Iona
At second bell, Orrick opens the doors to the audience hall.
“Do not stop until you reach the black line,” he says.
A strip of dark metal runs across the floor sixty paces from the doors, with the dais just beyond it.
“What happens if I stop before it?” I ask.
Orrick considers me.
“The court assumes weakness.”
“And if I cross it?”
“The guards assume stupidity.”
Useful man.
I walk.
The walk is long enough for every person in the hall to inspect us, but the court is what holds my attention. Warlords in iron and fur. A woman with narrow green eyes and pupils like a cat. A gray-skinned creature crouched beside the fire. A giant with more teeth than I care to count.
They all watch us. Two of our guards remain just inside the doors; the other four are with the horses and gifts.
Then the Black King moves on his throne, and every other danger in the room becomes background. He is larger up close.
Black horns sweep back from his brow. His shoulders fill the throne. His hands rest on the stone arms, fingers relaxed, claws hidden.
Yesterday I watched those claws split a post. Today they are not there. That should make me feel safer.
It does not.
“Eyes forward,” Callas whispers.
I keep them on the king.
He looks as if he has not slept. There are shadows beneath his eyes. A fresh crack runs through the right arm of the throne.
The chip that fell into the courtyard yesterday came from that hand. I reach the black line and bow.
“Great King. Serath sends gifts and asks for a lasting peace between our lands.”
He takes one sharp breath.
The hall goes quiet.
His gaze locks on me.
My pulse jumps.
One claw slips from his forefinger. A soft scrape against stone.
Then another.
Callas begins, “We have brought—”
“Quiet.”
The word rolls through the floor.
Callas stops.
The king has not looked away from me.
Neither have I.
The air between us feels hot enough to touch. My skin prickles under my dress. The same low pull from last night tightens again, sharper now.
His jaw clenches.
He can smell it. His eyes drop to my throat.
His mouth parts farther, baring both fangs.
I take one step back before I remember the black line. His hand closes on the throne arm.
Stone grinds.
“Rooms have been prepared,” he says.
Callas stares. “Great King, the gifts—”
“Tomorrow.”
“We were told the audience would—”
“Tomorrow.”
The king rises.
Everyone in the court lowers their eyes.
I do not.
He comes down the dais steps.
Slowly.
One step. Another.
The claws on his right hand are fully extended, black and curved. He keeps that hand behind his back.
He stops on his side of the line. Close enough that I feel the heat of him across it.
Close enough to see the wet shine along both permanent points.
His gaze fixes on the pulse in my neck. Heat slicks between my thighs before I can stop it.
A sound leaves him.
Not a word. Too low for one. The cat-eyed woman’s head snaps toward him. The king turns away from me so violently his cloak strikes the edge of the dais.
“Out,” he says.
The whole court begins to move.
“Not them.” He points toward an archway without looking back. “Me.”
Then he is gone.
For several breaths, nobody speaks. Callas’s lips have gone gray.
“What did you do?” he asks me.
“Bowed.”
“You stared at him.”
“He stared first.”
The cat-eyed woman laughs.
It is not a friendly sound. She comes toward us while the rest of the court pretends not to watch.
Up close, she wears no jewels except a thin gold ring through one pointed ear. A knife hangs at each hip.
“Envoy,” she says.
“My lady.”
“Vess.” Her gaze moves over my face, pauses at my throat, then shifts to the empty archway. “I dislike titles before breakfast.”
“Is it still breakfast?”
“In this hold, breakfast ends when someone bleeds.”
Perr makes a faint noise behind me. Vess smiles at him. He goes silent.
“Does the king often dismiss himself from his own audience?” I ask.
“No.”
“Does he often break his throne?”
“No.”
“Does he often grow claws at foreign diplomats?”
Vess looks pleased. “Those are better questions.”
“And the answers?”
“You’ll live longer if you stop asking them in public.”
She walks away.
Callas grips my elbow. “We are going back to the guest wing.”
I look at his hand until he removes it.
“Tomorrow,” he says through his teeth, “you will be less provocative.”
“I stood on the line you gave me and delivered the greeting you wrote.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No. Apparently nobody intends to tell me what anything means.”
Orrick leads us from the hall. As we pass the throne, I see the fresh damage clearly. Four claw marks score the stone arm.
One is deeper than the others. The king held back the thumb. I do not know why that detail follows me all the way to the guest wing.
It does.
At midday, a laundry maid comes for our traveling clothes. When she lifts the basket, a strip of torn black cloth slips onto the floor.
I pick it up before she can. The edge is wet with blood.
The maid goes pale.
“Whose is this?” I ask.
“Wrong basket, my lady.”
She snatches it from my hand and hurries out. Callas tells me to leave it alone.
I wash the blood from my fingers. The smell of iron and smoke stays with me until evening.