Chapter 6 - The Feast of Iron
The wedding was two days away, but the estate had already begun to smell of blood and roasted meat.
In the grand hall downstairs, three dozen servants were hanging white silk banners embroidered with the silver gull of the Vosa family and the blue road-wheel of the Drazza line. Long oak tables were being polished with sweet beeswax, and the cellars were being stacked with heavy casks of southern wine.
Saurin stood on the upper balcony overlooking the courtyard, his cloak wrapped tight against the rising wind.
Below, in the stone quadrangle, twelve men in dark wool coats were putting fresh iron shoes on six large bay horses. They worked in absolute silence—Saurin’s private guard, men recruited from the deep-water crews who had fought beside his father in the harbor blockades twenty years ago.
"They are ready, my Lord," a quiet voice said behind him.
Saurin did not turn around. "And Casian?"
"He has completed the guest list for the gallery," Vesna said. She was standing three paces back, dressed in a simple dark wool dress that Saurin’s own tailor had brought to her room yesterday. She looked small against the towering stone arches, but her posture was no longer low or tentative. The clumsy maid was gone; in her place was a woman who moved with thin, quiet grace.
"Did he ask about the cook?" Saurin asked.
"He told the kitchen staff that the man was caught stealing silver and sent to the harbor warden," she replied. "He spent an hour in your study this morning reviewing the seating arrangements with Lord Drazza’s envoy."
Saurin turned around, his eyes traveling over her dark dress, the simple silver pin holding her dark hair at the nape of her neck. "You shouldn't be standing on these stone floors. The wind comes up off the water at four."
"I am fine, Saurin," she said softly.
It was the first time she had used his name without a title. The word sounded small in the high, cold gallery, but it made Saurin’s hands tighten slightly on the stone balustrade.
"The girl... Zora Drazza," Vesna said, stepping closer to the edge. "I saw her carriage arrive at the lower gate an hour ago. She is very beautiful."
"She is a stone with silk wrapped around it," Saurin said flatly. "Her father killed his own cousin for three miles of toll-road in the western hills. She watched it happen and didn't drop her teacup."
"She will be your wife in forty-eight hours."
Saurin looked down at her. "Does that displease you?"
Vesna met his gaze, her dark eyes clear and dark as deep water. "It displeases me that you are entering a house where every door has a lock on the outside. She does not look at you as a man, Saurin. She looks at you as a receipt."
A dark, brief shadow of humor touched Saurin’s hard mouth. "And how do you look at me, Vesna?"
Vesna did not look away. "As a man who pays six hundred gold marks for a boy he has never seen, and stays up three nights watching a maid fever in his bed."
Saurin’s chest heaved with a slow, heavy breath. He reached out, his big hand hovering near her cheek for a second before his knuckles gently brushed against her jawline. Her skin was warm, soft, and alive—a stark contrast to the cold stone around them.
"If this night goes as the Drazzas plan," Saurin whispered, his thumb catching a strand of hair that had escaped her pin, "there will be no marriage. There will only be iron."
"I know," she said quietly, leaning slightly into his touch—a movement so subtle that if he had not been watching her lips, he might have missed it. "And I will be in the washroom with Vuk."
"No," Saurin said, his tone turning instantly to flint. "You will be in the high vault above the chapel. The doors are reinforced with iron oak. You will take the boy’s letter with you, and if you hear shots in the gallery, you will take the north secret stair down to the harbor cove. My captain has a cutter waiting in the rocks."
Vesna caught his wrist with both hands, her small fingers digging into his sleeve. "I am not leaving you to die here!"
"You will do as I command!" he growled, his face inches from hers, his eyes flashing with a dark, terrifying light. "I did not save your brother so I could watch you cut down by Drazza crossbowmen in my own hall! Do you understand me?"
"I don't care about the Drazzas!" she cried out, her voice echoing off the high stone vaults. "I care about you, you stupid, stubborn man!"
The words hung between them in the cold air, raw and bright as a dropped torch.
Saurin froze. His hand was still on her jaw; her small hands were still clutching his wrist.
For three long seconds, the gray rain stopped existing. The harbor wind died down. There was only the heat of her skin, the fast, wild beat of her heart under his thumb, and the sudden, staggering realization that the cold, dead house above the harbor had become a trap he had no desire to escape alone.
"Vesna..." he breathed, his voice breaking on her name.
He didn't finish the sentence. He pulled her up by the waist, his mouth closing over hers with a desperate, heavy hunger that made her gasp into his lips.
It was not a gentle kiss; it was the kiss of a man who had lived five years in a tomb and had suddenly been dragged out into the blinding sun. Vesna’s arms wrapped around his neck, her fingers tangling in his dark hair as she kissed him back with everything she had—all her quiet grief, her gratitude, her stubborn, fiercely guarded heart poured into the cold afternoon air.
When he finally pulled back, her lips were red, her dark eyes wide and shining.
Saurin rested his forehead against hers, his breath coming in rough, heavy ragged bursts.
May you like
"If I live through Thursday night," he growled against her skin, "I am going to throw every Drazza into the sea, burn this house to the water line, and build you a room where the windows actually open."
Vesna let out a wet, breathless laugh, her fingers tracing the hard line of his jaw. "Then live, Saurin Vosa. Live, so I can hold you to it."
