire culture allows it. You'll be his wife in name, but he'll have other women. You'll be only decorative and political, nothing more."
"Their castle is built on a mass grave. Thousands of humans died building Thornfield over the centuries. When you walk those halls, remember you're walking on bones."
