Sevareth reads the summons before I do. He hands it back without comment, but the set of his jaw tells me everything about what he thinks of it and what it costs him not to say it.
"I'll go alone," I tell him.
"Mireya—"
"She's summoning me specifically. If you come, it reads as dependency. It hands her something before we've even sat down." I hold his gaze. "Let me do this."
A long beat. He hates this. I can see exactly how much he hates this in the very controlled way he's not showing me how much he hates this.
"Two guards at the palace gate," he says finally. "Draevik stays within earshot of whatever room she puts you in."
"One guard. Draevik can come."
"One guard and Draevik."
"Done," I say, and that's the negotiation.
Queen Thessira receivesme in a private audience room that is not the throne room — a deliberate choice. The throne room is for performance. This room is for conversations where the performance has been set aside, which means she wants me to believe we're speaking honestly, which means I should be more careful than usual.
She's as the rumors describe: silver-blue skin, piercing silver eyes, the kind of composure that comes from forty years of ruling a fractious empire and never once letting anyone see you sweat. She's also, I notice immediately, watching me the way I watch nobles at court — reading every micro-expression, cataloguing every hesitation.
We're going to get along fine, I think, and also we might destroy each other.
"Lady Vhol'ir." She gestures to the chair across from her. "Please."
I sit. I fold my hands. I wait.
"House Vhol'ir is destabilizing," she says, without preamble. "I think you know this. I think you've known it longer than most."
"Lord Vhol'ir's position in the capital is strong," I say carefully.
"Lord Vhol'ir's position was strong." She leans back slightly — a deliberate loosening, inviting confidence, I file it away. "The coalition against him now has the support of seven noble houses and two crown advisors. His operations are under investigation on four separate regulatory grounds. And there are — " a pause "— reports of incidents. Things that cannot easily be explained."
The shadows. The temperature drops. The things the court has been watching and whispering about for weeks.
"Your Majesty," I say. "What would you like me to do?"
"Come out from under his roof." She says it simply, like it's nothing. "I can offer you crown protection. Legal standing as an independent citizen of Khuzuth, not dependent on House Vhol'ir's status. Whatever the protections in your marriage contract cover, I will extend through crown charter."
She's offering me everything I negotiated for. Everything the contract was supposed to guarantee. And the price is Sevareth.
I sit with that for a moment. Not deciding — I decided before I walked in the door — but letting her see me take it seriously, because a flat refusal tells her things I don't want her to know yet. It tells her that my investment in him is personal, and a personal investment is leverage. I need her to think I'm refusing on strategic grounds, because a strategist she can negotiate with. A woman in love is just a variable.
So I take my time. I let a few seconds pass.
"And House Vhol'ir?" I ask.
"That situation will resolve itself," she says, which is a crown monarch's way of saying we are already preparing to end him.
"I see." I look at my folded hands. Then back up at her. "I can't take that offer."
Silence. She wasn't expecting that. Good.
"Lady Vhol'ir?—"
"The situation at House Vhol'ir is more complex than the coalition's intelligence suggests," I say. "The instability is real, but it has a cause and the cause has a solution. I'm working on the solution. I need time — perhaps four weeks — and I need the crown to hold its response in that window."
"You're asking me to wait while Sevareth Vhol'ir destabilizes my capital."
