The Inspection Dinner
? Ivy ?
By the time I reach the dining hall, the court observers already have their notebooks open. Dinner is the only reason everyone has been given for sitting at the same table.
The table is dark, scarred, and crowded with roasted meat, winter roots, bread, and hot wine. The North has offered hospitality without pretending it’s welcome.
I pause just inside the doorway, long enough for Nora to notice.
“Breathe,” she murmurs near my shoulder.
“I’m breathing.”
“You’re planning an escape with your lungs.”
“I’m not.”
“Then walk before I have to diagnose stubbornness as a circulatory issue.”
I almost smile, but Jace looks up from across the room and the feeling fades before it can settle.
He sits near the middle of the table, close enough to Roman to speak without raising his voice and far enough away to make it clear this isn’t his hall. Sloane is beside him in pale blue, delicate and polished, with every strand of her hair arranged to make the North look rougher around her.
Sloane gives my clothes one measuring glance, then looks past me toward Roman’s chair.
Roman stands when I enter. He doesn’t announce me or make a show of the empty chair at his right. He simply waits beside it, and the entire room notices anyway.
I cross the hall, aware of the silence following my steps. Roman pulls the chair back, his hand never touching me, but his eyes asking the question anyway. I sit.
Only then does he take his place beside me.
The North accepts the movement with the quiet of people who understand what has been said without words. The capital watches because court survives on the belief that every wordless thing can be turned into a report.
Nora takes a place farther down the table where she can see me clearly. Dane sits where he can watch the court party and both doors at once. Holt Varrin is present too, stiff but steady, though there’s no dispatch folder beside his plate tonight.
Jace lifts his cup. “The North honors us with a generous table.”
Roman’s face remains unreadable. “The North feeds its guests.”
The pause that follows is brief, but Sloane’s smile deepens.
The meal begins. Servants move quickly between the chairs, and no one watches Jace as if the sun itself has entered the room. I think that bothers him, though perhaps I only want it to.
When a servant sets winter stew before me, Jace turns his attention in my direction.
“You look settled, Lady Ivy.”
The title is deliberate. Roman goes still beside me, but says nothing.
I lift my spoon. “I’m warm.”
Jace’s brows rise slightly. “I meant the Northern colors.”
“I know.”
Sloane lets her eyes travel over my sleeves. “They’re dramatic. I never imagined you’d enjoy being looked at.”
She says it lightly enough to deny the insult later.
Sloane used to make silence look delicate. Mine was work: staying forgettable until someone needed a task done.
“I don’t enjoy it,” I say. “I’m simply done disappearing because it makes other people comfortable.”
Nora takes a slow drink from her cup. Dane studies his plate. Holt lifts a piece of bread with the concentration of a man who would rather be anywhere else.
Jace’s expression remains smooth. “No one asked you to disappear.”
My stomach tightens. It’d be easy to let the words pass. It’d be easier to say nothing because I know what happens when I name a wound in front of people who prefer it hidden.
I let the old answer die before it reaches my mouth.
“You didn’t have to ask,” I say. “You were all very practiced at making room without me.”
Sloane’s fingers pause around her cup. Jace looks at me as if I’ve spoken in a language he recognizes but never expected me to use.
Sloane recovers first. She always does.
“You’ve become very direct,” she says. “The North must suit you.”
“The North listens when someone speaks plainly.”
Her smile thins. “Does it? Or have you simply found a stronger man to speak through?”
Roman’s hand stills near his knife.
I rest my fingers over the back of his hand beneath the edge of the table.
Roman’s tension eases beneath my touch. His knuckles turn lightly under my fingers before he lets his hand settle again.
Sloane sees it too, and something careful brightens behind her eyes.
I remove my hand before the moment can become another thing the court decides it understands.
“No one speaks through me,” I say. “That was the point.”
Sloane’s mouth curves slightly. “Then I’m sure you don’t mind that every door around you now has a guard beside it.”
Jace looks past me toward Dane, then toward Roman. “My uncle keeps a careful house.”
Roman’s expression doesn’t change. “I keep my house.”
“And Ivy?” Jace asks.
I set down my spoon. The sound is small, but it carries.
“Roman controls access to Northern rooms,” I say. “He doesn’t control where I stand.”
Sloane’s smile thins. “You sound very certain.”
“I am.”
Jace studies me for a moment. “You weren’t always.”
“No,” I say. “I wasn’t.”
A courier interrupts the second course with a sealed request from Eastmere. The crown physician wants the village infirmary opened to royal inspection before the next relief shipment is released.
Dane pushes the paper toward Roman. Roman reads it once, then gives it to me.
The order uses medical oversight as its excuse, but the attached inventory would expose every patient, shortage, and patrol route tied to the eastern post.
“Release the medicine,” I say. “Send an inventory of sealed crates, not names. If the crown wants to inspect sickrooms, it can petition the northern council in daylight.”
The physician sets down his cup. “And if the crown refuses the shipment?”
“Then every village waiting for that medicine receives a copy of this request. The crown can explain the delay to them.”
Roman’s gaze meets mine. He doesn’t praise me. He turns to Holt. “Write it.”
When the third course arrives, Jace watches me more than he eats.
“You looked pale this morning,” he says, his voice lowered enough to sound intimate and raised enough for the table to hear. “The journey North can’t have helped after everything.”
Nora’s fork stops moving. Roman’s attention sharpens beside me.
“I was tired,” I say before either of them can answer.
“A natural response,” Jace says. “Public strain can be difficult for gentle temperaments.”
Sloane’s mouth curves. They keep reaching for soft words, as though fragile will fit if they press hard enough.
“I’m learning my temperament is less gentle than people hoped,” I say.
Dane coughs once into his cup. Nora’s shoulders shake. Roman’s mouth doesn’t move, but the mark at my wrist warms.
Irritation breaks through Jace’s control. I’m no longer answering in the shape he remembers.
A little later, when the court observers turn their attention toward Dane and Holt, Nora leans closer to refill my cup.
The court physician argues until Dane asks how many crown patrols guarded the road when the last shipment vanished. After that, the man studies his bowl.
By the time dinner ends, my shoulders ache from holding myself upright. The court party withdraws toward the eastern guest wing in careful pieces. Northern wolves linger longer than usual, waiting until the capital backs leave the room before relaxing by degrees.
Roman comes around the end of the table as I stand.
“Are you ready to go up?” he asks.
I nod. “Yes.” He doesn’t offer his arm. He only falls into step beside me as we leave the hall, close enough that I can feel him there and far enough that no one could mistake the space for anything but mine.
At the doorway, I glance back once.
Jace remains by the table, looking at the sealed request in Holt’s hand instead of at my gown. That’s better. Let him understand the part of me he dismissed can move more than a room.