Page 63 of Fire and Silk

I speak to her, never lifting my gaze. “Give me one day. I’ll show you what belongs to you. By dusk, if you still want out, I will not stop you. You have my word.”

Mico barks something under his breath, but I don’t hear it.

Lira is thinking.

It’s in her hands. In her breath. In the way her eyes keep flicking to the side as though she’s trying to picture the life she almost had, the one someone else carved behind her back.

Then her hand twitches. Mico starts to tighten his grip.

She pulls free.

The sound it makes—the small shuffle of fabric and defiance—is louder than his protests.

She steps toward me.

Her face is pale but resolute.

“You said I have power?” she asks.

I nod .

She blinks slowly, like she’s still not sure if any of this is real.

“How much power?”

I smile. I raise my right hand and snap my fingers.

The courtyard gates open in sequence.

From every doorway, from the corners of the mansion, from the trees at the perimeter, men begin to step out. They come in quiet lines—fifty, maybe more. All in black. Some with visible sidearms. Some with nothing at all.

They kneel.

All of them.

Heads bowed.

Hands behind their backs.

And still, I keep my eyes on her.

“This much,” I say.

“They aren’t even one tenth of the men who could answer to you,” I tell her.

My voice doesn’t rise. The show is doing the work.

She looks around. Her eyes scan every bowed head, every spine bent to her birthright. Her jaw is tense. Her fingers twitch at her side, then still. She blinks and locks eyes with me again.

“You could have it all if I go,” she says.

I tilt my head.

“But I want you to have it,” I reply. “It’s yours.”

She turns slowly to Mico. He stiffens as soon as he sees her face.

“I want to hear him out,” she says.