Page 115 of Given to the Black King

She puts both hands on the map.

“If I leave now, I become exactly what the coast houses wrote me as. Something to move out of danger while the men decide the country.”

Her eyes meet mine.

“I choose the wall.”

The room waits.

I look at the cut beneath her jaw.

Then at the red thread already marking Osk’s route.

“Stay or go,” I say. “No council. No instrument. No king. Your choice.”

“The wall.”

I turn to Ghenn.

“Double the west guard. Marrek stays beside her at the foot of the old beacon tower on the west wall. If the line breaks, he takes her up and bars the stair. No one reaches her without crossing black-country steel.”

Iona opens the report fully.

“Now show me the paymaster.”

The map changes under her hands.

Osk’s own levies are marked in black stones. His eastern cousins in gray. Four hired companies sit behind them: the Blue Gulls, the Red Pikes, the Split Sun, and the White Horse.

Ghenn sets the last counter down. “White Horse joined him three nights ago. Eastern free lances. They were not in the first pay ledger.”

Ghenn places the captured notes beside each banner.

Iona reads the first in silence.

At the second, her mouth tightens.

At the third, she reaches for the fourth.

“There isn’t one,” Vess says. “The courier carried three.”

“There are four companies.”

“Yes.”

Iona lays the notes side by side.

“They all have first claim.”

Ghenn leans over her shoulder. “Meaning?”

“Each captain was promised payment before the others. Same customs revenue. Same grain levy. Same winter tolls.”

“Can they do that?” Perr asks.

“They did.”

“Can they pay it?”