Four hundred years as the King's blade have left him a horned monster no courtier dares test twice.
A human girl named Calla still walks into his gardens with a debt she cannot pay and a rehearsed offer: marry him for convenience, save her father, and leave rival houses no wife to use against him.
He consents because the arrangement is tidy, then remains bound for motives he will not admit.
Shared halls finish what the bargain began; she brings a lute into chambers long unused to song and never flinches from what he is.
Courtiers watch his bride for weakness, and the next lord who tries her will be dismantled before the King.
They credit the match to ambition, yet he claimed her for a devotion that makes his rank expendable.
