Torgan
The third night after she pours my wine, after two days of informal working conferences over winter supply and joint tolls, I hear bare feet in the west passage.
I am alone in the great hall. The lamps are low. The throne arm is split almost to the carved base. I have not allowed the mason to touch it.
Her steps come closer.
I should leave.
Instead, I sit very still and listen to her heart climb.
The far door opens.
Iona stands there in a dark robe with her hair loose over one shoulder. No guard. No servant. Nothing between her and me but sixty paces of empty stone.
“You should be asleep,” I say.
“So should you.”
She starts down the hall.
“Stop.”
She does, but only for a breath. “Your guards did not.”
“What?”
“They let me pass, but not one of them would come with me.” She glances back at the shut doors. “The last man pointed down this corridor and wished me luck.”
“He should not have done that.”
“Let me pass?”
“Wished you luck.”
She smiles.
I bare my fangs.
The robe is belted tightly, but her skin is warm from sleep. I can smell it. I can also smell the change in her as she sees my mouth.
She keeps walking.
“Iona.”
The name leaves me before I decide to use it.
She stops at the foot of the dais.
Since she rode beneath my gate, everyone else has called her Envoy, my lady, or some title I could keep at a distance. Her name is different. It fits too easily behind my teeth.
“There,” she says quietly. “Now we have been introduced.”
“Do not come any closer.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“I know what Sera told me. I want to hear it from you.”
Her pulse is fast, but she is not trembling. She has come here frightened and chosen every step anyway.
I stand.
Her scent sharpens.
Claws slide from my fingertips. I keep my hands at my sides where she can see them.
“Tell me what she said.”
“That your blood chooses once.” Iona’s gaze drops to my fangs and returns to my eyes. “That the bite must be freely offered. That forcing it would destroy us both.”
“Yes.”
“And that you have been hurting since I crossed the pass.”
“Yes.”
“How badly?”
“Badly enough that you should stay where you are.”
She comes up one step.
My claws cut into my palms.
“Iona.”
“You keep warning me. I am listening.” Another step. “I am also still here.”
The old blood surges against my control. Her pulse fills my jaw. I can smell the soap from Sera’s wash house on her wrists and the heat gathering lower in her body.
“Your body is not as calm as your face,” I say.
“I know.”
“You are aroused.”
Her cheeks color, but she does not look away. “I know that too.”
“By what?”
“Your restraint.”
The answer frightens me less than it should.
I come down one step.
She stays.
“Most people look at me and wonder what I might do to them,” I say.
“I did.”
“And now?”
“Now I am wondering what you will let yourself do.”
A growl moves through my chest.
Her shoulders draw tight.
I stop two steps above her. If I reach, I can take her by the waist. If I bend, I can put my mouth on the pulse beating beneath her ear.
“You are close enough for me to grab,” I say.
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only one you are getting while you stand there smelling like that.”
Her lips part.
My claws extend fully.
She watches them. “Will you touch me?”
“I want to.”
“But you will not.”
“Not until you know the whole law.”
“Then tell me.”
I force my hands open. The claws retract slowly. It hurts enough to steady me.
“My true name is part of the offer. Spoken alone, it is only a name. An intimacy. One man in this hold knows it because he carried me off a battlefield when I could not walk.”
“Ghenn.”
“Yes.”
“No one else?”
“No one else uses it. Ghenn is the only man who says it to my face and keeps his head.”
She takes that in without smiling.
I continue. “The woman my blood chose must speak my name with a summons. She must mean it. No accident can trigger the rite. No trick. No word forced from her mouth.”
“What summons?”
“Come here.”
Her heartbeat stumbles.
I hear the phrase in her voice without her saying it. My fangs throb so hard my vision darkens at the edges.
She whispers, “That simple?”
“That final.”
“And then you bite me.”
“If you still want it when I reach you.”
“Can I stop you after I call?”
“Yes.”
The old law does not require that mercy. I do.
Iona sees something in my face. “You added that.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your choice does not end when mine begins.”
Her composure finally slips. Her eyes shine. She looks away, toward the cracked throne.
“My council sent me here because I was the easiest person to lose,” she says.
“I know.”
“They gave Callas permission to offer me without asking.”
“I know that too.”
Her head turns sharply. “How?”
“This hold carries sound.”
“And you let me walk into your hall blind.”
The accusation strikes clean. I could tell her Callas had not made the offer. I could call silence restraint.
Neither changes what I did.
“If I had warned you,” I say, “his authority would have become mine. You would have wondered whether refusing him meant losing the treaty with me.”
“I wondered that anyway.”
“Yes.”
Her mouth hardens. “So you chose for me. You chose what I was allowed to know.”
My claws press into my palms. “I chose silence because I wanted the first word from you uncontaminated. It was still a choice made over your head.”
She studies me. No forgiveness in her scent.
“You would refuse him,” she says.
“Yes.”
“Even if I wanted to stay?”
“If the words came from him, they would not be yours.”
“That answers Callas. It does not excuse you.”
“No.”
She comes up the last two steps anyway.
I do not move.
She is within reach now. Warm. Barefoot. Her robe brushes my boots.
“Tell me your name,” she says.
Every instinct in me says no. A king does not hand his last defense to the one person who can use it.
But that is why I must.
I take her hand.
Her fingers are cold. Mine close around them, claws buried. She watches our joined hands.
I turn her palm upward and breathe against the center of it.
Her scent opens.
I drag my nose slowly over her wrist, the same place I held at the treaty table. Her pulse kicks against my mouth. I keep my lips closed. I keep my fangs away.
“Torgan,” I say against her skin.
She shudders.
I lift her hand and set it over my heart.
“Name. Summons. Intent.” My heart strikes her palm hard enough that she spreads her fingers. “Now you have them.”
She looks up at me. “Why give me this if you want me to leave?”
“Because wanting you does not entitle me to keep you ignorant.”
“That sounds painful.”
“It is.”
Her thumb moves once over my chest.
The touch is small. My whole body answers. Claws punch free from my right hand. One catches the edge of the dais and carves through stone.
Iona does not pull away.
“Do you want me to use it?” she asks.
I cannot lie to her with her hand over my heart.
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Would that be wise?”
“No.”
A breath of laughter leaves her. It shakes.
I close my hand over hers before she can move it again. “Do not offer because I hurt. Do not offer because your council wants a seal. Do not offer because you think gratitude is the same as desire.”
“What may I offer for desire?”
“Anything but the bite.”
The words leave me rough.
Her pupils widen.
I smell the answer before she gives it.
“Good,” she says.
I bend until my mouth is beside her ear, careful of her throat. “You should go.”
“Are you asking?”
“Yes.”
“That must be difficult.”
“Do not make me repeat it.”
She steps back.
The loss of her hand leaves my chest cold.
At the edge of the dais she pauses. “Good night, Torgan.”
Only the name.
No summons.
Then she turns and walks away with my true name in her mouth and my scent on her wrist.
I wait until the doors close.
The cracked throne arm is beside my hand. I bend and set my fangs into the broken edge. Stone breaks between my teeth, but the arm holds.
The relief lasts less than a heartbeat.
It is still worth it.