“And when was that supposed to happen?” she demands. “After the Matrons finished deciding whether I’ve softened you? After you passed their little tests and accepted their warnings and proved to them that you still belong to their leash?”
The insult lands because it is clever and because it is unfair and because it draws blood from a wound I don’t let anyone see.
I take a step toward her, and the air tightens between us, the bond flaring hot with the collision of anger and something else neither of us is naming. Her magic responds to proximity the way a storm responds to pressure, rising, shifting, pushing at the edges of the room.
“You are not the only one under threat,” I tell her, voice low. “You are not the only one with enemies watching for weakness.”
Her eyes narrow. “Is that what this is? You think my initiative makes you look weak.”
“No,” I say, and it comes out harsher than intended. “I think your initiative almost got you killed.”
She goes still for half a heartbeat, and I can feel the impact of that statement in her body, the way it hits somewhere deeper than pride. Her gaze does not soften, but something in it tightens, as if she has been forced to acknowledge that I am not wrong.
“You don’t trust me,” she says quietly.
I hold her eyes and choose the truth that will hurt less than the lie. “Not blindly.”
“And yet you expect me to trust you,” she replies, and now her voice carries something sharper than anger. “You expect me to hand my land over to a bond I never wanted and a prince who keeps reminding me he’d rather be obeyed than needed.”
That twists something in my chest that has no right to be as vulnerable as it is.
“I do not want you obedient,” I say. “I want you alive.”
“That’s convenient,” she says, and her sarcasm cracks slightly at the edges, as if even she knows she is forcing herself to keep the fight going. “A dead mate is a useless asset.”
The word mate lands like a strike, and the bond reacts. Heat blooms beneath my skin, and I feel it answer in her too, a spike of awareness that makes her inhale sharply. For a moment the room seems smaller, as if the walls have edged closer.
“You think this is a game of assets,” I say, and my voice is quieter now, far more dangerous. “You think I am standing here arguing because I enjoy being challenged.”
“Then why are you?” she demands.
Because if I let you vanish again, I will tear this realm apart to find you. Because when the bond screamed, my body moved before my mind did. Because you are becoming the axis my instincts turn around.
I do not give her any of that. I keep my face hard and my voice clean.
“Because two realms cannot survive divided command,” I tell her. “Because your people will turn on you exactly the way that voice promised they would, and when they do, you will need more than courage. You will need structure. Allies who are not guessing what you might do next.”
Her breath trembles once, barely perceptible, and she despises that it does. I see it in the tightening of her jaw, in the way her fingers curl slightly at her sides as if she would rather grip a blade than let me witness that flicker of vulnerability.
“You talk about guessing,” she says quietly, “but you’ve been keeping things from me too.”
I don’t answer immediately.
Her eyes sharpen. “We can speak through the bond.”
It isn’t a question. I hold her gaze.
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?” The hurt creeps in despite her effort to contain it. “You let me stumble into that alone. You let me believe I imagined it.”
“It required control,” I say evenly. “And you had enough chaos without another variable.”
“That wasn’t your choice to make,” she fires back. “You decided what I could handle.”
“I decided what would not overwhelm you.”
“You decided,” she repeats, and the accusation in it is clean and precise. “You keep deciding for both of us.”