Page 143 of Given to the Black King

She lets me give her the rest because she is hungry, not because I am king. The bond makes the distinction impossible to mistake.

When she finishes, she leans back against me.

“I should have reached the garden sooner,” I say.

Her body goes still.

“No.”

“Iona—”

“You may hate the risk. You may hate the cut.” She touches the shallow healing line below her jaw. “You may not turn fear into a reason my choice was wrong.”

The bond carries the steadiness beneath her words.

I force my claws back before they can score the tray.

“I do not know how to want you alive without wanting every wall between you and danger.”

“Learn.”

“Yes.”

She settles against my chest again.

We sleep until the second bell.

I spend the rest of that day moving between her chamber and the work below. I count the dead with Ghenn. I inspect the hired prisoners without drawing a weapon. I put three surgeons under crown guard after Osk’s men threaten them and send grain wagons to the families sheltering in the lower yard.

At every return, Iona is awake and furious that I have been gone too long.

On the second day I hear petitions from the company captains at the foot of our bed while she sleeps behind the curtain. White Horse’s paymaster surrenders the fourth note before noon. By evening the wounded are sorted, the dead named, and every prisoner has a ration mark.

Only then do I sleep beside her until morning.

On the third morning after Osk’s death, Iona sits at my war table in one of my shirts and a black-country cloak.

The shirt reaches her knees.

It does not hide the bite.

No one in the room manages not to look at it. Ghenn looks once and returns to the paymaster’s books. Vess looks repeatedly and without shame. Perr has gone red from collar to hair and is arranging copied pages with enough force to punish the paper.

I sit beside Iona rather than at the head of the table.

The court notices that too.

Vess taps one dark claw against the ledger. “White Horse’s note was in the paymaster’s wagon. Same customs revenue. Same first claim. All four promises are now proved.”

Iona turns one of the copied notes beneath her fingertips. “And the rest of Serath’s council?”

“Not named,” Vess says.

“Not even by implication?” Iona asks.

Perr shakes his head. “No, Majesty. The river bloc voted to send the embassy. The orchard members supplied the gifts. The coast committee handled the loans outside the council books.”

His voice catches on Majesty. He glances at her throat and catches harder.