You considered your duties with an unemotional view. It was a means to an end, and the idea that you would eventually be with child and bring your enemy’s babe into the world felt foreign and almost impossible. Yet you knew it would happen, it was inevitable.

It was a night like any other when a knock came at your door and a maidservant entered, quiet as a mouse. “The King has requested your presence in his chambers,” she said, her hands clasped in front of her nervously.