"I'm not asking you to give it." Kanary held the dagger steady between them. "I'm telling you what the blood is for before you decide."
Regulus didn't move. He couldn't move much — the body kneeling on the chamber floor was running on the same fumes his voice was — but his eyes tracked the crystal with the attention of someone who has spent his whole life reading the value of objects and the intentions behind them.
"A contract." Kanary's voice stayed level. "You govern this city. You govern it well. You don't harm the people in it, you don't bleed it for your family's accounts, and you treat this place as something worth keeping rather than something worth extracting.
That's the promise. Your blood seals it, and if you break it, the dagger collects what it's owed."
The silence after that had a specific texture. Regulus knew what a promise dagger collected. Everyone who'd been raised near power knew.
