The blood oath between the Doyle clan and the wolf packs is dissolved.
Erwan surrenders himself to the Dragon Council to face charges of insurrection.
Fergal read them twice, his legal mind dissecting each one automatically. Then he closed the folder and set it on the table. “These are absurd,” he said pleasantly. “You know Erwan won’t agree to any of them.”
“That’s not your concern.”
“It is, actually, since I’m apparently the leverage you’re using to force compliance. And leverage only works if the demands are achievable. These aren’t. They’re theater.”
Kerry’s jaw tightened. The micro-expression was tiny and most likely invisible to anyone who hadn’t spent years studying faces across negotiation tables, but Fergal caught it. He’d hit a nerve. Kerry didn’t like being called out on strategy, especially by a man fifteen years his junior in human terms and roughly two centuries his junior in dragon years.
“The demands are nonnegotiable,” Kerry said.
“They’re also nonfunctional. Erwan can’t renounce a claim that’s been ratified by the Dragon Council. The omegas left voluntarily under provisions of the Code that you yourself acknowledged at the Council. The blood oath is a sovereign agreement between the Doyle clan and the wolf packs, which cannot be dissolved by a third party. And the Dragon Council can’t try Erwan for insurrection when the Council itself voted to recognize his legitimacy.” Fergal ticked each point off on his fingers. “Legally, these demands are worthless. You know that. So the question is: what are they actually for?”
The silence that followed was satisfying.
Kerry recovered smoothly—the man was skilled, Fergal would give him that. “Perhaps the demands are aspirational rather than immediate. Perhaps they’re designed to open a negotiation.”
“Or perhaps they’re designed to occupy Erwan and Rhene while you execute your actual plan.” Fergal held Kerry’s gaze. “How are Duncan and Donovan doing, by the way? Making progress with the transition?”
The hit landed. Kerry’s mask slipped for a full second—surprise, quickly followed by calculation, and then the careful reassembly of composure. But the damage was done. Fergal had confirmed what he’d suspected. They weren’t demandingthe Fitzgeralds because they were already taking them. Duncan and Donovan were executing a takeover while Fergal sat in a cell, unable to stop them, and Gregor was distracted by finding Fergal.
“You’re well-informed for a prisoner,” Kerry said.
“I’m well-informed for a king. There’s a difference.”
“Not at the moment there isn’t.”
“At the moment, no.” Fergal uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his expression shifting from academic interest to something harder. “But moments pass. And when this one does, you’re going to find yourself on the wrong side of the Code, the wrong side of history, and the wrong side of every alliance your maneuvering has created.”
“Is that a threat, Your Majesty?”
“It’s a legal assessment. Free of charge. Consider it a professional courtesy.”
Alistair shifted behind him with a subtle redistribution of weight that Fergal’s Gregor-trained awareness registered as a threat display. He ignored it. Alistair was a blunt instrument, dangerous but predictable. Kerry was the one who required careful handling.
“We’re not unreasonable men,” Kerry said, changing tack with the smooth efficiency of a seasoned negotiator. “Your cooperation would make this considerably easier for everyone involved. Including yourself.”
“Define cooperation.”
Another folder, this one thinner. Kerry slid it across with the casual confidence of a man presenting a contract he expected to be signed. Fergal opened it and found a single document—a formal statement, bearing the Fitzgerald clan’s seal, authorizing Duncan and Donovan to act as regents in the king’s absence with full executive authority.
Fergal read it carefully. It was well-drafted, so someone with legal training had prepared it, possibly Fergal’s own documents and templates, stolen from the compound’s records. The language was precise enough to be legally binding if signed by the king.
“No,” Fergal said and closed the folder.
“You haven’t considered?—”
“I don’t need to consider. The answer is no. It was no before I read it, it’s no now that I’ve read it, and it will be no tomorrow and every day after that until you run out of days to ask.” He pushed the folder back across the table. “I will not sign my clan over to Murphy operatives. Not under duress, not under torture, not under any circumstances you can construct. And if you think a piece of paper with my signature would hold up under the Code after it became known I signed it as a prisoner, then your legal education is even more deficient than I thought.”
The room was very quiet. Kerry’s expression had gone flat, the pleasant mask abandoned for something colder, more calculating. Alistair’s weight had shifted farther forward. And at the far end of the table, Cladhaire spoke for the first time.
