Chapter 12 Another Summons
Another Summons
The next few days seem to pass quickly. Most evenings, just before dusk, the summons comes. I go to the private hall. The table is set for two. I sit, and King Sevrin turns his chair away.
“Indulge me,” he murmurs.
Then I begin. By the third night I am already lifting my fork before he finishes the words.
He does not eat, though he occasionally sips from his goblet.
He listens, sometimes speaks. Sometimes he asks questions, sometimes he commands.
Other times he lets silence stretch until I am certain he can hear the shift of fabric beneath my hands.
No one remarks upon it. No one questions it. The ritual becomes routine.
Between those nights, the palace reshapes me. I am told Emva and Torsin will join me here after the wedding. The words feel distant until they do not, until they begin to resemble a future.
I am assigned Matron Oramin for instruction.
Princess lessons, so to speak. She teaches me how to stand, how long to hold a lord’s attention before it becomes provocation.
I learn which alliances are delicate, which wives are dangerous.
I memorize names. I learn which smiles conceal and which invite.
Colsar is everywhere and nowhere. I see him across the courtyard, in council chambers, in training yards.
He does not approach, he does not linger.
When I bow, he inclines his head with the same impersonal courtesy he offers visiting dignitaries.
It is as though the moment in my chambers never occurred at all.
He never escorts me to dinner, or asks me to join him for luncheon. I am not surprised, though I do wonder if he knows about my dinners with the King. I wonder if he feels indifference, or curiosity, or anger. Or jealousy, perhaps.
Somewhere in between, I realize no one has struck me in days.
The Eve of the Wedding
King Sevrin summons me just as the palace begins to hum with preparation, silks pressed, flowers carried through the corridors, servants speaking in hushed excitement about tomorrow’s spectacle.
By this time tomorrow, I will belong to Prince Colsar in the eyes of the court, in the language of vows, in the quiet transfer of power that marriage always implies.
And yet tonight, I am called once more to the King’s private dining hall, as though nothing has shifted at all.
The candles are already lit when I enter. As usual, my place is set opposite his empty one. He stands beside his chair when I step inside, hands clasped loosely behind his back, as though he has been listening for my approach rather than expecting it.
He looks particularly beautiful tonight.
His sculpted features are framed by dark hair still damp, as though he has only just bathed.
I have always known his lips to be perfectly shaped, full yet unmistakably masculine.
Tonight they appear softer, deeper in color, and I wonder if his goblet holds something thicker than wine.
“Your Majesty,” I say, lowering my head.
“You came,” he replies.
“I was summoned.”
“And you always answer.”
I don’t have a choice, you are the King.
“Does Prince Colsar know about these dinners?” I ask before I can stop myself.
The King laughs. “I am the King. If I choose to dine with his neglected bride in the presence of servants and all necessary propriety, there is nothing my brother can say against it.” He pauses, the amusement in his voice deepening.
“Especially since he has shown no desire to dine with you himself.”
The words sting more than I care to admit, though there is something in the way he says it that makes the statement feel less observational and more possessive.
I take my seat. The servants place the meal before me and withdraw without lingering. His place remains arranged but untouched, the goblet filled yet undisturbed. “As usual,” I remind him, “I cannot dine while observed.”
“I know.”
He moves his chair and turns it so that his back faces the table before sitting. The motion is quiet, practiced, almost intimate in its repetition.
“Indulge me.”
I lift my fork. The first bite is careful, the veil brushing softly against my lips as I guide the food beneath it. I chew without haste, aware that sight is not required for scrutiny.
For several moments there is only the faint sound of cutlery and the slow rhythm of his breathing.
“You portion yourself,” he says.
“It is practical.”
“It is controlled,” he replies. “Control is rarely accidental.”
The words feel heavier than they should.
“Put a lentil in your mouth.”
I scoop a spoonful of lentils.
“I said a lentil, not a full spoon.” His voice is sharp.
I had forgotten that feeders have exceptional senses. I take my spoon and scoop a single lentil, placing it in my mouth. I begin to chew and he stops me.
“I did not say start chewing.”
He is more particular than at our previous dinners. The room feels uneasy.
“You are aware of every swallow,” he continues. “You do not surrender to hunger. You negotiate with it.”
I do not speak, the lentil still in my mouth.
“Hunger is not something I have ever trusted.”
A quiet pause follows. “Trust is overrated,” he says. “Understanding is better.”
The wine rests cool in my hand.
“Drink,” he instructs.
I lift my glass and take a sip, the liquid cool in my mouth. I set the goblet down.
“Let it linger.”
I hold the wine on my tongue, though I wonder if the lentil will break apart and he will somehow accuse me of swallowing it. He takes a sip from his goblet, but does not provide me additional instruction.
I sit there with the wine in my mouth, the lentil melting on my tongue.
“I assume you wish to swallow,” he says wearily, as though the need is an inconvenience.
I do not respond, unsure if a noise will cause the wine to trickle down my throat.
“You may swallow.” A pause. “Both.”
I swallow, feeling a strange sense of gratitude over something I should not need to feel thankful for yet somehow do.
“I did not like that,” I say coolly.
He ignores me. “You may continue eating.”
I begin eating the roast, out of defiance, since he has not yet mentioned it tonight.
“You decide how much to take,” he says softly. “You decide when to accept it.”
I do not know if we are still speaking of food, but I respond anyway. “I decide what is mine to accept.”
“You assume I do not see you,” he continues. “But I do not require sight to know what you are doing. You pause before you commit. You test the temperature before you allow yourself to feel it. You are cautious with pleasure.”
The word is chosen carefully. “I am cautious with everything.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “You are.”
Silence expands between us, not empty but attentive.
“When I was younger,” he says after a moment, “I used to listen outside closed doors. I learned that a person reveals more when they believe themselves unobserved. The breath changes first. Then the rhythm of the body follows.”
The admission is too personal for courtly conversation.
“Why tell me this?” I ask.
“Because you believe this ritual is about modesty,” he replies. “It is not.”
My fingers tighten slightly around the stem of the goblet.
“It is about appetite.”
The word hangs there, neither clarified nor softened.
“You are very careful with yours,” he continues. “I am curious how long that will last.”
The implication threads through the air, slow and unmistakable.
“I do not understand,” I say, though I do.
“I think you do.”
The warmth in the room feels closer now, heavier beneath the veil. I continue eating, aware that each movement is being mapped through sound alone. He does not interrupt again. He does not turn. He does not touch the food placed before him.
When I am finished, I fold my hands in my lap, a motion that has started to become habit at the end of these meals.
“I am finished.”
For a moment he remains seated, and I wonder whether he is listening for something more. Then he rises and turns back toward the table.
I clear my throat. “And Majesty,” I say evenly. “You should know that I feel no regret for my…attack the other day. When you reached for my veil and I threw you across the room.”
I do not know why I say it.
He laughs. “Brave words. I could have you thrown in the dungeons.”
“You could, but you will not.” It feels like something he would say.
He does not answer. Instead, he crosses the table and takes the used fork that lies on my empty plate.
He lifts it to his nose and inhales slowly.
The act is strange, yet something in me stirs.
He sets the fork down abruptly. “You will dine with me again,” he says. It is not a request.
Then again, it never was.
“Marriage changes many things, Lady Asharin. Appetite is not always one of them.”
I rise, fully aware that by this time tomorrow I will be called Colsar’s wife and I will no longer be veiled. Yet tonight I have been measured in a way that feels far more personal and far less ceremonial.
The King did not eat during our meal, yet I leave with the unsettling certainty that something has been taken all the same.