Three days on the road with Vivien riding ahead and me behind, neither of us mentioning what happened in that corridor. Three days of her profile against the treeline and my mouth burning from the kiss I pressed to her knuckles instead of her lips.
Dimgrove rises from the landscape like a tombstone—black granite streaked with blood-dark veins, towers clawing at a bruised sky. My horse's hooves echo too hollow in the courtyard, like the stone is empty underneath.
"Charming place." I scan the battlements. "Really captures that 'you might die here' atmosphere."
Vivien's mouth twitches without looking at me. "Try to sound less like you're scouting invasion routes." I shut up when a woman descends the steps—blonde hair, blue silk, smile sharp enough to open letters.
"Lady Vivien Winthrope." Warmth drips from every syllable, none of it reaching her eyes. "I'm Cecil Atwood. Welcome to Dimgrove."
"A pleasure." Vivien matches the smile. Two women curtsying like fencers saluting before the first lunge.
"The unexpected bride." Cecil catalogues every detail—the travel dust, the modest entourage, me. "How surprising for the court."
"Unexpected can be fortunate," Vivien replies. Cecil's attention slides to me like a blade finding a gap.
"And your devoted guard?" Her gaze lingers on the space between my shoulder and Vivien's. "The court does talk about these things. Knights and their ladies. I'm sure you'll navigate it beautifully."
"I appreciate the welcome, Lady Atwood." Vivien's voice could frost glass. Cecil inclines her head and glides away, leaving poison in the air like perfume.
"She's hunting," I say quietly. "Noticed us inside thirty seconds."
Vivien's hand finds mine behind the fold of her cloak—brief, fierce, then gone. "Then we give her nothing."
The evening brings the formal dinner, and the king. Alastair enters last—tall, broad-shouldered, carrying himself with the easy authority of a man who has never fought for a room's attention. He takes Vivien's hand and bows.
"Lady Vivien. You are even lovelier than I remembered from the summit." Genuine warmth, and I hate that I can hear it.
She curtsies—every inch the composed bride. "Your Majesty. You honor me."
"Alastair, please." He guides her to the seat beside his. "Before we begin—I owe you honesty. I've moved the wedding forward. Tomorrow from now, rather than the fortnight we discussed." Tomorrow. The number lands in my chest like a fist.
"Tomorrow." Vivien's composure holds, but I see her fingers tighten on the wine glass. "That is considerably sooner than agreed. May I ask what changed?"
"The northern border." Alastair leans closer, his voice dropping from courtly warmth to something graver. "Raider activity has doubled in the past month. My generals are pressing for a unified response."
"And a queen at your side strengthens that response." Vivien's voice is perfectly level, but her knuckles whiten around the stem of her glass.
"A king ruling alone looks vulnerable. A king with a queen signals permanence." The earnestness in his eyes makes my jaw lock. "I need the court to see stability. Your father will arrive in the morning—I've sent riders. And I apologize for the haste."
"A queen's duty begins before the crown, it seems." She takes a measured sip of wine, and only I can see the pulse hammering at her throat.
"I intend to make it worth your sacrifice, Lady Vivien." Alastair's smile turns almost rueful, and it costs me something that I believe him.
I stand behind her chair, gripping my sword hilt because holding something keeps me from reaching for her. Two days until she belongs to the crown and whatever space exists between us collapses to the width of a vow.
"Tell me," Alastair says, turning to lighter ground, "your thoughts on the northern trade routes? Your father has strong opinions, I hear."
"I'd watch the craftsmen's guilds." Vivien pauses. "Once they establish monopoly, it's a short step to controlling neighboring supply. Control the supply, control the power."
"I hadn't considered that angle." His eyes brighten. "This is why I wanted a queen with a mind."
He touches her hand across the table—brief, respectful—and my fists curl inside my gauntlets.
She laughs at something he says next, and I know that laugh. I've catalogued every variation since childhood—the polite one, the surprised one, the real one that scrunches her nose. This one is polite, performative. Knowing the difference while he can't is a particular kind of torture.
"A woman of your intelligence shouldn't be wasted on embroidery," Alastair continues. "I need a partner—someone to advise, challenge, rule beside me."
He means every word. I cannot hate him for it. He's offering her a kingdom where I promised seven gardens. But I am the man she chose despite having a king on offer, and that is not nothing.
Dinner ends. Alastair escorts her through corridors, pointing out tapestries and ancestral armor. I follow three paces behind, tracking his fingers on her sleeve, the practiced tilt of her smile.
At her door he lifts her knuckles to his lips—lingering, deliberate—and the echo of my own kiss burns through me. "I look forward to our wedding, my lady. Sleep well."
"And you, Alastair." Her cheeks flush in the torchlight. He smiles, nods to me—knight to knight—and walks away.
The moment his footsteps fade, every muscle in my body locks. Vivien opens her chamber door without looking back. "Come in, Jasper. Close the door."
The room is candlelit, heavy with unfamiliar flowers. She stands at the window, arms around herself. When she turns, every mask from dinner is gone.
"Before you say whatever's building behind your teeth—I need you to hear something." Her voice is low, exhausted. "What you watched tonight was duty. Every smile, every laugh. That was survival. Not desire."
"You blushed when he kissed your hand." The words escape before I can cage them, petty and desperate and impossible to swallow back.
"Because a bride is expected to blush." Her voice sharpens. I want to be petty, to fight back that you can't fake a blush, but— "Your lips were there three days ago and his felt like nothing." The subtle reminder, the hint that she remembered me at that moment, is worth keeping quiet for.
"I need you to understand this before Dimgrove swallows us." She steps closer, voice dropping fierce and quiet. "What I give the king is performance. What I give you is the truth. You must learn to tell them apart, Jasper."
My throat works. She's commanding me—the way she always has, the way that settles something in my chest even while it burns.
"Can you do that?" She searches my face. "Watch me play the queen and know that every real thing belongs to you?"
"Yes." The word scrapes out rough as gravel, dragged through every hour of watching another man touch her hand. "But it will cost me."
"It will cost us both." The fierceness dims to something gentler. She presses her palm flat—our gesture. "Tomorrow. Then I am his wife and your queen and we navigate this together."
I cover her hand. Her pulse thrums through the steel. The candlelight catches the line of her jaw, the hollow of her throat, and she is so close I can count her eyelashes, can feel her breath warm against my chin.
"Jasper." My name in her mouth, low and raw. "Tomorrow I will stand at that altar and give myself to a man I don't love. I will smile and I will mean none of it and I will spend every night of my marriage remembering this room."
Her fingers curl into the leather strap across my chest. Her eyes drop to my mouth and come back up, and the wanting in them is so naked it stops my lungs.
"But tonight I'm not his queen. Tonight I'm just yours." Her voice fractures on the last word. "So if you're going to kiss me, do it now. Before tomorrow takes that away too."
The distance between her lips and mine is the width of a breath, and every vow I've ever sworn—to the crown, to her father, to honor itself—is burning to ash in the space between us.
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