Lianna pressed herself against the wall of the manor and squeezed her eyes shut. In her memory, she knew what would come next. The knight would deliver a proposal to her father, one that would send her into a world of suffering and death, and her father–though he would delay as long as possible–would not be able to refuse. She thought she might have more time given that her coming of age had yet to happen. And though the details were fuzzy, she knew that delaying an answer to that proposal would only get her as far as her debut at the end of the summer.

"Miss Lianna," Charlona whispered, "you've gone so pale! I'm sure your father is alright. He'll deal with them and send them on their way in no time." Charlona's hand patted Lianna lightly on her upper arm, but Lianna noted that the hand was chilled from anxiety despite her reassuring words.

Lianna put on the best smile she could manage, patted her nanny's hand, and nodded. Charlona would never believe her if she mentioned how she knew that, this time, things would not be okay. When she was younger, horrible visions of her future had filled her mind. She'd somehow been given them along with a dangerous and miraculous healing gift. Even she had been skeptical at first, but after the visions came true time and time again, she could no longer deny it. And of all the visions she had hoped were false, the scene she had witnessed just now was one of them.

After several tense moments, Lianna heard footsteps. She peeked around the corner once more and saw the knight remount his horse and gallop back out of the front gate.

With a hand on her chest, Charlona sighed. "Thank the Goddess, he didn't stay long."

But Lianna couldn't share her nanny's relief. "I must go and see father."

"Of course, of course." Charlona waved her on.

Lianna lifted her skirts and ran around the front of the manor. Though she felt as if she were running towards her own execution, she kept up the pace, determined to catch her father with the proposal letter still out, so he wouldn't be able to try and hide it. Her visions had shown her only just finding out about it on the day after her debut, when it was far too late to even try to do anything. Even if it was futile, she wanted to try anything to change that future. She'd failed so many times to change the other, previous futures she had seen, but perhaps more drastic actions than she had tried before would need to be taken to make a difference.

Lianna startled Benjamin, the cook, and Harrace, one of their guards, as she ran through the main floor foyer and up the stairs. She didn't stop until she had turned the handle and burst into her father's room.

Her father Count Milliard sat up in his bed with a handkerchief to his mouth. It was made of black linen so the flecks of red from his coughs wouldn't show. Lianna's eyes honed in on the piece of paper in his other hand, what she knew had to be the proposal letter.

"Li…Lianna? What–" Her father was so startled that the letter fell from his fingers, drifting down and then across the floor to land in front of Lianna's feet.

Lianna bent down and picked the expensive, scented paper off of the floor and looked at her father. A sickly sweet perfume wafted up from it. When she looked up from the letter, she met her father's eyes and said, "Father, we need to talk."