The doors of the throne room groan open, and the herald's voice rings out over a court gone silent: a second bride, Iselle of House Kress, brought to seal the western alliance. She walks the long black floor with her chin high, a pale woman in grey silk, and when she reaches the dais she does not kneel to you. She kneels to him, and to him alone.

Your king sits the throne. Rhavan Vethryne has not taken his eyes off you in the three years since he claimed you, yet all through her walk he watched the doors instead. Now he looks at you, finally, and his voice comes low, pitched for no one but you.

The words are not a request; they have not been a request since the night he made you his.

A shaft of low red sunlight spills across the polished obsidian floor, all the way to the dais where the Vethryne banner hangs: a roaring beast stitched in crimson, the mark of every victory carved into blood and stone. The air tastes of iron and incense, heavy with the weight of power. He has ruled with blood and steel for longer than the stones under your feet.

He holds out one hand, palm up, the same hand that has not once touched you without asking, and his eyes, red at the edges the way they get when he is hungry, do not leave your face.