Giggling, I freed my other hand and gave Dain the head scratch of a lifetime, while he made a series of increasingly blissful noises, his eyes slitted and entire body limp. At last, I gave his scalp one last scrub with my fingertips, then raked them through his silken hair to resettle it.

He sighed with pleasure, rolling over onto his back and sprawling with his limbs akimbo. He must have been used to glamoring off his back-spikes on the fly, because he did it without even pausing. "It is even better than I imagined to be back home."

"Got your good pjs, comfy bed, no more diplomacy..." I said, grinning at him.

Dain flopped his head over to look at me with an easy smile. "Someone who's happy to see me." He blinked slowly at me, sleepy and content. "An unfortunate quantity of diplomacy yet to do, though. I brought a delegation from the Court of Mercy back with me."

"Am I not gonna get to see you kneel and hand me a peace treaty, after all?" I asked with a teasing air.

"I'm working on it," he said, his expression closing off and tone going more serious. "King Omahice took his time with my humiliations, but he didn't manage to provoke me the way I believe he desired, and my intensity of contrition seems to have convinced some that perhaps their King's intentions are not what they seem." At the look of worry I gave him, Dain rolled back onto his side and stroked my face. "It was worth it to me, Leah."

"What did he do to you?" I asked, my voice coming out small and hesitant. I swallowed. "If—if you don't mind telling me."

"Nothing that will last forever," Dain replied, trying to smile, though his eyes were shadowed. "Are you sure you want to know?"

I chewed on my lip for a moment, thinking, then nodded. "Yeah," I said. "Even if it's awful, I'd like to carry it with you, if it would help you to share. If it's something that's easier to carry alone, then I'll just carry the knowledge that you've been hurt. Okay?"

He made a low sound, his lashes fluttering for a moment, and kept stroking my cheek. "I hadn't seen Viessa and Aleksandr for more than seventy years, before the day I killed them," Dain said quietly. "I barely knew them, but I recognized them, and King Omahice determined that since I had known I was stealing them from his Court, that I ought to pay for it as a theft, repaying five times their value to him."