"They are hard ground, harder people. It would be very helpful to have them as allies, if possible. The tiger clans under Kessa’s bloodline are the only reliable path in. Everything else runs through Grathak’s temper."
Kane nodded.
The decision was already made; the conversation only confirmed the shape of the next risk.
"Then we finish what we came here to do. Loyalty secured. Supply lines opened. After that, the east."
Kessa’s tail, striped, thick, orange and black, flicked once behind her.
"You’ll need more than steel when you walk into Blood-Hide’s ground. You’ll need someone who still has kin among the tigers. That someone is me. Don’t leave me behind when the time comes."
"I wasn’t planning to," Kane said.
Seraphine studied him a moment longer.
"You’re going to the queen tonight."
It was not a question. Kane did not deny it.
"I am."
"Unarmed?"
"Light clothes. No weapon."
He glanced down at what he wore: simple dark trousers, a loose linen shirt open at the throat, boots soft enough for quiet stone. Nothing that clanked or shone.
"This isn’t a fight I win with an axe."
Seraphine’s mouth tightened, but she did not argue further.
She understood the board as well as he did.
Kessa’s golden eyes narrowed, the tiger in her clearly unhappy with the idea of her captain walking into a queen’s study without steel, yet she too stayed silent. Politics had their own teeth.
"This isn’t some random woman."
"I know."
"An empress will always demand more, Kane."
"We don’t have much time."
Kane pushed away from the pillar.
"Hold the yard. Keep the others close. If I’m not back by the second bell after midnight, you know what to do."
"We know," Seraphine said.
Kessa watched him go, orange hair stirring in the cooling evening air.
Kane left the secondary yard and walked the quieter corridors that led toward the older heart of the keep.
The stones under his boots were worn smooth by generations of rulers and the people who served them.
Torchlight flickered in iron brackets, casting long shadows that moved with him. He carried nothing in his hands.
The absence of the axe’s familiar weight felt strange, but deliberate.
Tonight the only leverage he brought was the memory of Misha’s permission, the unfinished business of empires, and whatever restraint he could still command when Slovia decided to test him again.
He reached the oak door of the queen’s personal study.
Light still showed beneath it.
Kane stopped, breathed once, and let the images of the day settle into order: Seraphine’s silver braid swinging with each precise cut, Kessa’s orange hair and the warning about Grathak Blood-Hide, Misha’s golden eyes giving him leave to do what had to be done.
Then he raised his hand and knocked.
Slovia opened the door.
Her long dark hair, threaded with silver at the temples, flowed unbound all the way down her back until the ends brushed the upper curve of her ass.
The robe she wore was almost transparent, thin black silk that clung to every mature line of her body when she moved. The swell of her breasts was plain beneath the fabric, nipples faintly visible where the silk shifted. The robe parted just enough at the front with each step to flash the long line of one thigh.
She smirked the moment her assessing eyes found him standing there in light clothes, unarmed.
"Give the barbarian a room, and he will still sleep in the mud," she said, already turning and walking back into the study.
"Come."
Kane stepped across the threshold.
His broad shoulders filled the doorway for a moment before the heavy oak closed behind him.
The study smelled the same as before: ink, old parchment, and the warmer note of her skin.
Firelight from the hearth painted the dark wood and the wide desk in amber.
Kane didn’t wait for further invitation. He moved fast, crossing the distance in three long strides, and caught her by the waist.
His hands closed around the give of her midsection through the thin silk.
For half a heartbeat he felt the full heat of her body against him, the press of those breasts, the curve of her hip under his palm.
Then her own hands came up and flattened against his chest.
A wave of red light spun into existence around them both, a translucent barrier that flared bright and hard.
The magic locked his arms in place as effectively as iron manacles.
Kane’s advance halted mid-motion, body still angled toward hers, the red glow painting the planes of his face and the open collar of his shirt.
Slovia’s smirk deepened.
She didn’t look strained by the effort of the spell. She held the contact against his chest for another moment, feeling the solid muscle beneath, then released him and stepped back.
The red barrier remained, a shimmering cylinder that kept him exactly where she wanted him.
"You don’t get to taste me that fast," she said, beginning to walk a slow circle around him.
The transparent robe whispered against her skin. Her long hair swayed with the movement, the silver threads catching the firelight.
"You are so easy. Heh. Poor daughter who was married to a man who couldn’t keep his cock to himself."
Kane’s eyes tracked her as she circled.
The red magic hummed against his skin, not painful, but absolute.
He could still speak. He could still breathe. He simply could not close the last distance.
"I kept it to myself last time," he said.
His voice was low, controlled.
"You put your hand on me, and I walked out."
"And yet here you are again."
Slovia completed half the circle and stopped at his side, close enough that the silk of her sleeve brushed his arm.
"Nighttime. Light clothes. No axe. A man doesn’t arrive at a queen’s door looking like that unless he’s already decided what he wants."
"I decided what the empire needs."
"How noble."
She resumed her slow walk, passing behind him. He felt her gaze travel the width of his shoulders, the line of his back.
"Does my daughter know you’re here? Or did you leave her sleeping under the furs while you came to see if her mother was still offering?"
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