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“No!” Aleana snaps. “No, you cannot do this! Your authority doesn’t reach these lands.”

But honour duels do.

Ronan just shoots me a grim look, an arrow notched, then leaves without another word.

Stunned, I watch him go. And I watch the doorway for a heartbeat longer before Eamon leans back in his chair and breaks the wax seal.

He reads the summons in silence.

We join him in it, the thick blanket of tension draped over us.

Aleana is perched on the edge of her seat.

I lean so far over the table that the sharp edge bites into my ribs.

“What?” I hiss. “What does it say?”

Eamon tosses the parchment aside. “It states the date of the duel,” he sighs. “The phase of the final passage.”

“No,” Aleana speaks the word with less vigour this time, and so it’s more of an echo in the emptiness of the dining hall. “He can’t do that.”

But he can.

It’s the Midlands.

Honour duels are the way things are done here.

Without prisons and courts, blood will run in the street. But slap the word honour on the deaths and it’s a thing of pride and rules.

And without me, Eamon never would have punched a lordson in the face.

Without me, Eamon wouldn’t be facing down a fight he won’t win—won’t survive.

The defeat is quick to seep back into my muscles and slump me in my seat. “It’s my fault.”

Of course it is.

Still, my Eamon won’t speak that truth.

“You didn’t force me to ground that rodent.” Eamon shakes his head. “I did that all on my own.”

I look up my lashes at him with nothing but sorrow. “It’s my own issues with Taroh that led to this. His father has only challenged you because he’s convinced I have something to do with Taroh’s disappearance. He can’t get to me, or anyone else in the Sacrament, so he went after your slight.”

Eamon just reaches across the table for me.

I slip my hand into his and feel the reassuring squeeze of his fingers around mine, but it’s empty—because the promise of it is something he can’t promise.

‘I’ll be ok.’

No, he won’t.

Lord Braxis will employ a second to take his place in the duel, and he will choose wisely.

Aleana mirrors my thoughts. “You have to use a second, Eamon, you must.”

“With everyone competing in the Sacrament,” he mumbles his words and draws back into his chair, abandoning my hand, “no one can sign their name to anything. They belong to the Sacrament. I’m on my own.”

“That’s what they want. That’s why they chose the phase that the second passage begins,” I hiss out the words like snake venom.