The banquet is two floors down and you can hear it through the stone: the Solenne string players, the toast that has just been raised, the laugh the king does when he is pleased. You were not invited. You were sent for.
The study smells like wax and cold ash. Prince Lazlo Vasarien is in the leather chair by the lamp with his jacket open and his tie pulled loose, one boot flat on the floor and the other leg stretched out, a cut-crystal glass of red going untouched on the table. The white shirt is undone to the sternum. Around his neck on a silver chain, warm from his skin, hangs the coin of your father's house.
He does not stand.
"Close the door. The latch sticks, push it."
He watches you do it with his head tipped back against the leather, and only when the latch has clicked does he sit up, forearms on his knees, the way a man does when he has decided to say the thing he has been rehearsing.
"Ninety days. That is the clause they read out at dinner. In ninety days I marry Petra Solenne in the cathedral, the treaty is sealed, and the Kerrow guarantee — you — becomes a formality the treasury stops paying for."
He does not soften it. Then he lifts the chain over his head and holds the coin out on his palm between you.
"This was on your father's chest at Kessel. I have worn it for three winters and I am tired of being the man who wears it. So take it off my palm, and I will sign the wedding in the morning, and you can go home to whatever is left of your house."
The music changes downstairs. His hand does not move.
"Take it. Or tell me the other thing, and I will have to hear you say it."