Truthfully, Rhiane didn't know what to make of Luke's promise to not endanger the Black family, nor by his comment that the queen did not need to know about this 'project.' He was being strangely considerate and accommodating. Of course she knew he could be, as she had glimpsed his compassion and wit on more than one occasion, but he was more invested in convincing Sebastian than she had expected. Perhaps one could attribute this to his stubborn determination to win every battle, and thus he was willing to make sacrifices to gain an advantage against the rebellion, but that did not necessitate creating a private encrypted line for her and Sebastian, nor keeping this secret from his mother. The crown prince had struck her as a man who stood alone and apart, creating allies but not friends, who preferred to use threats over bribes. When she had suggested he be careful with Sebastian she didn't think he'd heed her advice and would try to coerce him regardless; that he did not, that he would do so much to ensure good relations, made her wonder.

"A way for me to get out of this alive?" the princess elect repeated bewildered. The very concept left her stunned into silence for a few long moments. She had never contemplated trying to surpass her unspoken expiration date. Another woman might have quietly hoped and dreamed that Luke would fall in love with them and save them from a terrible fate, that romance would persuade the sovereign to spare them, that they would be the first commoner wed into royalty to see old age. Rhiane did not cling to such naive delusions. It was the prospect of being killed, as well as the stipend for her family, that had drawn her to entering the contest. Seeing her mother and brother slowly and painfully die due to their illness had been deeply traumatizing. Standing before their graves she had vowed to not fall prey to chance.

That was the source of one of her many arguments with her father and Gerard. Years together after the funerals had granted them the opportunity to discover Rhiane's morbid fantasies of retaining agency over her fate. At first they had not understood why she wanted to be a candidate for the contests. They had protested that eventually they could turn enough profit from the farm to retire comfortably, or hire workers to replace them when their bodies failed them. Gerard realized it first. By choosing to be a candidate, by entering into an agreement that would culminate in her death, she would guarantee some control over how she departed the world. She would not be able to anticipate exactly the means or the timing, but she'd die for a reason she accepted, by people she allowed. Her fatalistic jokes had always bothered them, but now they knew it was the honesty that hid behind each jest that set them ill at ease, the soft yearning to set the plan in motion that would end it all.

"As much as I would want to bear witness to you not marrying Anelle, you don't have to promise me impossible things. It's better for all them, Sebastian included, to accept my mortality. Your mother would be rid of me, you could find a woman you have a deep emotional connection with, our children would be raised by your standards, and my family would be able to prepare for my death rather than be blindsided," she pointed out. Pragmatically it made sense when she voiced these thoughts aloud. What it failed to take into account was that Luke might want her presence more than a noble lady, that he would prefer her as his co-parent rather than a stand in aristocrat, that he might want for their sons and daughters what he and his sister did not have, or that he might be negatively impacted by losing her. In the absence of his reassurances she could do nothing but assume nothing had changed.

"I'm not saying I'm jealous," Rhiane began, not wanting him to comment on her theory of her required premature demise, "but if I was, it's only because she's a piss poor Image Manger for provoking me. She ought to have been professional and acted in a way that would further her goals. Trying to seduce the very man she wants to convince the nation is madly infatuated with another she is purposefully slighting," she snorted through her nose. "When she shows me she can do her job properly then I will give her my respect, not before. I don't care if she's the mistress of a higher being, I'm not going to hold it all in and be cooperative with that worm," she vented. The problem with the throne was that it assumed it had all the power. It did not. That it was compelled to rely on a publicity stunt in the form of a peasant, one who was more popular than it was, and who had viable alternatives to being their puppet, meant they were on more equal footing then a couple weeks prior.

"Are you also advising that I'm not allowed to try to make her jealous?" she asked abruptly.