Torgan
Ghenn drops Osk’s pay ledger on the war table before breakfast.
“Three hired companies confirmed,” he says. “Blue Gulls, Red Pikes, and Split Sun. There may be more. Osk is paying by the week.”
I open the ledger.
The writing is a copy. The silver amounts are not.
“Too much money for Osk,” I say.
“Much too much.”
Vess sits on the window ledge with one boot against the stone. No one invited her. “The first payment came through a Serathi counting house.”
Callas is not in the room. I can hear him one floor below, arguing with Perr about wax seals.
“Which house?”
“Still finding the counting house.” Vess tosses a narrow strip of paper onto the map. “The courier drew a knife during capture. He lost two fingers before my people stopped him. He remembers the broker. I expect the rest will return when he understands the alternative.”
“He is under crown law now,” I say. “No more pieces removed. Question him with a clerk present.”
Vess looks wounded. “You make intelligence work dull.”
“I make testimony usable.”
Ghenn looks at me. “Osk wants you angry.”
“He has succeeded.”
“He wants you riding east before the frost.”
“That part has failed.”
I move three black counters to the pass mouth. Osk can gather men. He cannot feed them through winter without help from the south.
The door opens.
Iona walks in carrying revised grain schedules. The fourth formal session is due after breakfast; she has arrived early with the numbers she intends to make me accept.
Every thought in my head changes direction.
Her hair is pinned up. Her dress covers the mark on her shoulder. No one else can see the bruise on her inner thigh.
I can smell both.
I can smell the faint trace of my release beneath her nails, though she has washed. I can smell the two climaxes I drew out of her on the map table. My claws push against my fingertips.
She stops beside the empty chair. “Am I interrupting?”
“Yes,” I say.
Ghenn says, “No.”
Vess smiles. “Only the king.”
Iona sets the schedules down. “Good. I need the western road figures.”
She reaches across the table.
Her sleeve brushes my hand.
One claw snaps out and pins Osk’s ledger to the wood.
Nobody speaks.
Iona looks at the claw. Then at me.
“Still sensitive?” she asks.
Ghenn develops a sudden interest in the pass map.
“Sit,” I tell her.
The command comes out in the old voice.
Her pupils widen. Heat rises in her scent at once.
Vess slides off the window ledge. “I have learned all I can here.”
“You have learned nothing,” I say.
“I have learned that the envoy follows orders when she likes the tone.”
Iona sits.
Vess leaves before I can throw her through the window.
The war council lasts another hour. Iona listens while Ghenn explains Osk’s likely route. She asks about food, contracts, and how long hired companies will stay without pay.
Cost before troop numbers. Cost before honor.
“Men who fight for silver can be bought twice,” she says.
“Or killed once,” Ghenn says.
She glances at him. “Your method is faster. Mine may be cheaper.”
Ghenn nods. “I begin to see why he keeps you at the table.”
My hand closes around the edge.
Iona’s eyes flick to it. “Claws, Torgan.”
I retract them.
No one comments on her using my name before the war table.
I move the next counter.
After council, I find her in the sunny gallery Orrick moved her into without permission. Tam, the cook’s boy, is teaching her a border song about a tax collector and a goat.
She gets the rude word wrong.
Tam corrects her.
She gets it wrong a different way.
I stand in the doorway and listen until she notices me.
“Your dialect contains too many uses for one goat,” she says.
“Tam.”
The boy straightens. “Majesty.”
“Kitchen.”
He runs.
Iona puts down the page. “He was helping.”
“He was teaching you to insult my quartermaster’s mother.”
“I thought it was the tax collector’s mother.”
“That is the third verse.”
She laughs.
My claws press against my fingertips. I shut the door behind me.
Her laughter fades. The scent beneath it does not.
“You left quickly last night,” she says.
“Osk arranged the bell.”
“Convenient of him.”
I cross the room.
She does not retreat.
I put one hand on the desk beside her and bend close enough to smell the mark under her dress.
“Does it hurt?”
“The one on my shoulder or the one you are pretending you cannot smell through three layers of wool?”
“Both.”
“Pleasantly.”
My claws extend against the desktop.
She touches the first one with the pad of her finger.
“May I?”
“Yes.”
She traces the curve from base to point. The claw is hard, without feeling past the root, but the touch still travels up my hand.
“Do they come out when you fight?”
“Yes.”
“When you are angry?”
“Yes.”
“When you want me?”
“All of them.”
She looks at my other hand. Every claw is out.
Her scent warms.
I close my eyes.
“Not here,” I say.
“I did not ask.”
“You were going to.”
“I was thinking.”
“I can smell thinking now.”
“That is an abuse of royal power.”
I catch her wrist and bring her fingers to my mouth.
The wit leaves her face.
I suck the fingertip that touched my claw. One slow pull. Her breath breaks.
Then I let her go.
“Work,” I say.
She stares at me.
“You came into my room.”
“It is my hold.”
“You put my finger in your mouth.”
“It was distracting me.”
“You are unbearable.”
I leave before she can smell how pleased I am.
That night the ache wakes me before the moon clears the wall.
I lie in the dark with the taste of her on my tongue and the memory of her hand around me. My body is hard. My fangs pulse with her sleeping heart.
I take myself in hand.
There is no point pretending it is discipline. I use the memory of her legs around my head. Her fingers on my horns. Her voice saying more.
I finish hard against my fist and bite down on the leather strap I keep beside the bed. The fangs bracket the leather; my back teeth take the pressure. The strap holds.
The relief lasts moments.
By dawn I am in the training yard splitting posts, but the claws stay out of my skin.
A lamp burns on the colonnade rail. Beside it waits hot wine and a small clay pot.
Salve. Southern herbs. Orchard scent.
No note.
I open the pot and rub it into the splits beneath my claws.
Orchard scent rises from my hands.