“Name your price. I will meet it without defiance,” she said. “There is nothing I would not do to save my father.”

Josiri took her meaning. It was impossible not to. A bride of brief moonlight, he’d heard it called. Daughters of the defeated offered as chattels. His father had called it barbaric. His mother had suggested it wasn’t all that different to the principles of arranged marriage – for was that not a trade of sons and daughters? Except arranged marriages seldom ended with a slit throat.

Makrov would have accepted, Josiri had no doubt. And when the old goat was done, Melanna would have found herself cloistered as a reluctant serene – a beatified trophy of conversion and conquest, bound by word of honour given freely. If Melanna was as devout an Ashanan as she seemed, that would have been a fate far worse than death.

Yes, Makrov would have accepted. Others too.

“I’m sorry,” Josiri murmured. “I cannot do as you ask.”

Why did he feel such regret? Not from the offer refused. Perhaps it was because he saw an echo of his own past in Melanna’s present. What would he have done had his mother been taken captive before she’d chance to take her own life? Raven’s Eyes, but Melanna was practically the same age as he’d been then, tangled in a parent’s honour.

Or perhaps it was because he knew all too well what lay at journey’s end for both Melanna and her father.

She held his gaze a moment, then looked away. “All my life, I was taught of the cruelty of Tressians, and of their greed. Now I find that the latter is a lie, but the former unswerving.”

“Your bargain would leave us both shadows of who we are now . . . whatever your father’s fate.”

She snorted. “Such fortune have I to fall into the keeping of the only honourable man in Tressia.”

“There is at least one other,” said Josiri. “Lord Akadra would give the same answer.”

Melanna’s expression darkened. “The man who bested my father?”

“The man who spared your life.”

“Be wary of him. He’s awash with shadow.”

Josiri frowned, suspecting an oddity of translation. “I don’t follow.”

“I am . . . I was . . . Ashanal. I carried the goddess’s light. He carries something else.”

The magic Viktor had used in his attempt to free Anastacia? Another path to the pyre, were that detail to reach the wrong ears. Even a week before, Josiri would have gladly delivered it himself. “He’s a good man. I’ll speak to him. I’ll see if anything can be done for you, and I’ll send physicians to your father.”