The engagement between Lady Holt and Aldric wasn't some casual arrangement, but one sanctioned by the Royal Family for numerous carefully considered reasons, among them the strengthening of the royalist faction within the kingdom's nobility, and the far more significant matter of securing Lady Holt herself.
She was the eldest daughter of one of the kingdom's few Marquises, and Sharon's father, King Taher, had once remarked in terms that left almost no room for misunderstanding that if he'd had any sons within her generation, he would've sought to have Lady Holt married into the Royal Family.
The young lady was a bundle of talent, scholarly, martial, and magical, the kind of talent the kingdom desperately needed to keep from falling into the hands of the greedy aristocratic faction or, even worse, the list of foreign nations that had already begun watching her closely after she distinguished herself in several international competitions over the years.
