Heena took a slow breath, set down her empty plate, and looked out at the room she'd built and the evening she'd engineered and the five complicated men who were somewhere in the middle of deciding something.
And the sixth one standing beside her, eating a second pastry, who had somehow already become the easiest part of all of it.
'Fifteen years', she reminded herself. 'Fifteen years to raise an heir to the throne and complete the mission and leave this world.'
She had a plan.
The plan was fine.
Everything was completely fine.
The ring was still warm.
She was absolutely, entirely, one hundred percent fine.
But Heena celebrated too soon.
As they walked down the aisle, still basking in the applause and the successful ceremony, Heena's eyes swept across the crowd in the grand ballroom they were approaching—and then she froze internally.
'System!' she shouted in her mind.
