The maid sobbed against the table while blood from a shallow cut ran down her hand.
Fallon crossed the hall and pulled the dagger free.
"Out," he said.
No one moved at first.
He looked up.
"I said out."
The court emptied in seconds.
Kael rose from the throne more slowly.
"You are already spoiling your new toy."
Fallon wiped the dagger on a linen napkin. "I am preventing servants from undermining a treaty in front of witnesses."
"Call it whatever helps you sleep."
Kael left with his guards.
Fallon waited until the doors shut, then turned to me.
"Show me your hand."
"My face is the part she hit."
"Your hand."
I looked down. One of the maid's rings had scratched the back of my knuckles when I blocked her. A thin line of blood had appeared.
"It is nothing."
Fallon caught my forearm and inspected it anyway.
"Stop grabbing me."
"Stop bleeding on my floor."
He pressed a folded handkerchief against the scratch.
The gesture was careful enough to unsettle me.
"I don't need a savior," I said.
"Good. I am not one."
His gaze held mine. "No one in this fortress touches you without my permission because no one gets to damage a treaty asset."
"You make protection sound remarkably like captivity."
"In this house, the difference is often who holds the key."
"And you do."
"For now."
The answer carried more bitterness than triumph. I filed that away. Kael's court feared Fallon, but fear was not the same as freedom. His father had humiliated me publicly and Fallon had stopped only the part that went too far. He was powerful here, not absolute.
There it was.
Not kindness.
Ownership.
He picked up the iron collar the maid had dropped.
"This still goes on."
"I am not wearing it."
"My father made it part of the public terms. If I refuse in the first hour, he will test how far he can push every other condition."
"That sounds like your problem."
"It becomes yours when his retaliation reaches Crescent villages."
I hated that he was right about the leverage, not about the collar.
He stepped behind me.
Cold iron touched my throat.
Before fastening it, Fallon turned the inner band in his hands and used his dagger to snap off two of the longest spikes.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Making sure my father's symbolism does not cut an artery."
"How considerate."
"Do not mistake practicality for tenderness."
The lock clicked.
The scar beneath it ignited.
A memory slammed into me.
Moon Festival drums in the distance.
My silver amulet cold against my chest.
A man pulling me into the trees.
Not violently.
Desperately.
"You asked me to come," a voice said.
Then the memory fractured.
Dirt. Blood. Teeth at my neck.
My amulet chain snapping.
I shoved Fallon away with both hands.
He staggered one step, more surprised than hurt.
"What was that?"
"Get away from me."
He came forward again.
I backed into the stone wall.
"What did you remember?"
The question stopped me.
Not what is wrong with you.
What did you remember.
"Nothing."
"Liar."
He raised a hand toward the collar.
I flinched before he touched it.
His expression hardened.
He reached toward the scar again, then stopped himself before contact. The restraint unsettled me almost as much as the first touch.
"Who marked you?"
My pulse hammered.
"I don't know."
For the first time, Fallon looked genuinely shaken.
"That scar is a mate mark."
"I know what it is."
"Then why don't you know who gave it to you?"
"Because most of that night is gone."
He went still.
I watched the answer register behind his eyes, though I could not tell what it meant.
"Three years ago?" he asked.
"The Moon Festival. The night before your father's army took our sanctuary."
Fallon's jaw clenched.
"What do you remember?"
"Smoke. My brother. Someone in the woods. Enough to know I hate this place."
He turned away so abruptly the hem of his coat snapped behind him.
"Guards."
Two soldiers entered.
"Take Princess Lyra to the east tower. She is confined to her rooms until I say otherwise."
I laughed once. "There is the Obsidian hospitality I was promised."
Fallon did not turn back.
"No servant enters without permission. No soldier speaks to her alone. If anyone ignores that order, bring them to me."
The guards exchanged a nervous glance.
They marched me up three flights of stairs and locked me inside a round stone room.
Moonlight fell through a narrow barred window. The room held a narrow bed, a washstand, and a fireplace laid with wood but no flame. It was not a dungeon, which was probably the point. Obsidian preferred cages that could be described as guest rooms.
I tested the door, the window latch, and the mortar around the bars. Habit from childhood raids. My brother Elian had taught me never to spend a night anywhere without counting exits. Remembering him made my throat ache.
I also checked the collar in the washstand mirror. Fallon had broken the worst spikes, but the iron still sat like a public brand around my neck. Under it, the old scar had turned pink. I pressed two fingers against the mark and felt a faint answering pulse that did not belong to my heartbeat.
Whatever Selene had tried to erase three years ago was waking up inside Obsidian territory, and Fallon seemed to know exactly what it was. That frightened me far more than the locked door ever could, because he was waiting for me to remember.
I waited until their footsteps disappeared before touching the scar beneath the collar.
Still hot.
Still pulsing.
A scratching sound came from the window.
I froze.
Scrape.
Scrape.
Something slipped through the gap beneath the frame and landed on the floor.
A folded piece of parchment.
I crossed the room and picked it up.
Red wax sealed it shut.
Pressed into the wax was the silver crescent emblem of my pack.
