The smaller cuts didn’t trouble me, and the healers promised they might fade without a trace. It was the memory—the way they’d been delivered, and the intimacy and burning humiliation attached to it.
The long gash along my thigh prickled as if aware of my thoughts, the skin there tight and unforgiving.
From beneath my lashes, I stole a glance at Kallias, who’d given a brief nod at Clay’s announcement. He’d spoken little of my injuries. Less of Tallon’s death. Two days since our return, and those hours dragged him from chamber to council tocourtyard. Fatigue shadowed him, but he was in fine health. He ran the kingdom, directing the purge of the Velli from Sol—but I was the fragile queen tucked away to mend.
Some fractures, though, I’d never recover from.
“Are those the riding goats?” Kallias asked, gaze still on the letter, voice mild.
“Battle goats,” Clay corrected at once. “And no. Certainly not. Manuella is a long-haired Kuh’lir. You should see her coat. Black as midnight. Thick. Glossy. It catches moonlight and throws back a violet sheen that hardly seems natural.”
A laugh pressed against my teeth, but I smothered it. Gayle arranged the goats across the board, serene as ever, accustomed to her husband waxing poetic over livestock as though reciting epic verse.
“And there is a market for black rugs?” Kallias folded the letter at last and looked up. “It would hide dirt better, perhaps.”
The man recoiled, affront blazing across his features. “Manuella descends from the Win’or line, sired out of Fe’rur! Her coat is softer than rose petals! Smoother than freshly cut slate!Rugs?”
Kallias regarded him with saintly patience. “Not rugs.”
“Absurd,” Clay muttered, easing back into his chair, though offense still flickered in his posture. He cast one last wounded look at his king. “Sweaters.”
Kallias stared at me as I ate my toast slicked with jam, the berries sharp and sweet on my tongue. He had been seated there too long. Too silent. Thoughts swirled behind his eyes like storm clouds gathering over open water, yet his mouth remained closed.
His presence filled the chamber. Heat from the hearth drifted low along the floor, but his focus weighed heavier than the fire’s warmth. Air thickened, dense enough to press against my ribs.
“What is it?” I wiped the stickiness from my fingers with a linen cloth and faced him fully. “You’ve been mulling it over since you arrived.”
His brows drew together. The corners of his mouth dipped, and a muscle ticked beneath the dark scruff lining his jaw as he tilted his head. “I settle Fyrn’s fate today.”
My heart stumbled. Betrayal cut first, then anger chased it, hot and bright. “You’re not waiting for a trial.” Not a question.
“I have burned known Vellos to the ground without negotiation.” His nose curled, barely restrained contempt seeping through the cracks in his composure. “Her destiny lies with them. The gods have held their trial and deemed her guilty.”
“Her sentence?” The word hardly carried sound. Nothing would satisfy. No punishment could balance what she’d done. No human hand could carve justice deep enough.
He leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, fingers laced tight. “I don’t want to ask this of you. You need rest.” His gaze dipped to my belly, lingered, then returned to my face. “But it is your right. Her life rests in your hands.”
Dragonfire flared in my thoughts. I could see it. Feel the furnace in my lungs.
The end I had wanted for Tallon. The death that claimed Deimos Daggerteeth.
Somehow that felt too kind. Flame would be merciful.
She needed to live out her years knowing what she could have had, suffering. Let regret fester and memory gnaw at her until she met a brutal end.
Yet Clay’s steady hands came to mind. Gayle’s soft humming over her goats. And their daughter… bound to a stake. Could I hurt them in the name of selfish vengeance?
“I can sentence her,” Kallias said, drawing his feet beneath him as if my hesitation was an answer.
“What of Gayle and Clay?” The question halted him mid-movement. “Will they be there?”
He shook his head once. “I would not ask that of them. They shoulder enough blame as it is.”
My eyes closed, and my fingertips drifted to the bandages at my neck. The linen rasped under my touch, rough against healing skin.
“Take me to her.”
His gaze sharpened, piercing through me. “You’re in no condition to be walking through Sol delivering punishment.”
