Free Daughters of Lyra: Heart of an Emperor by Felicity Heaton Page A

“We could run away.”

    He sat up too and frowned
at the luggage.

    “ No.”

    “ No?” The
thought that he might actually stand up to her parents made her
squirm inside. She didn’t want to start a war between Lyra and
Varka and if Regis went to face her father alone, that might
happen. Both of them seemed unduly stubborn. “Then let me go alone.
My father won’t deny me.”

    He looked
uncomfortable.

    There was a buzz over the
intercom beside the door.

    She tensed and looked at
Regis.

    “ Open the door,
Sophia,” her father said over the intercom.

    Regis stood and put his
jacket on. She could only watch as he buttoned it and then did his
trousers up and fastened his sword around his waist. He gave her a
smile, swept the long strands of his black hair out of his face,
and then strode to the door. She curled up on the bed and hugged
her knees to her chest. At least they were both dressed. Perhaps
her father wouldn’t put two and two together. If he did, she prayed
to Iskara that he made five.

    Regis opened the door. Her
father walked in and Sophia smiled until her mother stepped out
from behind him. They both looked at her, their shock written on
their faces.

    Sophia opened her mouth to
explain but Regis stepped between them.

    “ I, Regis,
Count of Sagres, Emperor Varka, kneel before you,” he said and
unsheathed his sword and knelt in front of her father. She leaned
forwards, anxious to see what he was going to do. He balanced the
sword across both of his palms and lowered his head. “Your
highness, Lyra I, King of Lyra, I offer you my sword.”

    “ Your life?”
her father said and Sophia started forwards but stopped when Regis
looked at her.

    The sword symbolised his
life?

    No.

    “ My life, in
exchange for your daughter’s,” he said and looked up at her father.
He raised the sword up, offering it just as he had said. She shook
her head, afraid that any exchange he spoke of would be taken
literally by her father. She could see the anger in his eyes and
knew that both he and her mother had sensed what had happened to
her. Her father would have felt it from her mother. “I willingly
give my life for hers.”

    “ Regis,” Sophia
whispered and reached out to him. Tears blurred her vision. She bit
her lip and sobbed when her father took the sword and held it tight
in one hand. “Father?”

    She cringed and flinched
away when he brought the sword down and there was a harsh
thud.

    Silence
reigned.

    “ I do not
understand,” Regis said and Sophia opened one eye and then the
other. Relief filled her swift and sweet when she saw that he was
unharmed and that her father had buried the sword point down into
the wooden floor.

    “ My daughter
loves you,” her father said on a sigh. “Enough that she has given
herself to you. I cannot cause harm to one my daughter loves, not
when it would in turn cause harm to her.”

    “ Sophia,” Regis
said and stood. He held his hand out to her and she went to him,
slipping her hand into his and holding it tightly. Her stomach
fluttered with nerves as she stood before her mother and father
with him. He turned to her father. “You will give your daughter to
me, to protect from this day forward?”

    Her father nodded. Her
mother smiled wide and looped her arm through her
father’s.

    “ I give my
daughter to you on one condition.”

    “ Anything,”
Regis said.

    “ That you
promise to love her until the end of your days, whenever those may
be, and beyond them.”

    “ I will always
love her.” Regis turned away from her father and looked at her. She
blushed when he took both of her hands and held them, his thumbs
caressing her fingers. “I will always love you, Sophia. I am no
longer afraid of these feelings or how little control I have over
them. For you, I embrace them and the fear they bring, just as you
embraced it for me.”

    Sophia bit her lip and
smiled when he pulled her into his arms. She rested her head
against his chest and listened