Elyra's throat closed.
She looked at the ring. At his hand. At the scars across his knuckles — old scars, war scars, the kind that told stories he never shared and she never asked about.
"I'm not taking your ring."
"You're taking my ring."
"I refuse."
"You're a Veyranne. You don't refuse your father."
"I'm also a Kaerythene. We refuse everything."
His mouth opened. Closed. For the first time in her life, she watched Meyrn of Veyranne — the Lion, the general, the man who had once talked a siege commander into surrendering by critiquing his taste in architecture — lose his words.
Then he laughed.
Low. Broken. The laugh of a man who was looking at his daughter and seeing, for the first time, the woman she'd become without him noticing.
"You sound like your mother," he said.
"You've said that before."
"I mean it more every time."
He pressed the ring into her palm. Closed her fingers over it. His hand was warm. Rough. Steady.
"Ride fast," he said. "Don't look back."
