For a few minutes after Veylira's explanation, the table felt suspended between scandal and sincerity.
Sarisa sat very still with her hands around her teacup, trying to pretend the heat in her face had nothing to do with the words mating mark, mine, or the infuriatingly calm way Lara had gone quiet beside her.
The room still held traces of laughter after Malvoria's shameless answer, but beneath it, something heavier had settled. Something real.
It was Elysia who finally brought the conversation back to earth.
"It should be a last resort," she said, practical as ever, though her eyes were warm when they flicked between Lara and Sarisa.
"Not because it is wrong, but because it is permanent in ways marriage is not. If you ever choose it, it should be because you are choosing each other freely, not because the queen forced your hand."
Sarisa was grateful to her for that. She was not sure she could have borne hearing the word permanent in any other tone.
Lara nodded first, more serious than she had been all morning. "Yeah. Last resort."
Sarisa glanced at her and found Lara already looking back, her dark eyes steady, the corners of her mouth softer than before. There was no mockery in her this time, no teasing shield, only a quiet sort of agreement that made Sarisa's chest ache.
"Yes," Sarisa said. "Last resort."
The matter, at least outwardly, was closed after that.
Breakfast softened into something almost ordinary. Or as ordinary as anything could be with Malvoria making comments under her breath and Raveth snorting whenever Lara looked even slightly embarrassed.
Yet even with the others there, Sarisa found herself slipping into a small, private world with Lara.
It began with a piece of bread.
Sarisa reached for the butter, but Lara was faster, taking the knife from her with an ease that felt so domestic it nearly undid her.
She spread the butter across the warm slice, added a little honey without asking because she already knew how Sarisa liked it, and handed it over without a word.
Sarisa stared at it for one beat longer than necessary.
Lara arched one brow. "What?"
"Nothing," Sarisa murmured, accepting it. "You're just very pleased with yourself."
"I am feeding you. This is a public service."
Malvoria made a choking sound that was definitely not laughter. Elysia kicked her lightly under the table.
Sarisa took a bite and then, because she was not above retaliation, reached for the little dish of sliced fruit and held one piece up toward Lara's mouth. Lara gave her a suspicious look, then leaned in and took it with a grin that was far too pleased.
"There," Sarisa said. "Now you're fed too."
Lara's voice dropped lower, quieter in a way meant only for her. "That sounded dangerously wifely."
The butterflies came at once, ridiculous and immediate.
Sarisa lowered her eyes to her plate so no one would see too much of her face. "Eat your breakfast."
"Yes, Your Highness."
They spoke in little threads after that, half under their breath while the others moved around them. Nothing dramatic. Small things. Whether Aliyah would be jealous if Kaelith taught Neris some ridiculous game first.
Whether Neris had slept. Whether Sarisa had managed even an hour of rest before teleporting out of the palace.
Lara's hand brushed Sarisa's wrist once when she passed the tea, and Sarisa thought, absurdly, that this was more intimate than any jewelers' visit, more binding than all the rings in the kingdom.
When breakfast finally ended, chairs shifted and cups were emptied and the room gradually broke apart into its separate motions. Raveth rose first, announcing she needed to "go glare at something expensive."
Veylira followed at a slower pace, giving Lara a long, measuring look that somehow contained both warning and approval. Malvoria and Elysia lingered just enough for Sarisa to know they were doing it on purpose.
Then Lara stood and, without making a show of it, tilted her head toward the side door that led into the quieter corridor beyond.
Sarisa followed.
The corridor was washed in a gentler light than the dining room, its tall windows opening onto the inner gardens where the morning had fully bloomed. Somewhere outside, water moved in one of the marble fountains.
The castle was still half asleep, the children not yet awake, the servants distant enough that for a few precious minutes the world seemed willing to leave them alone.
Lara stopped near one of the windows and turned.
Without the others there, without breakfast to distract her, Sarisa felt suddenly and acutely aware of the things left unsaid.
The mention of mating still hummed quietly beneath her skin. The warmth of Lara's hand against hers. The impossible tenderness of this morning existing at all.
She folded her arms, then unfolded them again. "Can I ask you something?"
Lara's expression softened at once. "You can ask me anything."
Sarisa drew in a breath. "If it ever came to that… if it really were the last resort…" She hated how uncertain she sounded. Hated it, and could do nothing about it. "Would you be ready to mate with me?"
Lara did not laugh.
Did not tease.
For one still moment, she simply looked at Sarisa as though the question itself had reached in and touched something sacred.
Then Lara stepped closer.
"I would do absolutely anything you want, Sarisa," she said quietly. "That's how much I love you."
The words hit more softly than I fucking love you had, but somehow deeper. Sarisa felt them in her stomach, her throat, in the quick fluttering under her ribs that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the fact that Lara was standing there with no armor on at all.
Sarisa looked down because she had to. Because if she held Lara's gaze too long, she might fall apart in broad morning light.
But Lara was not finished.
"I know I've spent years proving I'm better at making a mess than fixing one," Lara said.
"I know I was late. And stupid. And I made you carry too much of me before I ever gave you anything clean in return. But if you asked me for forever, I'd give it to you. If you asked me for war, I'd start it. If you asked me to wait, I'd wait. If you asked me to stay, I'd stay."
Sarisa's heart was beating too fast now, each word stirring up something light and helpless inside her. Butterflies, yes, but fiercer than that too. Hope, perhaps, though she hardly dared name it.
Lara took another step, close enough now that Sarisa could see every little change in her face, every flicker of feeling she once would have hidden behind a smirk.
"I don't want to own you," Lara said, her voice low and rough.
"That's not what this is for me. I want to deserve you. I want to be someone you can choose without regretting it when the room gets quiet. I want to be the place you can come back to, even when everything else is falling apart."
Sarisa laughed softly then, because the tears threatening at the corners of her eyes had to go somewhere. "You're being unfairly romantic."
Lara's mouth curved. "I'm trying something new."
"It suits you."
That seemed to catch Lara off guard. The vulnerability did not leave her face, but it changed, warming into something almost shy, which was so unlike Lara it made Sarisa want to kiss her until she forgot how to be afraid again.
Instead she reached for her hand.
Lara looked down at their fingers as though the contact meant more than she knew how to hold.
"I don't know what happens next," Sarisa admitted. "I don't know how we fix any of it."
"We'll figure it out," Lara said.
"You sound certain."
"I'm not." Lara's thumb brushed slowly over Sarisa's knuckles. "I'm just more certain of you than I am of anything else."
That nearly ruined her.
Sarisa had just opened her mouth, not even sure what she meant to say, when a familiar voice drifted down the corridor behind them.
"The teleportation device is ready," Elysia said gently. "You should get back to your room now."