Six months slipped by, and in all that time Serah had not heard a single whisper, not even a fragment of a word, from Marcus. Her frustration had never been so consuming, so maddeningly sharp, that concealing it became a battle of its own. For a woman who had long trained herself to mask her emotions behind discipline and poise, she still managed to keep the mask intact for the common knights under her command and even before her father, the King. Yet despite all her efforts, there were still two people who saw right through her façade as though it were glass: her younger brother, Galen, and her mother, Queen Seralyne.