The granddaughter of the rulers of Tarben stood relatively bored as around her women were claimed. Balerion dropped Guinevere and got Lähmer; Drevis was taken by Wendigo. Ares, the cruel sigma, attempted both Cascade’s aunt Lova and her sister Dwyn, but only ended up with Dwyn after Lova was taken by the newcomer, Kublai. At this point Cascade finally felt as if there was some excitement in this process-soulmate ties were boring. Quickly the newcomer Aurora, Atla, Guinevere, and Rayne were snapped up, by Odin, Redd, Maurepas, and Mori, respectively. Cascade was still left. She noticed her sister Eyre was looking close to tears, being the only one besides Cascade left unclaimed. A beat, then Phobus stepped in to claim Eyre. Good thing, or her sister would have bawled. Cascade stood strong, her dismissive gaze flicking over all the males. Radke, but he wouldn’t dare, as he was her half-uncle by Rayne, and Malären. He wouldn’t either. Even in Tarben, Cascade supposed inbreeding was frowned upon.
Oh well. If nobody claimed her, she would just go on doing her own thing. Cascade supposed she didn’t want to be a mother anyway. How could she achieve her dreams of being a spy if she had children to take care of? It was a pity the war hadn’t dragged on longer. If it had, then Cascade would’ve aged up to adult, and she might’ve been able to spy. She knew lots of things already. She’d spied on her parents, on her siblings. Really she had no dirt, but that was okay. The one time-one time!-as a pup she’d stepped on a twig while stalking Haladki. Once! As an itsy diddling baby! She wasn’t anymore. She was practically a woman.

“There’s no such thing as fate, only yourself to blame-you never walked away!”