Juliette’s face remained completely passive, though she was frustrated. The very idea that she ought to allow an assassin in the employ of the enemy to walk freely into the throne room, accompanied by nothing more than a few overconfident guards he could easily disarm and overpower! Granted, the Queen had not seen just how fast and deadly LeChance was, but Juli could not believe her monarch did not have the sense to defer to a decade of military experience.<em>Hell, what if he were not a mercenary at all? What if he were a fanatical Aserit loyalist willing to exchange his life for the Queen’s?</em>These possibilities might be highly unlikely, but the idea that the Queen would chance them for no good reason...<em>I bet if I’d left him in unchained, I would have been rebuked for that instead!</em><br/><br/>After these thoughts crossed very briefly through her mind, the princess reigned in her emotions. Juli reminded herself that to the Queen she was an unknown quantity—a dangerous variable thrown into an already delicate situation. Her sovereign had every reason to be skeptical—still, the Queen’s sarcastic words had sounded more like spite for its own sake than an actual correction.<em>Is she blaming me for the circumstances of my own birth?</em>There was nothing for it—Juli would just have to do the best she could, and hope that someday the Queen would judge her more fairly.