Page 16 of The Forgotten Queen
Lies.
Everything they told her felt like lies.
Sydria shook her head. “Surely, there’ssomethingelse we can do for money.”
Von dropped his eyes from her. “We have no other options.”
“I can work,” she volunteered, knowing in the back of her mind that her weak health might make that difficult, but she was determined not to be sold to a king in some kind of weird marriage arrangement.
“We’re giving you the opportunity to marry a king. You would be fulfilling your mother’s dream,” Edmay said. “It’s not like we’re asking you to do something awful.”
It was awful.
The fact that her aunt was trying to convince her to go through with it was another kind of awful, unless she wasn’t really even her aunt. She shook her head. Why would Edmay pretend to be her aunt? It was a stupid thought. Aunt Edmay was probably saying all of that because she felt threatened by Otis. Maybe Uncle Von owed him some money, a debt that he needed to repay. But it wasn’t Sydria’s debt.
She squared her shoulders. “No, I refuse.”
“Why?” Otis scoffed.
“For starters, I don’t know him.”
“You don’t know anyone,” Otis snapped, the sting of his words crumbling some of her defenses. “This marriage will elevate you to a queen. The arrangement has already been made—by your parents.”
She lifted her chin. “I need more time to remember who I am.”
“You may never get your memory back. It’s time for you to move on and build a future.”
It was her biggest fear, not knowing, not ever getting her past back. She shook her head. “I won’t marry him. I can’t.”
Otis’s gaze hardened. “You don’t have a choice. It’s this, or you’re out on your own, and I know as well as you do that you have nowhere else to go.”
“You’ll kick me out on the street if I don’t marry the king of Cristole?” She glanced at Aunt Edmay.
Her aunt looked down at her fingers. “It’s not that we would kick you out, but we can no longer support you financially.”
Sydria’s chest tightened. Her aunt spoke out of fear. What did Otis have on them? Whatever it was, the consequences of it had seeped down into her own life.
Trapped.
Her memories were locked somewhere inside of her brain. She was trapped in the wrong kingdom, and now she would be trapped in a marriage that she didn’t want. The unfairness of the situation was enough to collapse her to her knees, but she stood tall, some innate response inside of her to not let anyone see how upset she was.
“The papers have already been signed,” Otis said. “The king has given you some leeway because of your accident, but if you don’t go through with this marriage, then you will be in breach of the contract and be thrown in jail.”
Her choices were limited. She didn’t have anywhere else to go. She didn’t have any money, and if she had any skills that would get her a job, she didn’t know what they were. Even if she could find work, her body didn’t have the stamina for hard physical labor, and if Otis was telling the truth, she’d be thrown in jail if she didn’t marry the king.
She lifted her eyes, meeting Otis’s.
“Well?” he demanded.
His logic and the entire situation were absurd, and yet, there was something about it that resonated deep inside of Sydria as if an arranged marriage was her fate no matter what. Maybe Otis was telling the truth. Maybe this felt familiar because her parentshadwanted this for her. She tried to look at the situation objectively, but she couldn’t. She shook her head and went back out the front door. True or not, she wasn’t ready to agree to anything.
Marx
Marx walked down the hall of Cristole Castle, heading to his room. He had spent the entire day hiking and planned to take a shower to rinse off the salty sweat that coated his skin. He’d have to tell his secretary to send up dinner.
Ahead of him, the light from his father’s office shone into the hall, creating a perfect rectangular shadow on the marble floor. Marx sighed. He had hoped to avoid seeing his father, but now he’d have to walk right past his office. There was a chance that his father wouldn’t notice him, but Meldrum McKane was the type of guy who noticedeverything.
Marx kept his head down, picking up his pace. Two strides would be all it took to get past his office.
