“I intend,” he said, “to keep them for the rest of my life.”

Chapter 18 — Not as a Contract

He stopped by the old stone fountain and turned to face her, and reached into his coat, and took out a small velvet box.

Inside was a plain platinum ring — not an heirloom, not a thing weighted with the empire or the family or the deals that had first bound them together, but something simple he had chosen himself, for no reason but that he wanted her to have it.

“When we married,” Caspian said, and for the first time his own voice was not quite steady, “it was a contract.

A way for you to survive, and a way for me to gain, and we both knew exactly what it was.