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“She did.”
“I understand why.”
The words scrape on the way out.
“Her brothers would have lost their shelter. The debt was designed to make refusal impossible. She tried to warn me without saying enough to expose them.”
Rhysandir waits.
“Understanding does not restore what was there,” I say. “She watched me buy the herbs. She let me carry them into this keep. When I remember her hand on my arm, I cannot tell whether she was begging me to understand or making certain I obeyed.”
“Both may be true.”
“That is worse.”
Nessa is not Varrus. She did not create the trap. She was placed inside it and chose the path that protected her family while endangering mine.
Mercy cannot demand that I pretend the wound never happened.
“I will protect her from Varrus’s creditors,” I say. “I will oppose any punishment that treats coercion as willing conspiracy. But I cannot return to her stall and speak as though we are unchanged.”
“You are not required to.”
“She may expect forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness and trust are different judgments.”
“I do not know what judgment is fair.”
“You need not deliver it today. Her testimony was necessary. Your grief is also necessary. Neither cancels the other.”
I breathe past the pressure behind my ribs. Nessa will receive protection because justice demands it, not because I can force my heart back into its former shape.
I look at him. The man who once assessed people as political assets now separates justice from possession without prompting.
“You have become inconveniently wise.”
“Recovery has damaged me in unexpected ways.”
Another laugh escapes me, quieter this time.
Rhysandir reaches across the space between our chairs. His hand remains open until I place mine in it.
“Our marriage began as a contract imposed by royal order,” he says. “I chose you as a strategic answer before I knew you.”
“I accepted because Lowtown needed grain and firewood.”
“Those facts remain.”
“They do.”
His fingers close around mine.
“They are no longer the whole of it.”
I feel the truth through the limited bond before I answer. Respect. Trust. A devotion neither of us needs to soften into pretty language.
“No,” I say. “Now I choose the partnership.”
