Manon assessed him again, and he withstood it. “You have nothing to say about my own … choices?” “My friends are fighting and likely being killed in the North,” Dorian said. “We don’t have the time to spend weeks winning the Crochans over.” There it was, the brutal truth. To gain some degree of welcome here, they’d had to cross that line. Perhaps such callous decisions were part of wearing a crown. He’d keep her secret—so long as she wished it hidden. “No self-righteous speeches?” “This is war,” he said simply. “We’re past that sort of thing.”
