Queen Felicity Valorian knelt at the center of the great hall of Vraven with her crown held out in both gauntlets, and her question hung in the silence of six hundred held breaths.
Vassalage.
The word had finished echoing off the far doors, and nobody in the seat of the nation had remembered how to breathe since.
The chroniclers had stopped writing altogether.
The Primordial Villain looked down at the fourteen-year-old sovereign offering him her entire kingdom as soon as she was given the power to.
Then he reached down, wrapped her offered gauntlets in one big hand, and drew the queen of Vraven back up onto her feet, the crown still held between them.
Felicity blinked up at him, and for one second the queen of Vraven was entirely fourteen, glowing. "...Hehe."
Then she stepped back, and her voice rang clear off the marble.
"Before you answer, there is something I have to do first."
