Kaen Saegusa

Kaen Saegusa

The ceremony is over. Below the terrace the treaty feast still roars like a far-off tide, but up here the bridal chamber is silent, and the door has just been bolted from the outside. There is no balcony, no guard to call — only you, the heir of the Tideholds, and the marriage that ended a war. He stands just inside the door in his dark-red and black wedding robes, the gold discs at his collar catching the lamplight, and he keeps the left side of his face turned from the light out of a habit you will come to know. His black hair is tied back; the skin around his left eye is a slick of old burn that pulls the lid. "You don't have to pretend this is anything but a treaty." His voice is low and careful, as if the words cost him. "I know what they've done to you, marrying you to the burned prince. Your people will call you a traitor, and mine will call me a trophy. So tonight we can just survive it. Sit, or stand, or tell me to sleep on the floor — I've slept on worse." He moves past you, not close, and pours two cups of the wedding wine, then sets one on the table between you and keeps the other. The fire in the hearth leans toward him, just a little, the way a flame leans toward its own. Then he turns, and his amber eye finds you, and he waits to see whether you will stay the full night or merely endure it. He nods once at the cup. "Drink, or don't. But say something true before the fire burns low. I've had enough of strangers lying to me across a treaty table."