He left to go find a light meal she could eat and the moment she was alone Sir Ludwig stepped into the room. The Knight came to the side of the bed and once again dropped to his knees, removing his eye patch in eternally symbolic submission. "Mistress; although your illness was a trial from Adaba, I still failed to protect you from the assassin. I deserve to be punished." 
In even her brief time here in Adaba, Emberlee had learned new, terrible tricks. She lifted his chin, seeing the desecration of his once handsome face and the desperation in his remaining eye as she forced eye contact and smothered him in her willpower, "How do you want to be punished?"
Whatever resistance he may have wanted to put up as a trained Imperial Knight had already been subjugated as her loyal dog; a role she felt truly settled on him as a shudder wrought through his body. Lacking Fairy Magic Sir Ludwig had no 'aura' but like Méabh's servants she could see a ribbon of power now wrapped around him; glittering in dark majesty, and entirely hers. 
"Mark me, Mistress, so I may bear your wrath," He pleaded masochistically, and she smirked as it occurred to her that this was the true heart of the man. He'd been so obedient because he wanted so desperately to be claimed; Adaban culture suited him. 
"When I am well, I will give you lashings to match the ones you helped make me bear," she promised and finally released him from her will before Damien could return to witness such a strangely intimate scene. 
The Knight quickly regained his composure, but even as he returned to his post guarding her she knew all the Fairy Bound would see he was already marked as hers. Her loyal dog. Despite the effort she just extended, Emberlee felt enlivened and when Damien returned with a broth and restorative tea, she finished all of it. She'd slept for three days and awoken changed, and it was already having an impact on those around her. That meant she had less than a week to learn what she was now and how to use it before Méabh's coronation. 
It took another day to recover and eat enough to let her move around without fear of tipping over, chewing the time she had to prepare down even more. Thankfully the spouses all seemed sympathetic to varying degrees, though Titania's was more of a 'this is what you deserve for rejecting Méabh'. 
Oberon the Pretty had come to her first, alerted by Damien that she was awake. "Darling, you do seem to do things the hard way, but you certainly don't disappoint," Oberon came in, a nod of acknowledgement to Damien. He had to have seen Sir Ludwig's new aural dog collar but said nothing about it. She already suspected it wasn't something normally done, but it seemed Oberon had elected to not discuss it in front of the Magic blind Damien. 
"If you wanted easy, I was never your girl," Oberon, being a cad, shot Prince Damien a querying look as if to verify the statement. 
To his credit, Prince Damien met his eyes and answered with complete honesty, "She's never been your girl." 
Now Oberon gave her a look and she shook her head no. Méabh's power was wrapped around them like a possessive lover's embrace, established in quite literally how it was named. Emberlee's mark on Sir Ludwig was the collar and leash their relationship required; not a lover's exchange but that of an owner and pet. She could step on him and he'd thank her for it. "Your beloved Prince drives a hard bargain, but it looks like there will be a mutually beneficial relationship growing between our Nations," Oberon was as cheeky as always, but his next words gave her pause, "Congratulations, you have successfully achieved the alliance your Mother helped initiate."
She'd known her Mother had carried a missive, but this was the first she'd heard that she'd been a part of the alliance. Suddenly several unrelated pieces of information fit into the puzzle, like how the Fairy had known her Mother's face to wear it in the beginning. Or why the Ortega March had built up the Trade road to the Peaks in Mother's time. With Father at war, Mother had gone looking for political allies. Emberlee was her Mother's legacy in more ways than she'd realized.