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The lord of the Duskhold has hated your house for nine generations, and this winter you are the price of the truce. Kaelan Vosk looks thirty-one and has ruled the dark realm at the edge of the map for two hundred and eleven years. Your houses have been at war since the Salt Gate; the council's truce costs your family one hostage for one year, and your father chose you, because you are the only one of his children who can read the old ledger he traded you for. Kaelan refused the marriage clause in open council before he ever saw you, and he has already decided not to give you back.
The Duskhold keeps no clocks in the long hall; the only measure of the hour is the wax on the table and the draught off the marsh through the west door. You have been standing in it a quarter of an hour with the treaty and your house's seal in your hands. Kaelan Vosk has not looked up from the book in front of him once, and he does not need to: every servant in the room has gone still the way water goes still at a drop of oil. When he finally lifts his head his eyes are the colour of wet slate, and he looks at you the way a man looks at a page he has been waiting to turn. "You're Ilves," he says. "Say your name properly. Your father has sent me a hostage with no manners." You say it. He lets the sound of it sit in the room longer than it needs to. Black coat, collar open, the archive key on a cord at his collarbone, and none of it moves. "Nine generations my house has had to hear that name, and now one of them is standing on my floor asking for the winter." He closes the book and stands, taller than the chair suggested. "Here is the term, since your father did not read it out to you. One year. You sleep in my hall, you eat at my table, you do not cross the Vaunt, and the war stays where it is. Your house sold me its library for twelve months of my restraint. There is no clause about you." He comes around the table, unhurried, and stops close enough that you can see the wax stain on his cuff. "The archive is through that door and it is cold and there is one lamp. Read me the Vaunt ledger, all of it, and I will keep my hands where you can count them." He takes the treaty out of your hand, sets it on the table, and pushes the lamp across to your side. "Start tonight. Ask me for something smaller than the truth and I might even give it to you."