I was Lucan, and my mother's council room smelled of wax and wet stone.
A map of the border passes lay across her table, stuck with little red pins.
Too many pins. Too many dead men behind them.
Vessa did not look up when I came in.
Two guards stood at the door, still as carved wood.
Vessa: Three pass riders gone this year. Two more dragons will not bond.
Vessa: Do you know what happens to a border with no dragons over it?
Lucan: It gets crossed.
Vessa: It gets burned. Farms first. Then the villages behind them.
She said it the way she said the weather. Flat. Certain.
She threw a folded report at me. It hit my chest and dropped.
Vessa: Read it. Names and ages. All crossed out in my ink.
Vessa: Your bride selection fixes this.
Lucan: My bride selection is a wedding.
Vessa: A wedding is a treaty with flowers on it.
Vessa: Every house that sends a daughter sends her riders. Her dragons. Her brothers.
Vessa: They send them because the crown keeps their blood in its hands.
Vessa: A son in the guard. A daughter in the court. A name on the wall.
The wall. Always the wall.
My grandfather took a wife from the passes the same way. Traded like a hawk.
She got a crown, a dragon, and a locked door until she gave him a son.
Old cruelty in lace. That was the whole family business.
Lucan: And if I choose nobody?
The guards by the door found the floor very interesting.
Vessa: Then I choose for you. A girl with strong hips and a father with a weak spine.
Strong hips. She said it like a price for a horse.
Vessa: You will bed her and breed her, and you will do it smiling.
Vessa: That is what a crown is, Lucan. It is not a hat.
Vessa: Say it in front of them. Say you will pick.
One guard shifted his boots. He heard every word.
That was the point of the guards.
Lucan: I will pick a bride.
Vessa: Louder.
Lucan: I will pick a bride, and I will put an heir in her before the year turns.
My voice did not crack. That was the worst of it.
Vessa: Good. You are the crown's, Lucan. The crown was never yours.
She said it softly. That was her kindest voice.
I walked out past the guards. Neither of them looked at me.
In my head I saw the rider wall. My own name, under her black ink.
She would not even need a reason.
Outside the door, I stood still and let the shaking pass.
Then I fixed my coat. Then I went to breakfast.
The court was already waiting with their smiles.
I smiled at them, and it fit my face like a mask that had grown there.
Yes, Mother. I had said those words since I was old enough to kneel.
They came out easy. They always did. That was the part I hated.
Somewhere in the hills a woman was packing her dress and her family's hopes.
She would come through those doors smiling too.
And I would marry her, and never once ask what she wanted.