Page 12 of Given to the Black King

Ghenn shuts the armory door behind us.

“You dismissed yourself.”

“Yes.”

“From your own audience.”

“I was there.”

He takes a roll of linen from the shelf and throws it at me. “What is happening?”

I wrap my arm.

Blood darkens the cloth at once.

Ghenn waits.

He has seen me with arrows in my back, a spear through my thigh, half my left horn broken at the root. The horn regrew years ago, leaving a faint ridge near the base. He did not look at me then the way he looks now.

“The old blood chose,” I say.

His face changes.

“Her?”

I bare my fangs.

Ghenn sits on a weapons chest. “Well.”

“Do not say anything foolish.”

“I had several things prepared.”

“Keep them.”

He rubs both hands over his face. “Does she know?”

“No.”

“Are you going to tell her?”

“No.”

That brings his hands down.

“Torgan.”

“The treaty will be signed. She will leave.”

“And you?”

“I will remain king.”

He stares at me.

The fangs pulse again. Her heartbeat has quickened somewhere beyond the armory wall.

She is angry.