Page 34 of Fought it Through the Teeth

The sharpness is there. The tongue is deployed, the blade is out, and Morgan is doing what Morgan does — he is putting words between himself and the thing that is hurting him, building a wall of wit and venom and biting humor to keep the horror at a distance where he can manage it.

"When I declined he said he'd find someone else," Bohdi says, because Morgan needs to know that too.

Morgan's jaw tightens. A muscle in his cheek jumps. "How generous of him. I'm spoiled for choice."

His voice isn't steady, and Bohdi can hear it.

"We need to pull the timeline in," Bohdi says. "The plan was to wait for the right opportunity. We can't wait. I need access to him without those guards in the room, and I need it soon."

"How soon?"

"As soon as we can manage. We might not have days."

Morgan nods. The nod is precise and mechanical, the horror compartmentalized, the diplomat being put back together piece by piece. "I'll work on it."

"Morgan —"

"I said I'll work on it." Sharper, now. A warning. Don't push. Don't be gentle.

Bohdi hears it. He stops.

The air between them goes thick and hot and unbearable. It has the quality of a room before a storm — pressurized, electric, the kind of atmosphere that makes the hair on your arms stand up and your body brace for the impact that is coming. Morgan is standing four feet away from him in the lamplight with his arms at his sides and his bare feet on the cold stone floor and his face held together by sheer, breathtaking will. Bohdi can see every crack in it, and he wants so badly to reach for him that his hands ache with the effort of not moving.

Morgan's eyes finally come to his.

"Good night, Bohdi," Morgan says.

Bohdi leaves the room before the effort of not moving fails him.

Chapter 15

Morgan

Morgan meets with Ivan alone.

It is his own maneuver, engineered over breakfast with the careful, unhurried skill of reading contracts for a living and knowing exactly how to make a demand look like a concession. He waited until Ivan was on his second cup of mead and his third helping of bread, and then he leaned forward across the table.

"I've been shown your land," Morgan said. "Your people. Your stronghold. But I haven't been shown your vision. And if I'm going to stand beside you as your consort, I need to understand what I'm standing beside."

He said it with his eyes on Ivan's and his hands folded on the table and his back straight, and he watched the words take hold in exactly the way he had designed them to. A prince taking an interest. A bride showing willing. A clever, proud young man who has been resistant and is now beginning to come around.

Ivan's eyes had lit up. Not with warmth — with the bright, predatory satisfaction of having been patiently wearing down a wall and believing he has finally found the crack.

"Come to my study," Ivan said. "After the morning meal. Just us."

Morgan took a bite of bread and did not look at Bohdi.

He is quietly proud of the craft of it. He has been doing this his whole life — the art of making powerful men believe that what he wants is what they want, the delicate framework of concession and capitulation that leaves the other party feeling generous while Morgan walks away with exactly the outcome he came for. Eskil does it with a sword. Morgan does it with a sentence. The results are not dissimilar.

Now he is sitting in Ivan's study, and the fire is low and the maps are on the walls and Ivan is talking.

The warchief is expansive this morning. He is in the mood of believing his bride is finally bending, and the mood makes him generous — generous with detail, generous with scope, generous with strategic candor he deploys to impress. He pours Morgan a cup that Morgan holds and does not drink, and lays out the alliance with broad, sweeping confidence, presenting it as his masterwork.

Morgan listens.

He listens not for the things that are said but for the things that are missing. The gaps, the omissions, the places where the numbers don't add up and the language shifts from specific to vague. He has been reading contracts since he was twelve years old. Eskil put him in a room with the kingdom's trade documents and told him to learn, and Morgan learned. The first time he found an error in a treaty that three senior advisors had missed, Eskil looked at him with an expression that Morgan has carried in his chest ever since — surprise, and then pride, and then the fierce, protective understanding that his younger brother was a weapon of a different kind and would need to be protected accordingly.

So he listens to Ivan, and what he hears is this: not one part of Ivan's plan includes Eskil.