He bows once because that is what the world expects of us—the formal manners that keep politics from dissolving into pugilism.
“Alaric rides as Dragon with his Zharaya. He will meet us at the First Shore for the first evening’s festivities. Expect crowds. Expect pomp. Expect your name to be cheered in three tongues before the night is through.”
Useful information. Pomp steadies the mob.
Alaric’s arrival will knit wary eyes into a pattern less likely to pry at my private disorders.
I nod.
The news settles some part of me that wants everything contained and staged and orderly.
Dagan pauses at the rail and, with the bluntness of a man who prefers roots to riddles, asks, “So, youfed her wellafter the ceremony? A Lord can’t keep a wife alive on song alone.”
Heat and something like amusement tighten my jaw.
“We bothatewell,” I say. “Sheate. Several times.”
He cocks his head, gravel at the corner of his mouth. “And she did not mind—um, you beingyou? Her softness didn’tobject?”
A rumble begins deep in my chest.
There are distances even Demon Lords do not cross.
“Dagan, I will not speak of sex with my viyella in front of you.”
The retort is sharper than I intended, defensive in a way that surprises me.
There is a part of me that wants to confess—the way her skin tasted of salt and sweetness, how the water around us seemed to hum a tune I could not name—but to speak it aloud would open a door I am not yet ready to show the whole court.
Plus, I’ll be damned if I speak a word of my Telya to this oaf—ally or not.
“You’re starting to act as if this isn’t a trick,” he says bluntly, the question lodged like a stone.
“I—I don’t know what I do anymore, Dagan.”
The admission hurts.
It releases an ache that has been coiled tight in my chest.
The truth is both heavier and more hopeful than I allow myself.
Maybe this is real.
Maybe the bite did not merely brand flesh but stitched something that answers true.
Gods, I hope so.
Dagan—practical as always—squints out over the water as if the tides themselves might answer for me.
“If it’s true, you know what happens next,” he says, voice softer than usual. “If it’s not, you’ll need to pretend. You must keep it quiet until the Lady Phoebe and the Fates themselves forget how to ask.”
There’s kindness buried in the bluntness.
It steadies me more than he means to.
Phoebe means more to me than seduction and trickery. It’s time I own that.
“How do I get a human woman to fall in love with me?” I ask aloud.
