[Jasper’s POV]
As soon as Lord Winthrope leaves for his study, Vivien grabs my wrist and follows him. She moves like she's weaponized purpose itself, spine locked straight enough to cut glass. I fall into step behind her—one pace back, one pace left, the geometry I learned before I could read.
"Where are we going?" My voice scrapes out rough. She doesn't slow, doesn't look back. "Father's study. Keep quiet unless he addresses you." The command lands familiar. I've been following her orders since she was eleven. Some things are permanent.
She knocks once and pushes inside. Lord Winthrope rises, and the look on his face says he's been expecting this—dreading it, perhaps, but expecting it.
"Vivien." Careful, measured. He gestures toward the chair. "Sit down. Let's discuss this properly."
"Father, I want to retract my consent to marry King Alastair." The words hit me square in the sternum. My hand finds the door frame and grips. Marriage. The king.
That explains the muslin and the pins and the seamstress she bolted from—she wasn't being fitted for a dress. She was being fitted for a cage with gold stitching and a royal crest.
A king. Of course a king. The logical part of me understands—this is what lords do with their daughters.
But the rest of me, the part that swore I'd build her an estate twice her father's, that promised seven gardens and meant every word—that part is choking. I rode three days without stopping because I believed I was coming home to her. Not to a future queen. To the girl I was going to be worthy of.
Lord Winthrope's gaze flicks to me, then back. He rounds the desk, leans against its edge. "I understand why you feel that way, now that Jasper's returned. But sweetheart—the letter reached Dimgrove. The court has formally accepted."
"I agreed while I wasn't thinking clearly." Her pulse jumps at her throat. "You knew that. You asked if I was sure."
And then Lord Winthrope says something that rearranges everything. "You were out of your mind with grief, Vivien. You hadn't eaten in weeks. I thought giving you a future might keep you alive."
My chest cracks open along a fault line I didn't know existed. She didn't agree because a king was a better prospect. She agreed because she thought I was dead and the world stopped mattering.
"But this is the crown." He presses his fingers to his temples. "To withdraw now would insult the throne. I cannot undo it, even if I wished to."
"So I have no choice." Not a question. A stone in still water.
"You had a choice," he says gently. "You made it. I wish circumstances had been different. But I cannot change what's set in motion."
Her jaw locks. The fight leaves her shoulders—not surrender, but the pivot of a woman scouting her next position. "Fine. If I must go to Dimgrove, I go with protection I trust. I want Sir Jasper as my bodyguard at court."
Lord Winthrope studies me for a long moment, and I keep my face blank through pure force of will, my pulse slamming. "Irregular. Bodyguards are typically appointed by the crown, not the bride."
"A queen bringing her household knight is traditional. My one condition, Father." She delivers it like a legal clause. "You owe me that much."
His eyes move between us. He nods, curt. "Agreed. Sir Jasper accompanies you." His gaze finds mine. "Guard her well, boy."
"With my life, my lord." Vivien inclines her head, turns, leaves without being dismissed. I follow. The study door closes and the performance drops from her shoulders like a cloak. She sags against the wall for one breath before straightening.
I catch her arm. "Look at me." She faces me—chin lifted, defiant, and beneath it, terrified. "You agreed to marry the king because you thought I was dead."
"Yes." No flinching. No excuses. Just that single word, landing between us like a blade laid flat on stone. Her chin doesn't waver.
"You stopped eating. Your father thought marrying you to a stranger was the only way to keep you breathing." My voice shakes. "That is the most deranged thing anyone has ever done on my account, and I include the man who tried to stab me at Blackmere."
Her mouth twitches, fighting against itself. "I wasn't in my right mind." She says it like a confession, like admitting weakness costs her something physical.
"Clearly." I step closer. "You could have told me in the courtyard instead of marching me into a political ambush in road-filthy armor."
"If I'd told you first, you'd have done something noble and stupid." She steps closer too, and the corridor shrinks to the space between us. "You'd have told me to go. To be happy. To forget about you."
My mouth opens. Closes. The noble and stupid part is right—I would have told her to go. But not because I think I'm less than a king. I promised that girl seven gardens and I meant every one.
I would have told her to go because she deserves a choice made in daylight, not one I pressure out of her in a courtyard while she's still shaking.
"You are not just anything." Her voice cracks. Her hand presses flat against my chestplate, over my heart, and the tremor goes through steel into bone. "I carried your dagger for three weeks. I slept on your cot. I planned a future around four words I never said."
My heart slams against her palm. "What four words?" She stares at me, fingers curling into the leather strap.
"I love you, Jasper." Quiet, wrecked, furious—caged behind her teeth for years and broken free against her will. "That's what I was going to tell you when you came home. Before the letter, the king, any of it."
The corridor narrows to a single burning point—her hand, my chest, the weight of words I've carried since she named me at eleven years old.
"Say something." She's shaking. "Before I die of humiliation." I take her face between my hands—gloves rough on her jaw, thumbs catching tears—and press my forehead against hers.
"I have loved you since the day you named me." My voice comes out in ruins. "Through five years of silence. Through bleeding on that field. The only reason I crawled back to camp was because dying without seeing you was something I refused to accept."
Her fingers fist in my armor straps and she pulls, and her mouth is right there—close enough that I feel her breath on my lips, close enough that one tilt would close the distance. I want to. God, I want to so badly my jaw aches from clenching against it.
But she is betrothed to the king of Erdor. If I kiss her now, I'm not a man who loves her—I'm a man who takes what isn't his. So I press my forehead against hers instead, breath tangling, her eyelashes against my cheek, and hold.
"You're an idiot," she whispers like a benediction. "A complete fool for following me into this."
"Your fool." Something between desperate and devoted. "Future queen's fool. That has to count for something."
"It counts for everything." Barely audible. She pulls back, wipes her eyes. The commanding woman returns—spine straight, chin high. But her hand finds mine, laces through, and doesn't let go.
"You're coming to Dimgrove. No excuses, no heroic deployments, no orders that conveniently send you elsewhere. You're coming and you're staying."
"Every step." I lift her hand, press my mouth to her knuckles—the closest I'll allow myself to her lips while another man's ring is being forged—and breathe in lavender and steel and the girl who named me and ruined me for anything else. "I swear it."
She holds my gaze—something behind her eyes settles, not peace, but the nearest thing either of us has known in weeks. Then she turns and descends the stairs.
I follow, watching winter light catch in her dark hair, learning what devotion feels like when it's no longer a secret you carry alone.
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