Chapter 5: Kneeling

The Regent's priest was a thin man in grey, with one white glove and a face.

He stood in her doorway with a polished glass disc in his hand, and he did not look at her.

He looked at the panther.

Sumi lay across the foot of the cot with his front paws crossed, perfectly still, and watched the priest without blinking.

"Your wrist, Lady Koyama."

Hinata held it out.

The priest bent over the black paw print and the faint gold one beside it, and held the glass over both.

His mouth moved, counting something.

"Two," he said softly.

"Is that a problem?"

"It is a curiosity." He straightened. "A bond makes one mark. His Grace will be interested."

Sumi's lip lifted off one fang, and the rumble in his chest filled the whole tower.

"He doesn't like you standing over me," said Hinata. "You might want to step back."

The priest stepped back.

His eyes went over the room, to the chain coiled by the cot, to the two pillows, to the crumpled blanket.

"You keep a tidy tower," he said.

"I keep a happy cat."

"Does it sleep here?"

"Yes. He's my patient."

"Of course." The priest bowed an inch. "His Grace will be told that you are bonded. Nothing more is required."

He left.

Hinata sat down hard on the cot, her shoulders finally dropping.

Sumi stood, stretched, and rubbed his huge head against her shoulder until she fell sideways laughing.

She spent the day hiding her unease behind chores.

She mucked out the pen, and sharpened a rusted pair of shears, and washed her hair at the pump.

When the dusk came, she was waiting on the cot with her hands folded, and she was very, very nervous.

The change took its long breath.

Valdemar came up out of it already looking for her.

"The priest," he said. "Tell me."

She told him in four sentences.

He listened with his jaw set, kneeling on the floor in the lantern light.

"Two marks," he said when she finished. "I do not like that he counted."

"I don't either. Valdemar."

"Yes?"

"Can we not think about him for an hour?" She was surprised at the shake in her voice. "I've been scared all day."

His face changed.

He rose and crossed the floor in two strides, and took her hands, and pulled her up against his chest.

"What do you want from me tonight?" he asked into her hair. "Anything. Say it."

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