Chapter : 917
The Sultan leaned forward, his interest rekindled. The game was afoot once more.
“The seal is a bond of intent,” Lloyd began, choosing his words with a new, and very different, kind of care. He was no longer trying to escape. He was trying to reshape the very nature of his cage. “It cannot be broken. I accept this. But its final, and most profound, term—the marriage—is a matter of the heart, as much as it is of law. And the heart… the heart cannot be commanded, not even by a Sultan, and not even by the Old Magic.”
He turned his gaze to Amina, and the look in his eyes was one of pure, unadulterated, and completely, finally, honest sincerity. “Your Highness,” he said, his voice now a low, personal, and deeply respectful murmur. “You are a woman of profound wisdom, of great courage, and of a deep and true compassion. You are a treasure, and you deserve a husband who is not just worthy of you, but who chooses you, freely and with an open heart. Not a man who is bound to you by a magical, and deeply surprising, contract.”
Amina was silent, her own mind clearly struggling to process this new, and very unexpected, turn in his character.
“Therefore,” Lloyd concluded, his voice ringing with the clear, simple, and beautiful logic of his new, insane plan, “I propose this. Give me time. The seal is a promise, and I will not break it. But let us… let us put it to the test. Let us see if this bond, forged in fire and in magic, is one that can also be forged in truth, and in trust.”
He took a deep breath, and delivered his final, world-altering, and beautifully, magnificently reckless proposition.
“Give me three months. Let me return to my own home, to my own life, to settle my affairs and to… to prepare myself for the great honor you have offered me. And you, Princess,” he said, his gaze locking on hers, “you will accompany me. You will come to my home, not as a princess, but as… as my friend. As my partner. And you will see my world. You will see the truth of my life. And I will see the truth of yours.”
“And at the end of those three months,” he finished, his voice a low, solemn, and unbreakable vow, “if you still wish to have me as your husband… if you can look at the full, and unvarnished, truth of my life, and still wish to bind your own to it… then I will honor this seal. I will return here. And I will be yours.”
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Lloyd’s proposition was a masterpiece of desperate, improvisational diplomacy. It was a move so audacious, so far outside the bounds of any conventional political or personal negotiation, that it left the entire throne room, for the third time in less than an hour, in a state of profound, and deeply contemplative, silence.
He had not refused the marriage. He had not defied the Sultan’s will. He had, in fact, done the exact opposite. He had accepted the magical, binding nature of the seal. He had acknowledged the legitimacy of their claim on him. And then, with a surgeon’s delicate, precise skill, he had taken their iron-clad, absolute contract and had inserted a single, beautiful, and critically important new clause: a three-month trial period.
It was a brilliant, almost poetically perfect, solution to an impossible problem. It gave him what he so desperately needed: time. Time to return home, to assess the true, catastrophic state of his other marriage, to prepare his family and his allies for the diplomatic firestorm that was about to descend upon them. Time to think.
And it did so without insulting the Sultan’s honor or rejecting the Princess’s hand. In fact, he had framed his request in the most noble, most romantic, and most flattering terms imaginable. He was not trying to escape the marriage; he was trying to be worthy of it. He was asking for a chance to build a genuine, honest foundation for their union, a foundation of trust and understanding, not just of magic and political convenience. He had turned a desperate, panicked plea for a stay of execution into a profound, and very moving, statement of his own moral and romantic integrity.
The Sultan, who had been preparing to deal with either a sullen, resentful prisoner or a full-blown diplomatic incident, was completely, and utterly, disarmed. He looked at the young man before him, at the quiet, sincere, and almost heartbreakingly earnest expression on his face, and he found himself, to his own profound and utter surprise, completely and utterly… charmed.
The boy had balls. There was no other word for it. He had been cornered, he had been trapped, he had been magically and politically checkmated, and he had not just found a move; he had invented a whole new piece and had placed it on the board with a flourish.
Chapter : 918
He looked at his daughter. Amina was still, her veiled face unreadable, but he could see, in the slight, almost imperceptible shift of her posture, that she, too, was impressed. And intrigued. Lloyd had not just offered her a political marriage; he had offered her a story, an adventure, a three-month-long, high-stakes romantic drama. And Amina, for all her scholarly, pragmatic brilliance, was still a young woman with a heart that was, he suspected, far more romantic and far more adventurous than she would ever admit.
He, Sultan Asad Ullah, the master of the great game, had just been masterfully, beautifully, and completely outplayed by a man half his age. And he found that he did not mind it at all. In fact, he found it to be… exhilarating.
He leaned back in his obsidian throne, a slow, genuine, and deeply, deeply appreciative smile spreading across his face. “Three months,” he said, his voice a low, rumbling purr of pure, unadulterated amusement. “You wish to take my only daughter, the heir to my throne, the single most valuable political asset in the entire kingdom, on a three-month-long… trial run… to your cold, northern, and frankly rather dreary-looking homeland?”
“That is the proposition, Your Majesty,” Lloyd replied, his voice a calm, steady, and unshakeable statement of his terms.
“And if, at the end of this… romantic sojourn… she decides that she does not, in fact, wish to marry you?” the Sultan queried, a faint, teasing glint in his eyes. “What then? Does the seal simply… evaporate?”
“The seal is a bond of my intent, Your Majesty,” Lloyd countered smoothly. “And my intent would be to honor her decision. I would consider myself released from my vow, with my honor, and hers, fully intact.”
It was a perfect, elegant, and completely fabricated piece of magical legalese. The seal, as Ken had grimly confirmed, was not so easily dissuaded. But it was the right thing to say. It was the honorable thing.
“And if she does still wish to marry you?” the Sultan pressed.
“Then I will honor the seal,” Lloyd repeated, his voice a quiet, solemn vow. “And I will be yours.” It was a lie, of course. A beautiful, necessary lie. But it was a lie he delivered with the absolute, unwavering conviction of a true saint.
The Sultan was silent for a long, contemplative moment. He looked at his daughter. He looked at the strange, brilliant, and impossibly audacious young lord before him. And he looked at the silent, crimson-eyed King in the shadows who stood beside him like a promise of a very, very messy war if he made the wrong choice.
And then, he threw his head back and he laughed. The sound was a genuine, unrestrained, and utterly delighted roar, a sound that echoed through the silent throne room and seemed to make the very stones vibrate with its joyous, triumphant energy.
“Excellent!” he boomed, slapping his hand on the arm of his throne. “A magnificent proposition! A test of the heart! A trial of the spirit! It is dramatic! It is romantic! It is… perfect! I accept!”
He had not just accepted the terms. He had embraced them with the enthusiastic, almost manic, glee of a man who has just been given the lead role in the greatest play of the century.
Amina, who had been holding her breath, let it out in a slow, silent sigh of relief. The crisis had been averted. The war had been avoided. And her own, personal, and deeply complicated future had just been postponed, if not entirely rewritten.
Lloyd himself felt a wave of dizziness so profound that he almost staggered. He had done it. He had stared into the abyss of his own, certain, and multi-faceted doom, and he had, through a combination of sheer, desperate nerve and a single, brilliant, and completely insane idea, managed to claw his way back out. He had not just survived. He had won. He had won time.
The Sultan rose from his throne, his presence filling the room with a new, and very cheerful, energy. “It is settled, then!” he declared, clapping his hands together like a child who has just been promised a new toy. “A three-month engagement trial! We will draft a temporary accord! We will send a delegation! This will be magnificent!”
He then turned to Lloyd, and his expression was one of pure, unadulterated, and almost fatherly affection. “You, my boy,” he said, pointing a finger at him, “are a treasure. A true, and very rare, find. You have made my life interesting again. For that alone, you have my gratitude.”
He then looked at his daughter. “Amina, my dear. Go and prepare for your journey. Pack your warmest silks. I hear the north is dreadfully, dreadfully cold.”