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I felt my ears warm. “That isn’t why I selected her.”

He gave a sly grin. “No?” Perhaps my face couldn’t hide how flustered I felt, because he laughed. “Good lad. You did well, regardless.” The king drained his teacup, then set it down for a refill. “Now, onward. Please inform Kat to make the wedding preparations for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” A twinge of anxiety planted itself in my gut, and I hoped I didn’t look as frustrated as I felt. “Why so soon?”

The king looked at me as if I had said something ludicrous. “Since she is to stay, we see no point in delaying.”

“Forgiveness, sire, but that isn’t enough time to—”

“You do love to bore us with details, Beric. Just see that it’s done.”

As usual, two hundred years of living had given him zero sense of time. The servants would be working into the night to get everything done.

I sighed and moved to stand, but the king grabbed my shoulder.

“Stay with us a moment,” he said. “You’re all we have left of Vi.”

I settled back onto the couch, and he removed his hand. We sat for a moment in heavy silence—something I normally enjoyed. But now it filled me with anticipation of dread. It wasn’t as if Vi had been related to me at all. He’d only seen us together in battle and the brief times he was at court. Vi did nothing beyond her own duty, while I did … well, everything. To pair me with her wicked memory felt wrong.

But then, she had only ever seen fit to be wicked to me.

The king took another sip of tea. “Thirty years was the longest we’d ever kept a knight, if you can believe it. It’s an odd feeling, is it not? To lose someone after working intimately with them for so long.”

“Very odd,” I agreed, emotionless.

“She will be sorely missed.”

My stomach felt sick all of a sudden. “She was a tremendous asset to the crown.”

“Indeed. We half expected her to enter from the adjoining room earlier. What a tragedy.” We sat in silence for a few moments more, while he drank his tea. “We knew her longer, but you were so very young when you met. We know you considered her a bit of a motherly figure, alongside Kat.”

I rubbed my jaw to force it to relax. “As you say, sire.”

“She was the disciplining type though, was she not?” He chuckled, and I forced myself to abandon the ideation of strangling him where he sat. “It’s a wonder you have so few scars.”

“Unfathomable,” I said, my voice tight. I longed to disappear. Or at least for him to stop speaking nonsense he must have known could never be true. As if senselessly beating a child was anything close to discipline.

“But she sang like an angel.… We thought of that, today, when your little Muse used Vi’s lute to heal us.” He sighed, and for a long time, he was silent. “We don’t remember, but we suppose the transition from the previous knight to Vi was difficult as well.”

I took a breath, only relieved I no longer had to pretend to reminisce. “I’m sure it was, sire.”

“So it’s normal, then, that we don’t like this one quite yet.”

I rubbed my mouth to hide my satisfied grin. “Very normal, sire. But she will do her duty when it comes to The Dark. I’ve made sure to select only the best knight for Your Majesty.”

“We will keep her, Beric, but only because we trust you.” The king suddenly shooed me away, and I gladly stood. “Please go make sure she looks her best for this evening.”

I nodded and left the room quickly.

Perhaps I could steal a nap before court, but I doubted any sleep I managed would be substantial enough to be worth it. As it stood, informing Kat of the wedding was priority.

I found Kat in her office, attending to her paperwork, the King’s Council around her discussing foreign relations. Or, rather, the Queen’s Council—the king didn’t know they existed. He would have far less trust in Kat if he knew she wasn’t all knowing when it came to ruling, as irrational as that seemed.

Kat looked up as soon as I stepped into the doorway and immediately dismissed the men and women surrounding her. I moved aside to let them leave. Just as the king didn’t know about them, they didn’t know anything personal about the king, except what they saw at court, and so they were never present when Kat and I discussed him. It was the only way to uphold a respectful image of him, honestly. For his protection, it was better this way.

“The king wants his wedding to Calliope to take place tomorrow,” I said, without ceremony—I was too behind on everything for small talk.

Kat’s gape was slightly delayed, as if it took a moment for her to process my words. “Tomorrow, you said?”