Chapter 280

Daphne

I run my fingers through her hair, silky and soft, and kiss her forehead. She doesn’t stir from sleep, lost in some dream that makes her nose twitch. I get an idea. A terrible, wonderful idea.

Don’t do it.

I, in fact, do it.

I gently take one of her long, floppy rabbit ears between my lips.

She wakes up immediately, shooting upright with a jolt, her eyes wide and startled. "You—You!!!!"

I can’t help my smile, releasing her ear. It flops back down, slightly damp.

"I’m not tasty! Don’t try to eat me!" she squeaks, scrambling back against the headboard, clutching the blanket to her chest.

"Not tasty?" I muse, crawling closer. "That’s false advertising, my dear bunny. You are delectable."

"I’ve always known you wanted to eat me!" she accuses, though a giggle is fighting its way through her indignation. "Showing your true colors now!"

"Yes, yes," I sigh dramatically, cornering her against the pillows. "It was all a ploy, my dear. A grand, centuries-long ploy of the big, evil panther... to eventually get to eat the naive little bunny." I loom over her, making my eyes go wide and predatory.

"You will never have me!" she declares, and makes a valiant, wriggling attempt to escape.

I catch her easily, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her back into the nest of blankets. She goes limp in my grasp.

"Oh. No."she says, her voice utterly flat and monotone. "I’ve. Been. Caught. Whatever. Shall. I. Do."

I snicker, burying my face in the crook of her neck and blowing a raspberry against her skin.

She shrieks with laughter, squirming helplessly. "Stop! That tickles! Daphne!"

I love her laugh. I love her laugh so much.

***

Felix

I picture my head rolling. Not metaphorically. I see it, clear as day—tumbling from my shoulders, bouncing once on the polished council table, my crown clattering after it, while the Duke of Panthers watches with that bored, golden gaze. The image is so vivid, so visceral, it chokes the air from my lungs.

My proposal, laid bare before them, has unleashed a storm of tradition, fear, and blatant bigotry.

"ENOUGH!"

I had known they would react this way. I had braced for it. Still, nothing matters to me more than my life.

They all look at me with wide eyes, the furious bluster knocked out of them by the animal force of my roar. They are suddenly, acutely aware that they are not just debating policy with a peer. They are in the presence of the king.

"I’ve heard your arguments against," I say, my voice dropping into a controlled, icy calm that cuts deeper than any shout.

"And quite frankly, they are not convincing. We shall proceed."

"No, Your Majesty! It is wrong, it is unnatural, it is immoral—"

I cut him off with a slash of my hand.

"Oh, really? ’Immoral’?" I let the word hang, then lean forward, my gaze sweeping the chamber.

"Over sixty percent of you in this room have close family ties—brothers, sisters, cousins, children—to the so-called ’immoral’ people you’re so eager to condemn. And there are more than a few of the actual nobles in this room who share those... immoral activities."

I make deliberate, unhurried eye contact with several lords who have gone very pale and very still.

When Edith brought the list to me,I was stunned. I didn’t think they were so... many. I knew they existed, in shadows and rumors.

But it was different seeing their names written in a precise, elegant hand. One name had stunned me most of all, a quiet confirmation of a truth I’d glimpsed but never understood: Lani.

It brought into sharp, painful focus that this wasn’t just about the Duke of Panthers. She is a force of nature, a law unto herself. No one would dare deny her anything to her face. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

But these others... they don’t have that kind of power. They have titles, perhaps, but not the power to defy the weight of a kingdom’s scorn.

I may not understand it. The love between two women or two men is a country my heart has never visited. But these are my subjects.

So if I, their king, do not stand for them... who will?

Edith’s initial plan was to expose the names. A calculated shock to the system. These brave, terrified people had agreed to it, a mass coming-out to force the issue. But I won’t do that.

What sort of king would I be if I could not pass this law without burning my own people at the stake of public scrutiny?

I stand up. The movement is not rushed, but it is absolute. I am no longer a petitioner before this council. I am the king upon his dais, looking down.

"I care not," I say, my voice clear and hard, "what you think. I care not what you feel."

The words land like stones in the silent hall.

"There are people of my kingdom—loyal, tax-paying, family-raising people—who are unable to live freely in their own homeland. Who hide, who lie, who marry strangers to survive, because of this." I gesture to the scroll of law before me.

"Because of our words etched on parchment. Words that create shadows where there should be sun."

"When I was sworn in," I continue, each word measured, "I knelt before gods and beasts and swore an oath. To protect all my people. To serve all my people. I will not exclude a faction of my people because their hearts frighten your traditions. That is not the kind of king I will be."

I pick up the royal seal from the table beside me.

"This," I say, holding it aloft so the ruby eyes of the carved lion catch the light, "is not a toy for consensus. It is a tool for justice. And today, justice says this law changes."

I look at the stunned, pale faces before me. There is no more argument in them. Good.

"This is final."

I bring the seal down onto the waiting wax at the bottom of the decree. The thump is shockingly loud in the quiet, a sound of irrevocable decision.

I do not wait for their reaction. I do not look at them. I turn and leave the dais, leaving the council room.