What your plans are. Whether you understand the position you now occupy and whether you intend to occupy it responsibly." He pauses. "Whether you are someone I can work with."
I look at King Denton.
I look at the man who arranged my marriage without asking me, who knew what I was before I did, who has spent eighteen years managing the question of my bloodline as if it were an administrative problem rather than a person's life. I look at him sitting on his throne with his hands folded and his measured voice and his careful question — whether you are someone I can work with — and I feel my wolf go very still in my chest.
Not threatening. Just certain.
"I think," I say, "that you have the question backwards."
Denton goes still.
