The news reached Aria before the next noon.
“Celine has been chosen.”
Aria looked up from the chair near the window. “That is good news.”
“The feast will be held tomorrow,” the maid said.
Aria nodded. “Celine passed every test. She deserves to be congratulated.”
Celine.
Aria looked toward the empty nursery across the hall. Her chest tightened.
Her body was still weak, and the healers had warned her not to push herself. Yet now another woman was being prepared to carry Deucalion’s heir.
Still, the thought of Celine getting close to Deucalion made something inside her burn.
She loved Deucalion. She had always believed that he belonged beside her.
She would not let another woman take her place.
By evening, she decided she could no longer wait. “Help me up,” she told her maid.
“My
