Torgan
Iona wakes with one hand wrapped around my injured forearm.
She opens her eyes, checks the punctures, then checks my face.
“You are staring.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Since you fell asleep.”
“That is unsettling.”
“You drool.”
Her eyes narrow. “I do not.”
She wipes the corner of her mouth and finds nothing. I laugh before I can stop myself.
She hits my chest with the back of her hand.
The movement pulls at the bruises on her hips. She winces.
I go still. “Where?”
“Everywhere.”
I start to move away.
She catches my wrist. “Do not make that face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you decide pleasure has become a military error.”
I look at the marks I left on her. My back teeth at her shoulder and breasts. My fingers on her waist. The faint redness between her thighs. The two torn eyelets on the gray dress lying beside the bed.
“I hurt you.”
“Yes.” She stretches carefully and immediately regrets it. “I liked most of it.”
“Most?”
“The first stretch was difficult. The rest was worth being sore.”
I wait.
She sighs. “You need exact figures.”
“Yes.”
“More oil next time. More time before the crown. Short strokes until the ring stops burning.” Her face warms, but she continues. “Keep the position from behind. I liked the ridges more that way. Your claws stayed off me.”
“They will always stay off you unless you ask otherwise.”
Her gaze sharpens. “Can they touch without cutting?”
“Yes.”
“Good. We will discuss that later.”
My body hardens again.
She feels it against her thigh and smiles.
“Not now,” I say.
“I said later.”
I bring warm water from the hearth and clean the dried blood from her shoulder. She lets me rub salve over the bruises on her hips, then takes the jar from my hand when I begin examining every mark twice.
“You are counting me again.”
“Yes.”
She turns the jar between her hands. “And you knew the pot by the training yard came from me?”
“It smelled of you.”
“I thought the lack of a note might preserve your dignity.”
“It did not.”
“I remain one complete envoy.”
“Bruised.”
“Complete.”
She sits between my knees while I unpick the snapped lacing from the gray dress. Two eyelets have torn through the fabric. The dress can be repaired, but not invisibly.
“Sera will murder you,” she says.
“She may present an invoice.”
“She will do both.”
I set the damaged dress aside. “Wear another.”
“That was the intention.”
She tells me Danel’s name while I brush the tangles from her hair.
“He was part of the future once,” she says. “Then fever took him.”
She gives me nothing else. I do not ask for what she has not offered.
I keep my hands gentle and listen.
When she is done, I tell her why I stood before Vessel’s gate before giving the order to break it.
“I count the cost,” I say. “Every man likely to die. Every house likely to burn. If I still choose the taking after the number is clear, I give the order.”
“Your soldiers thought you were praying.”
“They can keep thinking it.”
“It is close enough.”
“No.”
She leans back against my chest. “It is the closest thing you do.”
I let her have the last word because her cold foot is tucked between my calves and I have become weak.
At breakfast she wears a smoke-gray court dress from her traveling chest. It is not the soft laced dress I tore. This one buttons at the back and has a neckline cut wide enough to show the full bruise of my teeth on her shoulder.
The room notices.
Tam drops a spoon. Orrick does not, but only because Orrick could be stabbed without spilling tea.
Callas looks at the mark too long.
Calculation replaces surprise in his face.
A growl leaves me before I can stop it.
Wine trembles in his cup. Every voice at the table dies.
Iona turns toward me.
Her scent heats. Her pupils widen. Then she touches the mark with two fingers.
“His mark,” she says. “My choice.”
I force my claws back beneath the seams at my fingertips. “Yes. Your choice.”
She drags one finger slowly over the bruise while looking at me.
The spoon in my hand bends.
Ghenn removes it and replaces it with a wooden one.
“Preventive maintenance,” he says.
“Eat.”
He does.
The next treaty session runs through the morning. We fold Vessel’s grain terms into the treaty and settle the last dispute over winter supply. Iona argues every line while wearing my mark in full view of the table.
By midday, a rider reports that Osk has doubled the number of hired spears east of the pass.
By afternoon, I hear Callas call her leverage.
He is in the far gallery with Perr. The door is shut. My stone carries every syllable.
“The situation has developed better than expected,” Callas dictates. “The envoy has achieved significant personal influence. Advise the council that I may exercise the personal-guarantee discretion granted before our departure and attach a marriage annex to the treaty.”
Perr’s pen stops. “Minister.”
“Continue.”
“What does permanently mean?”
“You have copied marriage contracts before.”
Silence.
Then Perr says, “Not with the bride absent.”
“Iona is not the bride until the offer is accepted.”
The growl rises in my chest.
I stand outside the door with one hand against the stone. Five claws emerge.
I could enter. Tear the parchment. Break Callas’s writing hand. Send him south tied across a horse.
I leave my hand against the stone until every claw retracts. Then I walk away.
Perr starts writing again, slowly.
I leave before the minister hears me breathe.
That night, Iona sleeps against my chest.
The ache wakes me before midnight.
Her pulse beats beneath my jaw. The root pain climbs into my skull. Venom gathers until my mouth floods.
I ease out from beneath her without touching her throat and take the leather strap from the bedside table.
I set the fang points outside the strap and close my back teeth until the urge passes enough for me to breathe.
The leather holds. I do not bleed.
When I return to bed, Iona is awake. She has pulled on my shirt against the cooling room.
Her gaze moves from my face to the damp strap in my hand.
“How often?” she asks.
“Enough.”
“That is not a number.”
“No.”
I put the strap aside and lie down without touching her.
She watches me for a moment, tired and unhappy.
Then she turns onto her side and takes my wrist, placing my hand over her waist.
She does not offer a solution.
Neither do I.
For the first time in a hundred years, I want time more than victory.