Iona
Callas brings a draft marriage annex to my rooms at dawn.
He keeps it folded while he speaks.
“The council gave me discretion before we left Serath.”
I pour tea and do not offer him any. “A personal guarantee. I remember. The treaty does not require one.”
His fingers tighten around the paper. “They are concerned that the king’s cooperation may depend on circumstances that could change.”
“Say what you came to say.”
He looks toward the window.
I wait.
“My existing discretion permits a permanent personal guarantee.”
“Me.”
“A marriage would bind the peace to the court.”
“Me.”
“Yes.”
The word is barely audible.
I set down my cup.
“Did they ask whether I agreed?”
“They assumed you understood what this mission might require.”
“No. They hoped I would understand after it was too late to refuse.”
Callas unfolds the draft. A proposed signature line waits at the bottom with my name written beneath it in another man’s hand.
“You have already drafted it.”
“It is only a draft of an instrument of offer.”
“My offer?”
“The delegation’s.”
I laugh once.
Callas flinches.
“You still do not understand him,” I say.
“I understand that he has given you terms no other kingdom has received.”
“And you think you can purchase the reason.”
“I think Serath needs peace.”
“So do I. That is why you will withdraw this.”
“Iona—”
“If you put that paper in front of Torgan, he will refuse it.”
Callas looks startled. “You cannot know that.”
“I know it better than you know me.”
He folds the instrument again. “The council gave me discretion.”
“And I am giving you professional advice. Use it.”
He leaves without promising. The rough draft remains on my desk as if the paper itself can keep arguing.
An hour later, Perr knocks.
He holds three sheets covered in corrections and blotted ink.
“I am sorry,” he says before I can speak. “I have copied it badly.”
“I see that.”
“The minister told me to prepare the formal engrossment.” He rubs ink from his thumb and makes it worse. “I wrote your title incorrectly twice. Then the king’s. Then I put the witness line in the wrong place.”
“An unfortunate morning.”
“I may continue having unfortunate mornings.”
His voice shakes. The attempt at humor does not hide it.
I take the pages.
The marriage clause is worse in full. It promises my residence, my loyalty, and any children of the union as guarantees of the border peace. It does not contain a single line requiring my consent.
The word children refuses to stay ink.
At nineteen, I had known the names Danel wanted for daughters. We had argued about them beside my mother’s kitchen table while she pretended not to listen. He wanted old family names. I wanted names no dead relative could claim. We had believed we possessed enough time to settle it.
My father had been dead since I was eight.
River fever took Danel, then my mother less than a fortnight later.
Afterward there were men I chose quietly.
Kind men. Skilled men. None I asked to build a future with me.
That room in my life stayed shut because shutting it was easier than discovering what else fever could enter.
Now Callas has written children who do not exist into a treaty as if Serath already owns their loyalty. He has assigned their home, their blood, and their usefulness before I have chosen whether to bear them. Before I have chosen their father. Before they have drawn breath.
The paper trembles once between my hands.
I set it flat. My hand steadies because there is work to do, not because the clause has stopped hurting.
Perr watches my face. “Can they do this?”
“They can write it.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“No.” I fold the papers. “They cannot make it true.”
He nods quickly.
“Take this back to Callas. Tell him it needs to be redrafted from the beginning.”
“It may take several days.”
“At least.”
Perr reaches the door, then stops. “We are not going home, are we?”
“I don’t know.”
He looks relieved that I did not lie.
After Perr leaves, I sit with the clean treaty on one side of my desk and Callas’s rough draft on the other.
Torgan heard Callas dictate it. He hears everything in this hold.
He could have destroyed the paper.
He could have ordered Callas out of the country. He could have called it protection and decided the matter for me.
He did not.
I find him on the west wall near sunset.
He stands with both hands on the parapet. The wind pulls at his coat. His claws are hidden, but I can see the tension in his fingers.
“You knew,” I say.
He does not pretend otherwise. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I knew Perr would.”
“You trusted a frightened clerk?”
“I trusted that he was more loyal to you than to Callas.”
I step beside him. “Why didn’t you tear it up?”
His head turns.
“Would you have wanted me to?”
“Yes.” The answer comes quickly. I correct it. “No. I wanted to tear it up.”
“That is why.”
I look out over the pass.
Below us, soldiers change the gate watch. One of the sergeants wears new black boots with silver buckles.
“My council thinks I am the reason you signed favorable terms,” I say.
“You are.”
“They think that means I can be secured.”
His claws emerge against the stone.
“I know.”
“They have spent my whole life deciding what I can be used for.” My throat tightens. “You are the first man with enough power to take every choice from me. You keep giving them back.”
He says nothing.
I put my hand beside his. Not touching. Close enough that our smallest fingers nearly meet.
“I see what it costs,” I say. “The blood. The stone. The way you leave your own bed rather than turn your mouth toward me. I see it.”
His jaw flexes.
“It is not wasted,” I continue. “I need you to know that.”
He closes the last inch between our hands.
One finger over mine.
“When you leave,” he says, “I will still sign the treaty.”
“I know.”
“If this ends with you riding south, I will not make the road difficult.”
“I know.”
“That is not what I want.”
The admission is quiet.
I turn toward him.
“What do you want?”
“You. Here because you chose it. In my bed because you walked there. At my table because you take the chair.” His eyes hold mine. “Not as a clause.”
The wind is cold. My face is hot.
“You are not an assignment anymore,” I say.
“What am I?”
“I will tell you when I can say all of it.”
His finger tightens over mine.
I leave Torgan at the wall and find Vess in the lower stair, where she is questioning a runner about the gate ledgers.
She dismisses him, then looks toward the yard. “Your western gate sergeant has new boots.”
“I noticed,” I say.
“He paid off a moneylender yesterday and bought those boots with coast silver.”
Torgan’s body goes still.
“Take him,” he says.
“Not yet.” Vess folds her arms. “He is being paid by someone who wants the envoy outside the walls. I would prefer the person holding the purse.”
Torgan’s claws slide fully out.
Vess looks at me. “Do not walk the night garden alone.”
“Was I planning to?”
“You are always planning something.”
She leaves before either of us can ask more.
Torgan turns to me. “You stay inside after dark.”
My body answers the command before my temper does.
He smells both reactions.
“No,” I say.
His eyes narrow.
“I will not make myself easy to steal,” I continue. “But I am not spending the rest of this treaty locked in my rooms.”
“You heard Vess.”
“I did.”
“Iona.”
I step closer.
“I want to know what it feels like when you stop waiting for me to cross the room.”
His breath slows.
“What are you asking?”
“A hunt.”
The claws against the parapet dig deeper.
“Inside the walls,” I say. “Ground we choose. Rules we agree to. I run. You follow.”
His jaw tightens around the permanent points.
“And when I catch you?”
The old voice is back.
Heat runs through me.
“You keep me.”
He stares down at me. One claw cuts deeper into the parapet.
“Tomorrow night,” he says.
“No guards?”
“Guards at every exit. None in the hunt.”
“Good.”
I walk away before I can change the terms by climbing him on the wall.
Behind me, stone cracks beneath his claws.