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At Klemens’ side, Mattias had gone blank-faced and wide-eyed, as if in shock. “You…” he said, slowly, “asked Lady Brigida…” He covered his face with his hands, unable to say it. Or look at him, apparently.

Náli set his hands on his hips with a huff. “You’re both acting as if I’ve done something unmentionable. I’m problem-solving, which no one else seems ready to do.”

Danski said, “You asked a lady who’s here to marry you if she fancies Klemens. My lord,” he tacked on at the end, without a great deal of respect.

“I asked if she thought he was handsome, not if she wanted to ride his cock while you lot watched,” he snapped, and had the small satisfaction of watching all of their faces color, Mattias’s blush only visible through the gaps in his fingers. “Look, Klemens, if you don’t fancy her, then pick whoever you like. That goes for all of you: if you want to invest time in the making of children, I’ll be nothing but encouraging.”

Mattias dropped his hands with a sigh. “Náli.” He was so agitated he didn’t even bother with the my lord business, which earned several eyebrow raises. “The vows haven’t just disappeared because you’d like them to.”

Those bloody fucking vows. But it was excitement rather than anger that churned in his belly, now. “You’re all forgetting,” he said as patiently as he was currently capable – which wasn’t very – “that I’ve recently learned there is a way to pass along magic that doesn’t involve me rutting against some poor girl night after night.” When he was met by blank and skeptical looks, he said, “It’s almost as if none of you ever listen to a word I say.”

“You’re talking of the gibbering of a dead man again,” Mattias said, grimly.

Náli refused to lose his temper this time – mostly because they weren’t alone, but also because he was exhausted at this point. Tired beyond reckon with Mattias’s doubt and caution. “If that gibbering is accurate, it means the heir of the Fault Lands doesn’t have to be of my blood. It means I don’t have to marry, if I don’t want to. I can name a new Corpse Lord of my choosing, just as King Erik has done with his kingship.”

He watched their faces; realized this had never occurred to them.

“Do you see now why I’ve been so anxious to return to the well?”

Looks were traded; Klemens skated a very pointed one Mattias’s direction, single brow lifted. Náli chose to think it was an encouraging look. The others gazed at their captain with open curiosity, leaving it to him.

Mattias scrubbed at his beard, and then the shaved sides of his head, brow crimped. Finally, he let out a breath and said, “When would you want to–”

“Tonight,” Náli said. “As soon as possible.”

This time, no one argued with him.