She arched her brow. “You invited yourself, if I recall correctly.”
He chuckled softly, letting the moment breathe. Then, without warning, he asked, “What memories do you hold dearest here?”
She hesitated.
It was a simple question. Gentle, even. But it brushed too close to something unarmored. Her first instinct was to deflect—to mention anything else.
Her thumb ran the fan’s edge. “Dearest?” she echoed, arching a brow. “That feels like a rather sentimental inquiry for someone who just yesterday implied my kingdom's traditions are archaic.”
Alaric didn’t rise to the bait. He only smiled, gaze forward, hands loose behind his back. “Even archaic places have corners that feel more like home.”
After a breath, her gaze drifted toward the oldest part of the garden, past the marble fountain, to where the path bent out of sight into a shaded grove.
“Over there,” she breathed, pointing past the fountain, “beyond that hedge. My mother used to take me when I was young. We’d sit beneath the trees. Flowers from Lysitha were planted there just for her. She said they smelled like home.”
“Lysitha,” he murmured. “Beautiful place. Layers of history. More ruins than standing walls.” A pause, then: “She must’ve had stories worth remembering.”
Evelyne gave a faint smile, too polished. “I don’t recall any,” she lied. “My mother wasn’t one for telling stories.”
Alaric studied her for a beat longer than was polite. “No?” he asked mildly. “Strange. Myths carry more truth than most ledgers and Lysitha has no shortage of them. You’d be surprised how often we bury fact in metaphor simply to keep it safe.”
She turned her head slightly. “I don’t believe in magic stories being real, if that’s where this is going.”
“Did I say the word?” he asked, smiling faintly.
“You didn’t have to.”
“I only meant—she sounds like someone I’d have liked to meet,” he explained. “She must have been quite extraordinary.”
Evelyne didn’t answer right away. She focused on the line of the path, letting the image settle over her. It was distant and sweet and unbearably intact. And somehow, that was worse.
“She was,” she admitted, after a beat. “But she wasn’t made for this place.”
And neither, sometimes, was Evelyne. But that was a truth she didn’t say aloud.
They continued walking, their steps quiet against the stone path. The silence that stretched between them felt like a mutual stillness. Alaric slowed slightly, his gaze drifting across the rows of dormant hedges and blossoms.
“This is fascinating,” he murmured, more to himself than to her. “How easy it is, within the walls of every castle—including mine—to believe the world is well.”
Evelyne glanced at him, the question clear in her expression. He caught it and gestured around.
“You pass from garden to corridor, from marble to silk, and there’s no hunger there. No sickness. No frostbite, fever or fields that never yielded enough grain.” He paused, rubbing his thumb against a leather glove. “But the further from Solmara we traveled, the clearer it became. The roads are worn thin. The villages are smaller than the maps claim. And the people…”
He shook his head, jaw tightening slightly. “They are surviving. Barely.”
Evelyne looked down at the path. She didn’t need convincing.
It pained her, too. Quietly. Constantly. And yet, she still dined from silver plates, wore imported silks while ration laws were debated behind closed doors. She did not pretend otherwise. She would not be a hypocrite.
“We do what we can.”
“And yet it never seems enough.” His voice wasn’t accusatory—just tired. “I thought I understood that before. I didn’t. Not really.”
“Understanding doesn’t come from books,” she observed softly. “Or numbers on reports. It comes from standing where they stand.”
His eyes traced the edge of her profile.
“You’ve stood there?”
