Lucien turned around slowly.
He was standing near the edge of the fighting ground, a few steps short of the boundary line. His coat hung torn and blackened across his chest, and his breathing still hadn’t settled. Every rise of his shoulders looked like an effort.
His face tightened when he saw Owen. His eyes went to Owen’s hands first, but Owen had dismissed his sword once Voss ended the match.
"I surrendered," he said. "It’s over. The Princess has already announced it."
"The duel is over," Owen said.
"Then what more do you want?" Lucien’s voice was sharp with impatience. He glanced toward the benches, at all the faces still turned toward him. "Haven’t you had enough? Or do you need to drag this out so everyone can watch a little longer?"
"Your surrender settled the duel," Owen said. "It didn’t settle the wager."
Lucien’s jaw worked. "Fine. Say it, then, and let me go."
"Your left arm."
For several seconds, Lucien only stared at him.
Then he laughed. It came out short and disbelieving, and too loud for the quiet that had started to spread around them.
"You can’t be serious," he said. "Nobody takes another noble’s arm over an argument. It was a figure of speech. Everyone here knows it was."
Owen didn’t answer. He didn’t look away, either.
The nearest conversations had already stopped. Around the edge of the fighting ground, heads were turning back toward them, and Owen heard the quiet spread outward along the benches as more people realised what was being said.
"He doesn’t mean it."
"He looks like he means it."
"Surely the Princess won’t let—"
"De Clare agreed to it. I was standing right there when he did."
A woman near the front had put her hand on her companion’s arm. Neither of them said anything.
Lucien’s laugh faded.
"My left arm," Owen said again.
"No." The word came out hard and fast. "Absolutely not. I lost. I’ve been humiliated in front of the Princess and half the Empire. That’s more than enough." He pointed at Owen with his good hand. "You’re the one taking this too far. This was a quarrel over a dance, and you’re trying to turn it into a mutilation."
"The wager had nothing to do with a dance," Owen said. "You made it after you called my family cowards. You were happy for me to stand up in front of everyone and say you were right, and then spend a year serving your house."
He held Lucien’s gaze.
"You don’t get to decide the terms are unreasonable now that you’ve lost."
Lucien opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
When he spoke again, his voice had changed. It was lower, and almost reasonable.
"Then I’ll take it back," he said. "Everything I said about your family. I’ll apologise, publicly, to you and to House Ferrers. Here, now, in front of all of them." He swallowed. "And I’ll compensate you. Whatever sum you think is fair. There’s no need to make enemies of our houses over this."
"No."
Owen didn’t have to think about it.
Last night, Lucien could have apologised a dozen times. He could have accepted Clara’s refusal, or taken back what he had said about House Ferrers, or turned down the wager when he heard the terms. He hadn’t done any of it. He was offering an apology now because it was the only thing he had left to bargain with.
Owen knew exactly what taking a de Clare’s arm would mean. The de Clares would not let it pass quietly, and the feud between their families would be worse tomorrow than it had been yesterday. But the wager had been made in front of all these people, and Lucien had accepted it of his own free will. If Owen let him buy his way out of it now, everyone here would remember that too.
Lucien turned toward the awning.
"Your Highness." His voice rose. "You can’t allow this. He means to mutilate a son of House de Clare, in the palace, at your own gathering. You can’t simply let it happen."
Before Adelaide could answer, Alaric stepped out from the boundary line.
He didn’t raise his voice. He walked until he was close enough to speak to Owen without shouting, and he stopped there.
"Lord Owen," he said. "I won’t pretend my brother didn’t accept the wager. He did, and I heard him. He was wrong to make it, and he was wrong about your family." He paused. "But you’ve beaten him in front of everyone who matters in this city. He’s offered a public apology. House de Clare will add compensation to it, and I will see to that personally. Take that, and let this end here. Nobody will think less of you for it."
It was a real offer. Owen could see that Alaric meant it, and that it had cost him something to make it in front of so many people.
"I appreciate it," Owen said. "But I’ve already chosen."
Alaric looked at him for a long moment. Then he turned toward Captain Voss.
Voss had been standing a short distance away with his hands clasped behind his back. He didn’t wait to be asked.
"The wager was made openly before the match," he said, "in front of Her Highness and the witnesses present. Lord Lucien accepted its conditions, and they were recorded. Should he lose, he owed Lord Owen one part of his body, to be chosen after the result. That is what was agreed."
He said nothing more than that.
Princess Adelaide rose from her seat.
"Lord Owen." Her voice carried easily across the court. "Do you truly intend to claim his arm? I would have you understand what that means, for you and for your house, before you answer."
"I do, Your Highness."
Adelaide was quiet for a moment.
"Both of you stood before me last night and told me you understood what you were risking," she said. "I asked each of you separately, and neither of you withdrew. The terms were witnessed and recorded. I will not set them aside now because one of you has lost."
There was no satisfaction in her face, and no pleasure in her voice. She said it the way someone states a fact they would rather not have had to state.
She sat back down.
Lucien looked from the awning to Alaric, and from Alaric to Voss. None of them moved.
Owen started walking toward him.
Lucien took a step back. It looked as though he hadn’t meant to.
"Stop," he said. He tried to make it sound like an order. "Stop right there."
Owen kept walking.
"I said stay back!" Lucien’s voice jumped sharply. "Don’t come any closer! Do you hear me?"
Owen didn’t answer.
Lucien retreated another step, and then another. His boots scraped across the stone.
Scrrch.
He had clamped his right hand over his left arm, over the cut Owen had given him during the fight, and he was holding it against his side. His eyes kept moving, from Owen’s face to Owen’s empty hands and back, as though he were waiting for the sword to appear.
The colour had drained out of him. Sweat had broken out along his hairline, and when he tried to speak again, his lips were shaking too much to get the words out properly.
"You— Alaric. Alaric!"
He looked toward his brother. Then toward the Princess. Then toward the benches, at the rows of nobles who had cheered him that morning.
Nobody came forward.
Owen watched him back away across the stone. Less than an hour ago, this was the same man who had smiled at him and told him to surrender before he embarrassed himself. Now he couldn’t even stand still.
Owen didn’t feel any need to say anything. Lucien already understood.
Lucien turned and ran.
He made for the gap in the boundary that led toward the court’s exit, but his body wouldn’t do what he wanted. His injured leg buckled on the second stride, and he lurched sideways and caught himself, and kept going in an ugly, unsteady half-run.
Owen cut across the fighting ground and stepped into his path.
Lucien saw him too late. He pulled up so suddenly that he nearly fell, and he stumbled back two steps with his arms thrown out for balance.
"Stay away from me!" His voice cracked in the middle. "Stay away!"
Owen kept coming, and Lucien’s anger fell apart.
"Please." The word came out broken. "Please, don’t. Not my arm. I’m a de Clare. I fight with an axe. If you take it, I’m finished. Everything I’ve trained for—everything—please—"
For a moment, Owen thought about what that meant. Lucien had grown up in a house that lived and died by the axe, the same way Owen had grown up with the sword. Whatever Lucien was meant to become, he would be giving up part of it here.
Then he thought about the terms Lucien had wanted. A year of Owen’s life. His family’s name, dragged through the dirt in front of everyone. Lucien had accepted all of it with a smile.
Owen’s mind didn’t change.
He summoned his sword.
It formed in his hand the way it always did, solid and familiar, and the morning light ran along the edge of the blade.
Lucien flinched at the sight of it. His left arm came up in front of him without thinking, and he tried to stumble back again.
Owen closed the distance.
He stepped in and swung once, quick and clean.
Shhk!
The blade passed through Lucien’s arm just above the elbow.
Lucien went still.
For an instant, he only stood there, looking at Owen as though he didn’t understand what had happened.
Then the pain reached him.