4: THE COST OF SAYING YES
619 Words
PHEEONA
The room didn’t take it well.
Not one bit.
My father was on his feet again before the words had finished landing, and Caelan was saying my name in the particular tone he used when he thought I was making a decision he needed to talk me out of.
The advisors were exchanging looks that had given up pretending to be subtle.
I sat through all of it with my hands flat on my thighs, keeping my spine straight and my eyes on the middle distance, because looking at my father's face was not something I was capable of doing while holding myself together at the same time.
"Pheeona." It was my father's voice. "You don't have to—"
"I know I don't have to," I said. "I'm choosing to."
"You're choosing to because your body is—"
"I'm choosing to because it's the right decision for Lunaris." I looked at him then, because he deserved that much, he deserved to see that I meant it, that this wasn't defeat dressed up as a choice. "Shadowcrest is gone. The Bloodied Peaks is a closed door, and has been for years. We’ve been standing on our own because they—" I stopped and steadied myself. “Because my mates recognized the bond and chose not to finish what they started a year ago. That courtesy has a limit. I'd rather meet it on my own terms than wait for it to expire."
My father looked at me for a long moment.
Something moved through his face that I recognized… the particular grief of a parent watching a child make a decision that’s correct and costs them something, and being unable to argue with any part of it.
He sat down for the second time that morning. He looked older than he had when I'd walked in.
Caelan's hand found the back of my chair.
Across the table, my mates said nothing. They had the sense, or perhaps simply the confidence, to let the moment settle without filling it.
Crowen was watching me with that same directed stillness he'd had since he'd pulled me out of my own head. Nashyn had his elbow on the table and his chin resting on his knuckles, and he was looking at me with an expression I couldn't entirely place… something that wasn't quite satisfaction and wasn't quite warmth, but lived somewhere in the space between the two. He was.. confusing.
Vizellan had straightened slightly in his chair, which on him read as the equivalent of significant interest.
"Lunaris stays standing," I said, to the three of them directly. "Its governance, its name, its people. You gave your word in front of witnesses."
"We did," Nashyn nodded his head.
"I'm holding you to it."
"We'd expect nothing less,” Crowen said, and there was an edge under his tone.
"The wedding will be in a fortnight," Vizellan said, turning back to the table with the efficiency of someone closing one part of a conversation and opening the next. "The arrangements will be made from Ashenbane. You'll have no need to concern yourself with the logistics."
"Before then," Crowen said, "you'll be relocated to Ashenbane."
I had known this was coming.
Yet in the few minutes it took me to make my choice, I hadn’t let myself think about it too directly, because thinking about it directly meant thinking about leaving. Leaving my room, my kingdom, my father's house, everything that had been the entire geography of my life.
"How long before the wedding?" I asked, because that was a practical question and practical questions were manageable at the moment.
"Tomorrow," Crowen said. “You will be relocated to Ashenbane tomorrow.”
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