He asked my opinion often—but only on matters already decided, or those too small to matter. When I grew tired, when I asked for solitude, irritation would flicker across his face like a shadow passing over the sun.
“You are all I have,” he would say quietly. “Do not leave me alone with them.”
So I’d stay.
When I tried to ask about taxes, about noble alliances, about disputes I overheard mentioned only in fragments, he would laugh and draw me close. “You worry too much,” he would murmur. “That is my burden to carry.”
Letters from my father went missing. Or arrived already opened, summarized for me as though I could not be trusted with their full weight. I told myself it was the road. The distance. Coincidence.
The crackle of the campfire pulls me back to the present.
I stand very still, the cold biting through my boots, my breath fogging the air. Aynhard’s voice lingers in my mind.
You were meant to use this marriage, not disappear into it.
I had believed protection was tenderness, that closeness was devotion. That keeping me from the court was kindness. Now I wonder if it was something else entirely, not a wall raised for my safety—but a hand placed firmly at my back, guiding me away from doors I was never meant to open. For the first time, I do not ask what Charles has shielded me from, I ask what he has chosen not to show me.
And whether protection and possession were ever truly different things at all.
Chapter 7
As soon as Acheron comes into sight, I know that our time together is up. We still have a couple of hours of ride ahead of us, and yet the streets are already lined with people. Every village we pass by is in upheaval, farmers are loading up wooden carts full of produce, hunters are on patrol in the woods to secure meat to take to court. The villagers bow deep or wave and cheer at us when we pass through.
I am exhausted; the past few nights on the road have taken a toll on me. The cold and the impending doom of returning to court have made sleep evasive.
“You look tired, my Queen,” Charles says and extends his hand to me, willing me to take it. I stretch my arm over to him, which is not an easy feat with both of us sitting on our own horses.
“I did not sleep well those past few nights,” I say and smile faintly. “I am sure I will be alright when I get to sleep in a proper bed again tonight.”
I stare ahead as I am talking and notice him watching me from the corner of my eye.
“You always need to be truthful with me,love.”He speaks calmly, but there is no mistaking the warning behindhis words.
“What makes you think I —”
Before I can finish my sentence, a loud shout echoes through the trees.
“Haaaaalt!” His deep voice cuts through me.
He jumps off his horse, his sudden anger visible on his face in the taut lines around his eyes and the tight set of his mouth.
Everyone stops in their tracks, from foot soldiers to priests to servants, low murmuring indicating that they are just as confused as I am.
“My lord, how can I be of service?” Charles’s valet Nichols asks with a deep bow.
“Get my wife a blanket and something to eat. Take the reins of her horse, she will be traveling with me.”
I shake my head in confusion.
“I am not hungry, Charles. I am more than capable of finishing the ride to the palace on my own.”
He does not listen. He stalks around Hugo, his impressive white mount, and steps beside my own horse, Eva.
“Come down, Fastrada,” he orders a little too loudly.
He has never spoken to me like this, especially not in front of our servants.
A vein in his throat ticks, his hands are fisted at his sides, his posture radiates anger, but I cannot figure out why.
