Chapter 20: The King’s Command

Naya was still brushing out her hair when a royal guard knocked on the door and delivered a message she had to ask him to repeat twice before she believed it. She was no longer permitted to leave the palace grounds without informing Ronan first.

"Informing him," she asked, "or asking his permission?"

The guard hesitated just long enough to answer the question without saying a word.

Mira kept her expression carefully blank as she finished pinning up Naya’s hair, though Naya caught the slight tightening around her mouth that told her even Mira thought this was strange. After everything Ronan had said the day before about other men looking at her, about Kael, about the nobleman he’d practically chased off at the gathering, Naya knew exactly where this new rule was coming from, and she wasn’t going to let it stand without a fight.

She found him in his study, bent over a stack of papers he didn’t bother looking up from when she walked in.

"You received my message," he said.

"I did."

"Good."

Naya stood there for a moment, waiting for something more, and when nothing came she finally said, "That’s all you have to say?"

Ronan looked up at that, his expression unreadable in the way she’d come to recognize as deliberate.

"Why do I suddenly need permission to leave the palace?"

"You’re the King’s wife," he said. "Your movements concern the crown."

"Yesterday it was other men looking at me. Today it’s where I walk. What’s next, Ronan? Do I need permission to breathe too?"

His jaw tightened. "You’re twisting my words."

"No," Naya said. "I’m finally listening to them."

That landed somewhere, she could see it. She pressed on before he could recover, laying out everything that had built up over the past weeks — how he told her repeatedly that he didn’t want her, that their marriage meant nothing beyond the paper it was written on, and yet he couldn’t stand watching Kael tend her wound, couldn’t stand another man dancing with her, called her his in front of an entire hall of nobles, and now wanted to know her whereabouts before she stepped outside.

"You don’t get to treat me like I’m nothing," she said, "and then suddenly remember I’m your wife whenever another man comes near me."

"You don’t understand," Ronan said, and for once there was less control in his voice than usual.

Naya laughed, though there was no real humor in it. "Then explain it."

He opened his mouth and closed it again, and she realized with something close to satisfaction that he genuinely didn’t have an answer ready.

"This isn’t about jealousy," he said finally.

"Then what is it about?"

"Your safety."

"You weren’t worried about my safety," Naya said, "when you had me punished."

That silenced him completely. She watched something shift across his face, watched him search for a defense and come up empty. He could command armies. He could silence a room full of council members with a single sentence. But he had no answer for that, and they both knew it.

"I’m tired of living according to your moods," she said. "One day I’m your enemy. The next you’re defending me in front of your council. Then you almost kiss me, and the day after that you’re jealous over a stranger complimenting my dress. Now you’re giving me commands about where I’m allowed to walk." She crossed her arms. "I’m not one of your territories. You don’t get to claim me and then decide what happens to me."

She watched it register in his eyes, not as guilt exactly, but as something closer to recognition. She wasn’t accusing him of not loving her. She was telling him she saw him as dangerous, as someone who controlled everything around him without asking whether it wanted to be controlled, and that seemed to bother him more than anything else she’d said.

There was a pause before he spoke again.

"You can leave the palace," he said.

Naya blinked, thrown by the sudden concession. She’d braced herself for another argument, not for him backing down.

"You don’t need my permission," he continued.

She waited, certain there was more coming.

"But I need to know where you are."

"Why?"

He hesitated, and for a moment she thought he might dodge the question entirely the way he usually did. Instead he said, "Because if something happens to you, I need to know where to find you."

It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t the kind of thing a man said to a woman he loved. But it was honest in a way most of what he told her wasn’t, and Naya found herself studying him more carefully than she meant to.

"You mean that?"

Something closed off behind his eyes almost immediately, the door he’d left open sliding shut again. "Don’t misunderstand."

"There he is," Naya said, shaking her head.

But she wasn’t finished. "Do you actually care what happens to me?"

Ronan said nothing. The silence stretched long enough that she thought he might simply refuse to answer altogether.

"Just tell me where you’re going," he said instead.

"That’s not an answer."

She turned toward the door, done waiting for something he clearly wasn’t ready to give her.

"Naya."

Her hand had barely touched the handle when his voice stopped her, and something in the way he said her name made her go still. There was no command in it this time, none of the King’s authority she’d grown used to hearing in his voice. It was just him.

She didn’t turn around right away.

"Do you resent me?"

The question caught her so completely off guard that for a moment she couldn’t move at all. Ronan had never once asked her what she felt about anything, not the marriage, not the humiliation at that first dinner, not the punishment he’d ordered over a necklace she never touched, not any of it.

She turned to face him slowly. He stood there watching her, and for the first time since she’d arrived in this palace, there was no coldness in his expression at all.

Only uncertainty.

"Why does it matter?" she asked.

His jaw tightened, and for a second she thought he might refuse to answer that too.

"Answer the question," he said instead.

Naya studied him for a long moment, understanding settling over her in a way that felt almost dangerous. He wasn’t asking for her forgiveness. He wasn’t ready for anything close to affection, and she doubted he understood what he was even feeling toward her half the time.

But he cared whether she hated him. That much was suddenly, unmistakably clear.

"Would it bother you," she asked, "if I did?"

His gaze darkened, holding hers without flinching.

"More than it should."