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He’s tall, his dark uniform buttoned to the throat, and his hands are clasped behind his back. His rigid posture contradicts the open amusement on his face. He must have followed us from the castle, but now he stands at the fence line with his chin tilted and his lips pressed together in the particular shape of a man trying very hard not to laugh.

“We’ll need workers,” I say to him, keeping my voice level. “People who can dig, carry, haul material from the shore. As many as can be spared.”

The laugh escapes. “With respect,” he says, and the word respect does not match his tone. “I don’t take orders from the king’s consort. And I’m not wasting manpower on a human girl who thinks she can garden in cursed dirt.”

I feel the heat rise in my chest, the familiar burn of being dismissed by someone who sees a small human woman and decides in a single glance I’m worthless. I’ve felt it a thousand times. On Crawly’s farm. From Madam Dahlia. From every guard and master and petty authority who looked at me and saw a servant, a girl too small and too powerless to deserve the same air to breathe.

Eagan shifts beside me. The movement is subtle, a half-step forward, his weight redistributing into something more alert, ready to intervene.

I lift my hand. Just a small gesture, palm out, fingers spread, and Eagan stops.

“The labor camps,” I say to the guard. “How many workers are there?”

His smile fades slightly at the shift, confused by my calm. “Occupied,” he answers, crossing his arms. “Power systems need repair, the southern wall is shifting, and the eastern piers collapsed. Every able body is spoken for. There’s no one to spare for planting seeds in dead ground.”

I nod slowly, letting the information settle. Then I turn away from him entirely, which costs him more than any argument would, because nothing stings a man’s ego quite as effectively as a woman deciding he’s not worth arguing with.

My gaze moves across the dead field to the line of cliffs beyond it, the dark rock dropping away to the ocean below, and I can see the shore from here, a narrow strip of gray sand littered with driftwood and tangled seaweed left behind by the tide. The wind off the water pushes my hair across my face, and I tuck it behind my ear and look at Eagan.

“Then I suppose it’s you and me,” I say.

He blinks once, then the corner of his mouth twitches in a way that tells me he’s amused by my suggestion.

We walk away from the guard, heading toward the path that descends to the cliffs, and Eagan falls into step beside me with his normal quiet ease.

“You know,” he says after a moment, “you hold rank here. As Kylian’s bond, you outrank every guard and person here. Everyone except Kylian himself. That man back there would have snapped to attention and followed your orders if you’d pressed the point.”

“As Kylian’s bond,” I repeat, and the bitterness in my voice surprises me. “His personal feeder. That’s the rank I hold? The woman whose blood keeps the king fed gets to order soldiers around?”

Eagan exhales, and the sound is caught between exasperation and something warmer. “You could at least try to see it as more than that.”

“Hard to see it as more when every part of my body that matters to him has teeth marks on it.”

“You’re his bond. That outranks everyone.”

“If that were true, he wouldn’t have hidden me from Zander’s men.”

“That was for your protection.”

I keep walking, the wind picking up as we approach the cliff edge, and the ocean below churns against the rocks in white bursts of spray that catch the gray light.

“Sand,” I say, pointing down toward the beach. “I need sand from down there. The coarser the better. It will help the soil keep moisture without compacting. And seaweed, as much as we can gather. It breaks down into nutrients and should at least dilute it enough to give roots a chance.” I scan the shoreline, thinking, my mind working through the problem the way it always does when I have dirt under my nails. “We can use crushed shells for lime. And ash. Whatever you burn in the castle fireplaces, save the ash. Do we have coffee?”

“You want to use coffee,”

“There is a method to my madness. I can grow what we need, but I don’t want it to die the moment I finish harvesting it. If we can fix the soil, the plants will grow on their own after a little nudge.”

“We’ve tried all these things, except the seashells. We have a library full of information, nothing works,” he says.

“Yes. But you didn’t have a mage.”

He stops walking. “That’s the first time you’ve said it aloud.”

“Kylian told me I didn’t need to hide here,” I reply. “I have power that’s been sitting in my veins for years. I want to see what I can do with it.”

Eagan smiles. “Then let’s find out.”

CHAPTER 38