9. Torgan
TORGAN
Imake it as far as the east archway before I stop.
I don't leave. Leaving would mean I'm done with something, and I'm not.
Not yet.
I stand beyond the torchlight and watch Lissy find a bench at the edge of the dance floor. She sits alone, smoothing her skirts as if that gives her hands something useful to do.
Now we're dancing, she told me.
For one song, I forgot every rule I have.
That was all it took.
Across the hall, Mima charges toward her. My little cousin climbs Lissy's skirts and settles directly into her lap. Lissy goes still for a moment, then tucks the girl against her shoulder as if she has done it a hundred times.
Mima falls asleep almost immediately.
My chest goes tight.
Why does that hurt?
I know the answer, so I push at an older hurt instead.
Ma in the snow outside the east wall. An arrow through her side. Blood spreading across the white ground while I stood there, nineteen years old and frozen for two full breaths.
Two breaths.
She lived, but she was never as strong afterward. I have spent every year since making sure I never hesitate over my family again.
I watch the roads. I read the reports. I guard every door whether anyone asks me to or not. I call it duty because it sounds better than fear.
Every person I love is another person I can fail.
On the bench, Lissy looks down at the sleeping child. I want to cross the hall and sit beside her. I want to ask if she is all right. I want to hear her explain something I never thought to notice before.
I want too much.
So I stay in the archway.
"There you are."
Pa comes through the corridor with enough mead in him to color his cheeks. He leans against the other side of the arch.
Pa never drifts anywhere. Everything he does was decided before anyone else noticed it needed doing.
"Good wedding," he says.
"Good wedding."
His gaze moves across the hall. "The dressmaker is charming. Your grandfather is half in love with her. Mima has claimed her."
I keep my hands loose at my sides.
Pa turns to me. "I saw you dance."
"It was a dance."
"You looked happy."
I say nothing.
He lets out a slow breath. "Don't be foolish about her, Torgan. You're the heir. Everything you do reflects on this family, and we're negotiating with humans who are waiting for a reason to treat us as less than them."
"Pa..."
"It isn't because she's human," he says. "She's a fine woman. Anyone can see that. But your sisters get to marry for their hearts because you don't."
There it is.
He isn't telling me anything I haven't told myself since I was old enough to understand what heir meant.
My sisters can choose.
I carry the family.
"There's nothing to be foolish about," I say.
Pa studies me. He knows I'm lying, but he also knows when pushing will get him nowhere.
"Good," he says.
The word sits between us.
I need somewhere without a view of Lissy, so I move toward the tables by the doors. The older guests have settled into serious drinking games, and that is where I hear the name.
"Voss," Kenna, a master weaver from the western villages, says bitterly.
"I've sold to the same house in Valeforth for thirty years.
This spring, they tell me everything goes through Voss Textiles.
Their man offers half what my cloth brings at market, and the Merreach dockmasters won't take orc freight without a Voss stamp. "
One of the other traders glances around. "Careful."
"I'm sixty-one and drunk at a wedding. When will I be safer?" Kenna drinks, then wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. "They buy at half, sell at full, and call the difference a tariff. I asked to see the tariff schedule. Their man laughed at me."
The traders mutter their agreement before the conversation wanders back to looms and dyes.
I stand there with my fists clenched.
It isn't proof. It is a drunk weaver talking at a wedding.
But I've read enough shipping records to recognize what she is describing. At Valeforth Hall, the Duke called it coordination and protection. His sons sit at the docks and make sure the tariffs are paid as they should be.
Paid to whom?
The weavers are forced to sell for less. Shops like Lissy's pay more for the same cloth. Voss Textiles takes its share from both sides.
Princeton called her shop a mercy purchase.
Fuck him.
This is something I understand. A threat with a name. Records that can be checked. Men who can be watched.
For the first time tonight, I know what to do.
I look back across the hall. Mima has been carried off to bed, and Lissy now sits with my three unmarried sisters crowded around her. Brynna has her notebook open. Saskia is shouting something about armor. Mirelle guards a plate of cake while Lissy laughs and promises them things.
I'm not going to tell her about Voss. Not yet.
She has enough to worry about. I can look into the tariffs first. I can find out whether Princeton's interest in her shop is part of something larger.
Am I protecting her, or am I deciding for her again?
I don't know.
I tell myself I'll speak when I have proof.
The musicians begin another song. Lissy looks up through the crowd and finds me immediately.
How does she keep doing that?
For one foolish second, I think about crossing the hall.
Then I leave.