"Your daughter is young, so it is likely her blood is still in you. You carried her. There would be enough of it lingering to be recognized."
I let that settle, the logic aligning in a way that feels too clean to ignore.
"Then I want to see it," I repeat.
A pause.
"Come and see it," he says. "Decide for yourself."
"Morrath calls to you," he adds.
I look at him. "Why?"
"I do not know," he says.
The answer is not what I expected. For a moment I study him, searching for the angle, the part of this that benefits him. What I find instead unsettles me more. He is being reasonable. And honest.
Kiss shifts in my arms, a soft irritable sound pressing out of her. I adjust her.
"You look pale," he says.
"She insisted on blood this morning." I exhale lightly. "She has mostly adjusted to milk. But Colsar spoils her. If she gets even a taste she remembers."
He lifts his goblet from the desk without comment.
I do not move to take it. My hands are full.
He steps closer.
He brings the goblet to my lips.
I hesitate just long enough to choose it.
Then I drink.
The taste is immediate. Iron and something warm and deeper that spreads and does not leave quickly. I pull back slightly.
A thin line of red remains at the corner of my mouth. His thumb comes up, dragging slowly across it before I can move. I catch it from his skin, my tongue following the line he left behind.
He watches it, and our eyes linger for longer than needed.
Then Kiss jerks in my arms.
A furious sound breaks from her, her fingers tightening hard against me as she twists toward the goblet, reaching, demanding, entirely certain the world has been unjust to her.
"She wants it," I say.
His mouth moves. "I gathered."
He lets out a short laugh, unable to stop it entirely. Kiss makes another outraged sound, twisting harder, as though I am the one who has wronged her.
I pull her back against me as she protests.
The laugh fades. Something quieter comes after it.
"I want to apologize," he says.
I lift my hand. "Don't."
