I continue, because now that I have begun, I may as well finish properly.
“These on the arms are victories. Hunts. Borders held. Raids broken. This here,” I tap a darker piece of ink over my ribs, “was given when I became king.”
“And the neck?” she asks.
“King’s line. Mate line when complete.”
The words come out before I decide whether to say them.
She goes still.
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
Then, very softly, “Because of me?”
I hold her gaze. “Yes.”
The wind moves her hair slightly across her cheek. She does not brush it away. I see the exact second the truth reaches her that my claim on her is not only scent and bed and law. It is written into my future skin already. Into the way my body will carry her place.
It unsettles her. It affects her too.
Good.
She asks the next question more carefully. “Do all the marks mean something like that?”
“Yes.”
“So none of them are just for show.”
“No.”
That seems to matter to her more than I would have guessed. She came from a world where too many things were pretend. She is learning that in my world, harsh things are often simply named harsh, and meaningful things are not performed without cost.
She reaches up before thinking, then stops with her hand half-lifted. My whole body notices. Her eyes widen slightly, perhaps because she notices that I noticed.
“May I?” she asks.
The question goes through me like a blade. May I. No one asks me that with my own body. Not like this. Not in quiet.
I make myself answer only with a nod.
Very slowly, Keandra touches the edge of the marking at my throat. Her fingers are light. Warm. Human-soft in exactly the way that has been undoing me since the capital. The contact is brief. Barely there. But it is enough to pull every part of my attention into that one place.
I do not move.
Another discipline.
Her fingertips trace only the smallest line before she lowers her hand again, perhaps afraid she has taken too much.
“It feels...” She searches for the word. “Part of you.”
“It is.”
The answer comes rougher than the rest. We both hear it. A flush touches her face. She looks away first this time, out toward the camp where women are now hanging freshly washed cloth from a line and a group of children are chasing one another too close to the beast pens until an older boy shouts them off.
I let the moment breathe.
I could take the opening now. Close the distance further. Put my hand on the back of her neck. Draw her closer and make this lesson into something else.
