“I Wish Someone Would Choose Me,” I Murmured – Not Knowing The Alpha King Heard Every Word

She was just a pawn, traded away to the most feared territory in the north. Standing alone in the freezing courtyard, she surrendered her most desperate secret to the moon. I wish someone would choose me, she thought. The winter wind was her only witness. She was completely wrong. Hidden in the deep shadows, the alpha king heard every single word.

And the ruthless man who bowed to no one was about to change her destiny forever. The cart lurched to a stop in the courtyard of Thornwood Keep just as the last light bled out of the autumn sky, and Alice understood with a quiet and terrible certainty that she had been handed over again. She had learned to read the shape of these moments years ago.

The way the driver climbed down without looking at her, the way the gate guards exchanged glances that said they had been told to expect her, though no one had told them why. the way her trunk, small and worn at the corners, was set down on the wet cobblestones as if it carried nothing of importance. She had been passed from household to household since her uncle had decided she was too much trouble to keep, and every time it happened, the world seemed to tilt just slightly, the way a boat tilts when a heavy thing is set down on one side and left there. She

stood in the cold wind holding the frayed hem of her shawl and waited for someone to tell her where to go. A woman with a broad weathered face and iron gray hair pulled back in a severe knot came striding across the courtyard. She wore a heavy woolen apron over a practical brown dress, and she carried a ring of keys at her belt that clinkedked with every step.

Alice had seen women like her before. They were the ones who ran the great houses, who knew where every spoon was kept, and every servant slept, who could smell a liar from across a hall. Alice had learned to be useful to such women, because such women decided whether you ate warm or cold. “You’re the girl from Aldrich’s Lands,” the woman said.

Her voice was brisk, but not unkind. I’m Marin. I run the household here. You’ll be helping in the kitchens and with the mending, and you’ll sleep in the small room off the scullery. Follow me. Alice followed. The keep was vast and dark. Its stone walls unum with tapestries that had faded to the colors of old leaves, torches guttered in iron sconces, casting long shadows that leaned and swayed like tired men.

Alice kept her eyes down as she walked, the way she had learned to keep them down, but she could not help glancing at the great hall as they passed through it. A long table of dark oak stood in the center, its surface scarred by generations of knives and cups. Above the hearth hung a banner bearing a black thorn tree on a field of silver, its branches twisted and bare.

The Thornwood Sigil. She had heard of this place, of course. Everyone had heard of the Thornwood territory and its king. A man spoken of in whispers and wardings. A man whose name was used by mothers to frighten children into obedience. William of House Thornwood, the Alpha King. The man who had taken her uncle’s lands under his protection, and in doing so had somehow inherited her. She did not know the whole story.

She never knew the whole story, only that her uncle had sent her north with a letter in a small purse of Corine, and that the letter had said she was to be useful and quiet and grateful. She had been useful and quiet and grateful before. She knew how to do it. She knew how to fold herself into the shape of a room until no one noticed she was there.

The small room off the scullery was exactly that, small. A narrow bed with a straw mattress, a wooden stool, a hook on the wall for her clothes, a single window, high and narrow, looked out onto the dark shapes of the pine trees that crowded against the keep’s outer wall. The wind pushed against the glass, and Alice could hear the forest breathing in the darkness.

A sound she did not yet know whether to fear. Marin left her with a candle stub, a thin wool blanket, and a curt instruction to be eyeing the kitchen before dawn. The door closed behind her and Alice was alone. She sat on the edge of the bed, her hands folded in her lap, and tried to remember how many times she had done this, how many strange rooms she had sat in, listening to the sounds of houses that were not hers, waiting for the morning that would tell her what she was supposed to do next.

She had stopped counting years ago. Counting made it worse. Counting made her think about all the doors that had closed behind her, all the rooms that had forgotten her the moment she left them. Her trunk held little. A spare dress, a second pair of shoes, a small wooden comb with three teeth missing, a bundle of letters tied with twine that she could not read because she had never been taught, and at the bottom, wrapped in a scrap of linen, her mother’s old shawl.

It was the only thing she had that had ever belonged to someone who had loved her, and she did not wear it anymore because it was too thin to keep out the cold, and because she was afraid of wearing it out entirely. She had left the shawl in the trunk when she unpacked. She had folded it carefully, the way you fold a thing you are afraid of losing, and she had placed it under the spare dress so that no one would see it, and asked questions she did not want to answer.

The wind rattled the window again. Alice stood, crossed to the narrow pane, and looked out at the pines. The moon had risen, silver and cold, and it threw the shadows of the trees across the courtyard in long reaching fingers. She could see the shape of the wall, the dark mass of the keep itself, and beyond it the distant gray line of the mountains.

She pressed her palm flat against the cold glass and let out a breath she had not realized she was holding. “I wish someone would choose me,” he murmured so low that the words were almost lost in the rattle of the wind. “Just once, I wish someone would look at me and decide I was worth keeping. Not because I’m useful, not because they had to, just because they wanted to.

She laughed at herself then, a small hollow sound. It was a foolish wish. The wish of a child who did not yet understand how the world worked. She knew better. She had always known better. People did not choose. People took what was given to them and set it aside when it became inconvenient. She had been set aside so many times that she had begun to wonder if she was the kind of thing that was meant to be set aside.

She turned from the window, blew out the candle, and lay down on the narrow bed in the dark. She did not sleep. She lay awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the keep settling around her, footsteps in distant corridors, the low murmur of voices, the creek of timber as the wind pressed against the old stones. She thought about her uncle, who had sent her away without a word of farewell.

She thought about the driver, who had not looked at her once during the long journey north. She thought about the letter she had carried sealed with the sigil of House Aldrich, and she wondered what it had said. She would never know. No one ever told her what the letter said. She had just begun to drift into the gray haze between waking and sleeping when she heard something outside her door.

Not footsteps, something softer, the faint scuff of a boot against stone, the brush of fabric. She went still, the way she had learned to go still in strange houses, and listened. Whoever was out there did not knock, did not speak. For a long moment there was only silence, and then the soft sound again, moving away.

Alice lay in the dark, her heart beating hard against her ribs, and waited for the sound to return. It did not. She did not know that the man outside her door was the Alpha King himself, that he had been walking the keep as he did most nights when sleep would not come, that he had heard her voice through the thin walls, and stopped in the corridor to listen.

She did not know that he had stood there very still, his hand resting on the pommel of his old sword, and heard every word she had said to the moon through the window. She did not know that he had heard her wish. William of House Thornwood stood in the dark corridor for a long time after the voice fell silent.

The candle in his hand had burned down to a stub, and the wax had pulled over his fingers, and he did not feel it. He was thinking about what he had heard. The words had been soft, almost inaudible, but they had reached him with the clarity of a bell in still air. I wish someone would choose me. He knew that wish. He had carried a version of it in his own chest for so many years that he had stopped noticing its weight.

He was the alpha king. He commanded armies. He held the loyalty of a thousand men. No one had ever chosen him either. They had chosen his title, his lands, his name. The man behind the crown had grown so accustomed to being invisible that he had begun to believe he did not exist at all. He had come to the corridor by chance, or so he had told himself.

He had been walking as he always walked when the weight of the crown pressed too heavily on his brow, and he had heard a voice he did not recognize, a woman’s voice, soft and tired, the way a voice sounds when it has given up expecting an answer. He should have walked on. He should have pretended he had heard nothing. That was what he always did.

That was what he had pl learned to do in the years since his mother had died and his father had followed her into the ground, leaving him alone with a crown he had never asked for. He had learned to walk past the things that hurt, to let them fade into the dark behind him. But he had not walked past this. He stood in the corridor, the wax cooling on his fingers, and he thought about the girl in the small room off the scullery.

The girl who had been sent to him like a parcel, wrapped in silence and duty. He had not asked for her. He had not wanted her. He had accepted her the way he accepted everything else that arrived at his gates, with a distant, weary courtesy. But she had wished in the dark for someone to choose her, and he had heard.

He turned and walked back toward his own chambers, his footsteps echoing in the empty corridor. The candle guttered and died, and he did not light another. He walked in the dark, the way he had walked for so many years, and he thought about the small, tired voice that had asked the moon for something he had never thought to give.

He reached his chambers and closed the door behind him. The fire had burned low in the hearth, and the room was full of shadows. He crossed to the mantle and picked up the small tarnished brooch that sat there, the one his mother had worn pinned to her collar, the one he had kept all these years without ever showing to anyone.

He held it in his palm, the cool metal pressing against his skin, and he thought about his mother. She had chosen his father. She had chosen, against the advice of her own family, to marry a man of no title and little fortune, and she had never once regretted it. She had told him once when he was small that the most important thing in the world was not to be chosen but to choose, to open your hand and offer yourself to someone, knowing they might not take it.

He had never understood that until now. He set the brooch back on the mantle and stood in the dark, listening to the wind push against the old stones of the keep. Somewhere below, in a small room off the scullery, a girl lay awake in a strange bed, wishing for something he had never given anyone.

He did not know yet what he would do about it. He only knew that he could not forget the sound of her voice. The morning came to Thornwood Keep the way it always did, gray and damp, with the smell of wood smoke curling up from the kitchen chimneys before the sun had fully cleared the hills. Alice woke to the sound of bells. Not the soft bells of a chapel, but the sharp, insistent ringing of the kitchen bell that called the castle staff to their duties.

She dressed quickly, pulling the gray wool dress over her shift and tying the deep blue apron around her waist. Her fingers, still clumsy with sleep, fumbled with the laces, and she paused for a moment to press her palm against her chest, where the fear lived. It was always worse in the mornings. Mornings meant new places, new rules, new people who would look at her and wonder what she was doing there.

She had learned long ago that the best way to survive a new place was to be useful before anyone had to ask. The kitchen was already alive when she reached it. A great fire roared in the hearth, and a cluster of servants moved between the long wooden tables with the practiced efficiency of people who had done the same work for years.

At the center of all stood Marin, the housekeeper, her gray hair pinned tight beneath a white cap, her hands flower dusted up to the wrists. “There she is,” Marin said, not unkindly as Alice hesitated in the doorway. “Come in, child. Don’t hile.” “Over like a lost hen. There’s porridge to stir and bread to set.

” Alice stepped forward, grateful for the instruction. She found an apron hook near the door and hung her shawl beside it, then moved to the great cauldron, where oats bubbled inside. A wooden spoon the size of a small ore rested against the rim, and she took it up, stirring slowly, the familiar rhythm settling something in her chest.

“You’ll find the rhythm soon enough,” Marin said, appearing at Aba with a tray of herbs. The lord of the keep takes his breakfast alone. “No servants in the hall while he eats. He’s always been that way. Set his tray at the door and one of the lads will carry it in. Alice nodded, though something in her chest tightened at the words.

The Lord of the keep. She had not seen him since her arrival the night before when a steward had met her at the gates and led her through the dark corridors to this small room. She had heard his name spoken in whispers, William of House Thornwood, the Alpha King who ruled these lands with a quiet iron hand.

but she had not seen his face. She wondered briefly what kind of man ate his meals alone. The porridge was ready just as the bell rang again, and Alice helped carry the trays to the great hall. She caught only a glimpse of the long, cold table before a servant took the tray from her hands and gestured for her to leave.

The hall was vast and shadowed, the morning light falling in pale strips through the high windows. At the far end she saw a figure seated in a tall chair, head bent over a parchment, one hand resting on the arm of the chair with an ease that spoke of long habit. She did not linger. She had learned not to linger where she was not wanted.

The morning passed in the rhythm of the kitchen, washing, chopping, stirring, scrum, think, think. Now Alice fell into it gratefully, letting the work fill the spaces where worry liked to creep. She learned the names of the other servants, though she did not expect them to remember hers. There was a young man named Bram, a guardsman, who kept finding excuses to wander into the kitchen, his eyes always drifting toward a dark-haired girl named Polly, who needed bread with fierce concentration.

“By the old stones,” Bram said for perhaps the fifth time that morning, as he knocked a jar of honey off the counter with his elbow. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Let me Paulie sighed and handed him a cloth. It’s the third jar this week, Bram. It’s the light in here, he said earnestly. It’s very dim. A man can’t see what he’s doing.

Polly said nothing, but Alice saw the corner of her mouth twitch, and she thought, not for the first time, that there were many ways of being chosen. It was late in the morning when Marin sent her to the pantry to fetch a sack of dried beans. The pantry was a small, cool room off the back of the kitchen, lined with shelves that groaned under the weight of jars and sacks and smoked meats.

Alice was reaching for the beans on the top shelf, stretching, her toes barely brushing the floor, when a shadow fell across the doorway. She turned, heart leaping, and found herself looking at a man she had never seen before. He was tall, taller than she had expected, with dark hair pulled back from a face that was all sharp angles and quiet authority.

His eyes were gray, the color of the winter sky, and they rested on her with a stillness that made her breath catch. There was a scar through his left eyebrow, faint but visible, and he wore a dark wool tunic with no ornament save the old sword at his hip. She knew without being told that this was the alpha king. Hands flew to her apron, smoothing it, and she dipped into a clumsy curtsy. My lord, I’m sorry.

I was just fetching the beans. I didn’t mean to. Alice. Her name in his mouth stopped her cold. She looked up startled and found him watching her with that same unreadable stillness. You are Alice, he said, not a question. Yes, my lord. She heard her own voice, small and careful. Alice, I was sent from.

I know where you were sent from. The words were not unkind, but they were flat, and Alice felt the familiar sting of being a parcel whose origins were noted and filed away. She dropped her gaze to the floor. I’ll be out of your way quickly, my lord. The beans, I’ll take them to the kitchen. You are not in my way.

She stopped. The words hung in the air between them, unexpected. She did not know what to do with them, so she did what she always did when she did not know what to do. She waited, still and small for the next instruction. William did not give one. He stood in the doorway for a long moment, and Alice had the strange sense that he was looking at her the way a man looks at a map of a country he has never visited.

curious, cautious, unsure of the terrain. Then he said, “The beans are on the top shelf.” “Yes, my lord, I was just” He crossed the room in three strides and reached up, pulling the sack of beans down with an ease that made Alice feel suddenly acutely aware of her own smallness. He set the sack on the counter beside her.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. He nodded once and turned to go. At the door, he paused, his hand resting on the frame. “If you need anything,” he said, not turning around, “you may asked Marin. She will see to it.” Then he was gone, and Alice stood alone in the pantry with the sack of beans and the echo.

Think, his voice in her ears. She pressed her hand to her chest where her heart was beating faster than it should have been. It was not fear exactly. It was something else, something she did not have a name for, the strange, unsettling feeling of being seen by someone who had no reason to look.

The afternoon passed in a blur of small tasks. Alice carried water to the scullery, scrubbed pots until her hands were raw, and helped Polly roll out dough for the evening bread. She did not see William again, though she found herself glancing toward the door of the great hall more often than she meant to. It was not until the light began to fade and the kitchen grew quiet with the lull before supper that Bram found her in the courtyard where she had been sent to gather kindling for the ovens.

“You’re the new one,” he said, falling into step beside her. She nodded. “Alice, right? Marin said you came from Aldrich’s lands.” “I did,” she said carefully. Bram grunted. “Well, you’ll find it different here. The king keeps to himself, but he’s fair, fair than most.” He bent to pick up a fallen branch, snapping it over his knee.

Though I’ll warn you, he doesn’t warm up to people. Some say he hasn’t spoken more than 10 words at a stretch since his parents died. Alice paused, the kindling in her arms. His parents? I, the old king and queen. They died when he was young. Plague, they say, though some whisper other things. Bram shrugged. He’s been alone ever since.

Eats alone, rides alone, walks the walls alone. The only creature he keeps company with is that old deer in the pines, and that’s only because it can’t talk back. Alice did not know what to say to that, so she said nothing. But something in her chest achd, a small, quiet ache that she recognized, the ache of knowing what I thing was like to be alone, by circumstance rather than by choice.

She carried the kindling back to the kitchen, and the evening meal came and went, and the castle settled into the quiet of night. Alice sat on the edge of her narrow bed, too tired to sleep, her hands folded in her lap. She thought about the man in the pantry, the way he had reached for the beans without being asked.

She thought about what Brahm had said, “Eats alone, rides alone, walks the walls alone. She thought about her own words, spoken into the darkness of an unfamiliar room. I wish someone would choose me. She had not meant for anyone to hear. She had not meant for anyone to know.” And yet, as she sat in the quiet of her small room, she could not shake the feeling that something had shifted, that the world, which had always moved around her without noticing her, had suddenly turned its eyes in her direction.

She rose and crossed to the window, pushing the shutter open a crack. The night air was cold and clean, and the moon hung low over the hills, silvering the black pines that crowded the valley. And there on the windowsill she saw it. A small bundle of pine branches freshly cut, the needles still soft and green. They were tied with a length of rough twine, and they lay on the stone sill as if placed there with care.

Alice reached out and touched them, her fingers brushing the cool needles. She looked around the courtyard below, but there was no one there, only the shadows and the wind and the distant sound of a door closing somewhere in the keep. She did not know who had left them. She did not know why, but she lifted the bundle from the windowsill and held it to her chest.

And for the first time since she had arrived at Thornwood Keep, she felt something other than the familiar weight of being unwanted. Silk. She felt just for a moment as if someone had seen her, and she did not know what to make of that at all. The pine branches stayed on Alice’s windowill for 2 days. She had found a chipped clay pot in the scullery and put them in it with a little water, though she knew cut branches would not root.

Still she liked the green of them against the gray stone wall, and she liked the clean, sharp smell that drifted into the room when the wind blew from the east. On the third evening she was in the great hall, sweeping the rushes by the hearth when she noticed the cloak. It hung on a hook near the door that led to the east tower.

A heavy thing of dark gray wool lined with faded black fur at the collar. The fire light caught the worn places. The hem was frayed. The left sleeve was patched twice already with leather that did not quite match. And at the right shoulder, where the wool met the seam, there was a long tear.

It gaped open like a small dark mouth, the threat loose and hanging. Alice stopped sweeping. She glanced around the hall. It was late. The servants had gone to their beds, and the fire had burned down to low orange coals. The cloak hung there as if its owner had shrugged it off and forgotten it, or left it deliberately. She knew whose it was.

She had seen him wear it on the evening he had come to the courtyard to ask if she was settling in. It had brushed the stone flags as he walked, and she had noticed then how the hem was frayed. Alice set the broom against the wall. She stood very still for a moment, telling herself it was none of her business. She was only the kitchen girl, the one who had been sent here like a sack of grain.

It was not her place to mend the alpha king’s cloak. But the tear was so plain, and the threads hung so helplessly. She could hut of her father. No, not her father. She had no father. She thought of the old smith in Lord Aldrich<unk>’s village who had let her sit by his forge when she was small and had taught her to sew leather with a curved needle because her fingers were quick and her eyes were sharp.

“You have a gift for making things whole,” he had said. “Do not waste it.” Alice took a breath. Then she lifted the cloak from the hook. It was heavier than she expected, the wool dense and warm. It smelled of woodsm smoke and pine and something else, a clean, sharp scent that she could not name. She folded it over her arm and carried it quickly to her room, her heart beating faster than it should.

She did not have a proper needle for wool, but she had her sewing kit, a small roll of linen that held three needles, a spool of gray thread, and a pair of scissors that had belonged to her mother. The thread was not a perfect match for the dark gray wool, but it was close enough, and in the fire light, no one would notice.

She sat on the edge of her narrow bed and spread the cloak across her lap. The tear ran nearly 6 in along the shoulder seam, and the wool was thick, so she had to push the needle through carefully, using the thimble her mother had left her. She worked slowly, drawing the edges together with small, even stitches, the way the old smith had taught her.

Outside her window, the wind had picked up. She could hear it moving through the pines on the hillside, a sound like the sea she had never seen. The candle on her windowsill guttered, and she paused to shield it with her hand. She thought about the man who wore this cloak, the alpha king who ate alone, who had no one to mend his clothes because he would not let anyone close enough to notice they were torn.

She thought about the way he hecked her think at her in the pantry, not with suspicion or disdain, but with something almost like curiosity, and the way he had asked in the courtyard whether she was settling in, as if it mattered to him. No one had ever asked her that before.

The stitches were small and even when she finished. She tied off the thread and bit it clean with her teeth, then ran her fingers over the seam. It was not perfect. The gray of the thread was a shade lighter than the wool, but it was strong. It would hold. She folded the cloak carefully and carried it back to the great hall.

The fire had burned lower, and the shadows were longer. She hung the cloak back on the hook, smoothing the shoulder with her palm. She did not leave a note. She did not tell anyone. She simply turned and walked back to her room, blew out the candle, and lay down in the dark with her heart still beating too fast. She had done something for him, something he had not asked for and might never notice, and that was all right.

It was enough to have done it. The next morning, William came down to the great hall before the servants had finished laying the tables for the midday meal. He had slept poorly, as he often did, and he had risen before dawn to walk the eastern wall and watched the mist gather in the valley.

He stopped in the doorway of the hall, his hand on the frame. The morning light was gray and thin, slanting through the high windows. A young servant Grail was sweeping the far corner, her back to him. His cloak hung where he had left it. But something was different. He crossed the hall and lifted the cloak from the hook. The weight of it settled into his hands, familiar and worn, and then he saw the shoulder. The tear was gone.

In its place was a line of small, even stitches, neat as a row of seeds in a furrow. Thread was a shade lighter than the wool, but the work was careful and steady. Someone had sat close to a candle and taken their time. Someone had pushed a needle through thick wool again and again, drawing the edges together until the garment was whole again.

William stood very still. He ran his thumb over the stitches. They were not the work of a seamstress who had been paid for her labor. They were the work of someone who had noticed a thing that was broken and had decided quietly to make it whole. He looked up. The servant girl was still sweeping her back to him, her hair in a loose brown braid.

He did not say anything. He hung the cloak back on the hook and walked out of the hall, but his hands stayed closed around the memory of those stitches for the rest of the morning. Later that day, Alice was in the scullery scrubbing pots with Polly when the door opened and a draft of cold air swept in.

His majesty wants his cloak brought to his chambers, said a page, a boy of 12 with a runny nose. He says it is cold in the tower. Polly wiped her hands on her apron. I’ll take it. Which cloak? The gray one. The one from the hall. Alice did not look up from the pot she was scrubbing, but her hands had stopped moving.

Polly left and returned a few minutes later with a puzzled look on her face. “He was in the window looking at the cloak,” she said, just looking at it. He didn’t say anything when I handed it to him. Just stood there with his thumb on the shoulder. Alice scrubbed the pot harder. Perhaps he was checking for moths, she said. Moths? Polly repeated and laughed.

In autumn, Alice, that man could have a hole in his head and no one would notice. But he noticed the cloak. Alice said nothing. But she felt a warmth spread through her chest, small at the and an unexpected, like a coal that had been banked and had caught a breath of air. That evening, Alice stood at her window, looking out at the dark hills.

The pine branches in the clay pot had begun to droop, their needles losing their bright green. She would have to throw them out soon. She reached to touch them, and her hand brushed the windowsill. There, caught on the rough stone, was something she had not noticed before. A single pine needle. It must have fallen from the branches when she first brought them in, and clinging to it faint but unmistakable, was a thin strand of dark wool.

Alice picked up the needle and held it close to the candle light. The wool was dark gray, the color of a heavy cloak. The color of the cloak she had mended the night before. She stood very still, the pine needle in her hand. The branches had been cut fresh. They had been placed on her window sill with care. And now she knew.

She knew who had left them. The man who wore the gray cloak. The man who ate alone and walked the walls before dawn. The alpha king who had no one to mend his clothes because he would not let anyone close enough to notice. But he had noticed her. He had cut branches from the pines and tied them with twine and left them on her windowsill where she would find them when she came in from the cold.

Alice sat down on the edge of her bed, still holding the pine needle. She did not know what it meant. She did not know why he’d done it. But she knew that she was no longer invisible, and that was a feeling she had never learned how to hold. The autumn festival came to Thornwood on the eighth day after Alice’s arrival.

The whole valley smelled of wood smoke and baked apples, and the cold wind that had been gnawing at the keep all week softened into something almost gentle. Alice thing had never seen anything like it. The village square, which on ordinary days was a muddy stretch of ground between the mill and the ale house, had been transformed overnight.

Garlands of dried corn hung from every eve. Long trestle tables groaned under wheels of cheese, dark loaves, and crocs of honey. Children chased each other between the legs of adults, shrieking with a joy so pure that it made Alice’s chest ache in a way she could not name. She had been given the morning off by Marin, who had shued her out of the kitchen with a wooden spoon and the command to go and see something that is not a pot for once.

So Alice went. She wandered the square slowly, taking it all in, her hands clasped behind her back so she would not be tempted to touch anything. She had learned long ago that it was safer to look than to handle. The sun was high by the time she reached the far end of the square, where a cluster of villagers had gathered around a small cart.

A woman was selling honey in clay pots, each one sealed with a square of beeswax and tied with a length of twine. Alice stopped. The honey was the color of amber in the autumn light, thick and clear. She remembered suddenly her mother’s kitchen, the small clay pot on the shelf above the hearth, the way her mother would drizzle honey into tea on cold nights and tell her that sweetness was a kind of courage.

Would you like to taste it, dear? The woman asked, noticing her. Alice hesitated. I I do not have any corn with me. The woman laughed, warm and easy. It is the festival. Tasting is free. Buying is what costs coin. She held out a small wooden spoon, dropping with honey. Alice took it carefully and brought it to her lips.

It was good honey, deep and floral with a hint of something like heather. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, she was smiling without meaning to. “I will take one pot,” she said. The woman wrapped the pot in a scrap of linen and handed it over. Alice tucked it into the pocket of her apron where it made a warm solid weight against her hip.

She was still smiling when she turned around and walked directly into a wall of dark wool. She stumbled back, the apology already forming on her lips. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.” Then she looked up. William of House Loenwood stood before her, his gray eyes catching the afternoon light. He was not wearing his usual heavy cloak or his sword belt.

Instead, he wore a simple dark tunic and a linen shirt open at the collar, and without the trappings of his office, he looked almost ordinary. Almost. He was still the tallest man in the square by a head, and there was a stillness about him that had nothing to do with his clothes. “Forgive me,” Alice said quickly, stepping back.

“I was not watching where I was going. I did not see you, my lord. You were smiling,” he said. Alice froze. It was not a question. It was an observation offered without judgment as if he were noting the color of the sky or the direction of the wind. I She did not know what to say. She had been smiling, yes, but she had not expected anyone to notice.

She had not expected him to notice. The honey, she managed finally. It is very good honey. William looked down at the small clay part peeking out of her apron pocket. Something moved in his expression. Not quite a smile, but close to it, a softening around the eyes. Honey from the heatherfields, he said. The bees do well there in the autumn.

Alice nodded, not trusting her voice. She was acutely aware of how close they were standing. The festival goers flowed around them like water around stones, but no one seemed to find it strange that the Alpha King was standing in the middle of the square talking to a kitchen maid about honey.

You should try it, she heard herself say. Then she felt her cheeks go hot. I mean, if it pleases you, my lord. It is. It is very good. She had just offered the alpha king of Thornwood a taste of her honey. She wanted to sink into the ground, but William did not look offended. He looked, if anything, slighty amused. He held out his hand, palm up, and Alice found herself fumbling with the linen wrapping, untying the twine with trembling fingers.

She uncapped the pot and held it out. William dipped two fingers in, quite without ceremony, and tasted the honey. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he looked at her, and there was something in his gray eyes that she could not read. “My mother used to put honey in her tea,” he said quietly. Every night before bed, she said it helped her to sleep.

Alice did not know what to say to that. She did not know he had a mother once. She did not know anything about him at all, really, except that he ate alone and walked to the walls before dawn and left pine branches on window sills. She said the only thing she could think of. She had good taste, my lord.

William’s mouth twitched. It was not quite a smile, but it was close. Closer than anything she had seen from him before. She did, he agreed. They stood there for a moment. Two people in the middle of a festival, surrounded by noise and laughter and the smell of baking bread. And then the crowd shifted, and a group of children ran between them, shrieking with laughter, and the moment broke.

Alice capped the honeypot and tucked it back into her apron. William straightened and for a moment he looked like the Alpha King again, tall and distant and carved from stone. I should Alice gestured vaguely toward the keep. William nodded. Enjoy the festival, Alice? He turned and walked away, disappearing into the crowd.

Alice stood there for a long moment, her heart beating too fast, the clay pot warm against her hip. He had said her name, not the girl from the kitchen, not the new servant. He had said her name as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She was still standing there rooted to the spot when Bram appeared at her elbow, slightly out of breath and looking more than a little harried.

“Have you seen Polly?” he asked. “I was supposed to meet her by the ale tent, but I got held up.” “And now I cannot find her anywhere, and I,” he stopped. He was holding a small clay pot of honey, the same kind Alice had just bought. “Bram,” Alice said slowly. Is that honey for Polly? Bram’s face went red. It is a gift, he said defensively.

A token of of my regard. The honey seller said it was the best in the valley, and I thought, “You thought you would give her a pot of honey?” “Yes, Bram.” “Does Polly even like honey?” Bram stared at her. “I do not know.” Alice sighed. She reached out and took the pot from his hands, uncapped it, and held it out. “Taste it,” she said.

Bram looked at her as if she had asked him to taste poison. What? Taste it. If you are going to give her a gift, at least know what it tastes like so you can tell her about it. Bram hesitated, then dipped a finger in and tasted the honey. His eyes widened. That is that is very good honey. Now you know what you are giving her, Alice said.

She capped the pot and handed it back. When you give it to her, tell her it is from the Heatherfields and that it reminded you of her, even if it’s did not. She will like that better than a silent pot of honey. Bram looked at her with something like awe. You are a genius, he said.

I am a kitchen maid who has seen too many men give bad gifts, Alice said dryly. Go find her. She was heading toward the maple when I last saw her. Bram grinned and took off at a run, clutching the honeypot like a precious relic. Alice watched him go, shaking her head. She spent the rest of the afternoon drifting through the festival. She watched the maple dancing where a circle of young women in bright dresses weaved ribbons around the central pole.

She watched a man juggle flaming torches near the ale tent until a gust of wind nearly set his beard on fire and the crowd roared with laughter. She bought a small meat pie from a vendor and ate it standing up, the grease warm on her fingers. It was the most peaceful day she had spent in a very long time. As the sun began to sink toward the hills, the festival gathered for the evening feast.

Long tables were laid out in the square, and the whole village sat down together. Farmers and shepherds, the miller and the blacksmith, the household servants from the keep, and the laborers from the outer fields. Alice found herself seated near the end of one table between an elderly woman who kept patting her hand and a young man who was too busy eating to pay her any mind. She did not mind.

It was nice to be surrounded by noise and warmth, to feel like she was part of something, even if only for an evening. She was halfway through her plate of roast venison when she heard the commotion. A group of young men had gathered near the ale tent, their voices raised in laughter. One of them, a big man with a red face and a tankered in his hand, was swaying on his feet, gesturing broadly.

“And I he then being think like I she was a gift,” he was saying, his voice carrying across the square. A gift sent to the keep like a bolt of cloth or a a hunting dog. They say she does not even know why she was sent. just packed up and shipped off like the laughter around him died. Alice felt the blood drain from her face.

She knew who he was talking about. She knew with a sick certainty that settled in her stomach like a stone. The old woman beside her stopped patting her hand. The young man on her other side set down his fork. And then, before anyone could say anything, a shadow fell over the table. Alice looked up. William stood behind the drunk man, his face unreadable.

He was not wearing his sword, but he did not need one. The sheer weight of his presence seemed to still the air around him. “You have been drinking,” William said. His voice was quiet, but it carried. The drunk man turned, blinking. “My lord, I was only.” “You were speaking of a guest of this keep,” William said.

She is a guest of this keep, and guests of this keep are not to be spoken of in such a manner. Am I understood?” The man’s face went pale. He swallowed hard and nodded. “Good,” William said. Then he turned and walked away, his strides long and unhurried, as if he had done nothing more than comment on the wither.

The square was silent for a long moment. Then the chatter resumed, but it was quieter now, more subdued. Alice sat very still, her hands in her lap, her heart pounding. She is a guest of this keep. He had called her a guest, not a servant, not a gift, not a burden, a guest. She did not know why it made her eyes sting.

She blinked rapidly, staring down at her plate, willing herself not to cry in the middle of the festival feast. A hand touched her shoulder. She looked up to find Marin standing beside her, a steaming cup in her hand. “Drink it,” Marin said, pressing the cup into her hands. “It will put hair on your chest.” Alice let out a watery laugh.

The cup was full of Marin’s infamous herbal tea, dark and bitter smelling. She took a sip anyway, and the warmth spread through her chest. “He did not have to do that,” Alice said quietly. Marin sat down in the seat beside her, the one vacated by the young man who had shuffled away. She looked Alice with sharp knowing eyes.

“He did not have to,” Marin agreed. “But he did.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was softer. “I have known that boy since he was small enough to fit in the crook of my arm. I fed him from my own breast when his mother was too ill to do it. I watched him learn to walk, to ride, to hold a sword.

And in all those years, I have never once seen him step between a drunk and a stranger the way he did just now. Alice did not know what to say. The tea was warm in her hands, and Marin’s words were settling into her chest like stones into a riverbed. “He is not good with words,” Marin said. “Never has been.

” His father was the same. could not tell his own wife he loved her until the day she died. And then it was too late. She shook her head. But he shows it in his own way. He shows it. Alice thought of the pine branches on her windowsill, the mended cloak, the way he had said her name in the middle of the festival square as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“He does,” Alice said softly. Marin patted her hand, the same gesture the old woman had used, but somehow warmer. “You are good for him,” she said. “I do not know how I know it, but I know it. You are good for him.” Alice opened her mouth to protest, but Marin was already standing, brushing crumbs from her apron. “Eat your dinner,” she said firmly.

“It is getting cold, and do not let a foolish drunk spoil your evening. The festival only comes once a year.” She walked away and Alice was left alone at the table. The tea warming her hands, the words settling into her chest. The feast wound down as the stars came out, lanterns were lit along the square, and the music started up again, a fiddle and a pipe and a drum, their melodies weaving together in the cold night air.

Some of the younger villagers began to dance, their shadows leaping against the walls of the ale house. Alice watched from the edge of the square, her honeypot tucked safely in her apron. She had stayed later than she meant to. The keep would be quiet now, the servants already in their beds.

She turned to go and found William standing a few paces away, watching the dancers. He had changed back into his heavy cloak, and the night made him look taller, more shadowed. He did not seem to have noticed her at first. Then his head turned, and his gray eyes found her in the darkness. You are still awake, he said. I was just leaving, Alice said.

I did not mean to stay so late. I should. I will walk you back to the keep. It was not a question. But it was not a command either. It was an offer, stated plainly, as if he had simply assumed she would accept. Alice hesitated, then she nodded. They walked in silence through the village square, past the last of the lanterns and the dying embers of the bonfire.

The night air was cold and clean, smelling of wood smoke and fallen leaves. Alice kept her eyes on the ground, watching the shadows of their feet in the moonlight. They reached the keep’s gate, and the guard opened it without a word, his eyes carefully averted. They crossed the courtyard, their footsteps echoing on the stones.

Hey climbed the steps to the great hall and then to the narrow stair that led to the servants’s quarters. Alice stopped at the bottom of the stair. Thank you, she said, for walking me back and for for what you said tonight at the festival. You did not have to do that. William was quiet for a moment when he spoke. His voice was low. You are a guest of this keep, he said.

I do not say things I do not mean. Alice felt her throat tighten. She nodded, not trusting her voice. Good night, my lord, she managed. Good night, Alice. She turned and climbed the stairs. At the top, she paused and looked back. William was still standing at the bottom of the stair, his face half in shadow, his gray eyes lifted toward her. He did not move.

He did not speak. He simply stood there watching her as if he were waiting for something. Alice did not know what to do with the feeling that rose in her chest. It was warm and strange and frightening, like a bird beating against the bars of a cage. She turned and walked quickly down the corridor to her room.

She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, her heart pounding. She pressed her hand to her chest, feeling the rapid beat beneath her palm. “He is not good with words,” Marin had said. “But he shows it in his own way. He shows it.” Alice crossed to the window and looked out at the moonlit courtyard below.

And there, still standing in the shadows of the great hall door, she saw him. William of House Thornwood had not moved. He was still standing there looking up at the window where she stood. She did not know how long they stood like that. Two figures in the darkness, separated by stone and distance and the weight of all the words they had not said.

And then he turned and walked away, and Alice was left alone in the car. Think thinking Sloan and lost $1, and I have just wasted your greening on the lees. Thinking begins to ever won today, meaning because of the prayer gain begins a piece, the leader’s Dylan, for a mean we have included and vast factual read.

You find to protect and little clip of a contrast or underdale from learn moon with be in the rain that slown the free day. and whether or not they stilled, I didn’t know why. The rain began sometime after midnight, a soft, persistent drizzle that beated on the window glass and blurred the world beyond into gray shapes. Alice woke to the sound of it and lay still for a long moment, listening to the rhythm of the drops against the stone.

It was a peaceful sound, but it carried with it a restlessness she could not name. She had not slept well since the festival. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him standing in the shadows of the great hall door, looking up at her window. She saw the way the moonlight had caught the edge of his face, the way he had said her name, like it mattered, like it meant something more than just a name.

She had told herself it meant nothing. He was the alpha king. She was a kitchen helper who had been sent here like a parcel, a thing to be handed over and received. And yet, and yet he had called her a guest. He had walked her home. He had stood in the rain shadow and looked up at her window until she had finally turned away.

Alice pushed back the blanket and sat up. The room was cold, the fire in the hearth having burned down to embers. She wrapped her shawl around her shoulders and crossed to the window, pressing her palm against the cold glass. The courtyard below was empty. The rain had driven even the night watch into the shelter of the gate house.

Only the wet cobblestones gleamed in the gray light, and beyond them the dark mass of the thornweed pines. She was about to turn away when she saw it. A light, a single warm glow from a window on the far side of the courtyard in the wing of the castle where the king kept his private chambers. Was a still early, barely past dawn, and yet the light was burning.

Alice stood at the window for a long moment, watching that small square of gold against the gray morning. She thought of Marin’s words. He is not good with words, but he shows it in his own way. She did not know what made her do it. Perhaps it was the rain and the cold and the loneliness that seemed to seep up from the very stones.

Perhaps it was the question she had been carrying since the festival, the one she was afraid to ask. She dressed quickly, pulled her hair back into its usual loose plat, and made her way down the narrow stairs toward the kitchens. The kitchen was already warm and busy. Marin was at the great table, kneading dough with practiced hands, and the smell of fresh bread and wood smoke filled the air.

“You’re up early,” Marin said, glancing at her. Couldn’t sleep. Alice hesitated. “I saw a light in the king’s chambers. Is he Is he unwell? Marin’s hands stilled for a moment. Then she resumed kneading, her face unreadable. “He doesn’t sleep much,” she said quietly. “Never has since,” she stopped, shook her head. “He works late, rises early.

The keep could burn down around him, and he’d still be at his desk by dawn.” “Alice absorbed this in silence. She thought of the light burning in that window and the man who sat behind it alone in the gray hours of the morning. “There’s a pot of tea cooling on the hearth,” Marin said, nodding toward the back of the kitchen. “Take it to him.

He’ll be in the library by now, going over the harvest accounts.” Alice blinked. “Me? You’re the one who’s awake,” Marin said, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. Unless you’d rather I send Bram. He’ll trip over his own feet and spill it all over the king’s ledgers. Alice felt her cheek. Think think one.

I I don’t want to intrude. Intrude. Marin’s eyebrows rose. Girl, you’ve been here a week and a day. You’re not a guest in the inn. You’re part of this household. The king doesn’t stand on ceremony with the people who keep his home running. She picked up the tray and held it out to Alice, her gaze steady. Go on, he won’t bite.

I’ve known him since he was a boy, and I can tell you he’s more likely to offer you a seat than he is to send you away. Alice took the tray, her hands trembling slightly. The teapot was warm against her palms, and the steam carried the sharp herbal scent of Marin’s famous brew. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “Drink it yourself if he doesn’t want it,” Marin said, already turning back to her dough. It’ll put hair on your chest.

The library was at the end of a long stone corridor, its heavy oak door slightly a jar. Alice paused outside, her heart hammering against her ribs. She could hear the scratch of a quill on parchment from within and the solid crackle of a fire. She raised her hand to knock, then hesitated. What was she doing? He was the alpha king.

She was a kitchen helper with a tray of tea. It was absurd to think. The door swung open before she could decide, and she found herself face tof face with William of House Thornwood. He looked different in the morning light. The formal edge of his festival attire was gone. He wore a simple dark tunic, sleeves rolled to his elbows, and his hair was loose around his shoulders, still damp from what must have been a hasty wash.

There was a smudge of ink on his forefinger, and his gray eyes looked tired. He blinked at her, clearly surprised. Alice? She felt her throat tighten at the sound of her name in his voice. I Marin said there was tea. She lifted the tray, feeling foolish. I’m sorry. I I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’ll just You’re not disturbing me.

The words came out quickly, almost before he seemed to think about them. He paused as if surprised at himself, then stepped back and held the door wider. Come in, please. Alice hesitated, but his expression was open, almost uncertain, as if he were the one who should be nervous, not her. She stepped past him into the library, and the warmth of the fire wrapped around her like a blanket.

The room was lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, their spines worn and dusty. A great oak desk dominated the center of the room, covered in ledgers and maps and letters. And in the corner by the fire there were two armchairs, old comfortable looking things with worn velvet cushions. William gestured to them. Sit, please.

She set the tray down on the small table between the chairs and perched on the edge of the nearest one, not quite daring to relax. He took the other chair, leaning back with a weariness that seemed to settle into his bones. I don’t usually have visitors this early. He said, a hint of dry humor in his voice, especially not bearing tea.

Marin said, “You don’t sleep much.” He glanced at her, a flicker of something unreadable passing through his eyes. Marin talks too much. She also said, “You won’t bite.” A ghost of a smile touched his mouth. She’s wrong about that. I’ve bitten plenty of men who deserved it. Alice felt herself relax just a little.

She poured the tea into two cups, the steam rising in fragrant curls, and handed him one. He took it, his fingers brushing hers briefly, a touch so light she might have imagined it. They sat in silence for a moment, drinking the tea. It was strong and bitter, with an undertone of honey that Marin must have added at the last moment.

You’ve been here over a week now,” William said finally, his eyes fixed on the fire. “Are you settling in?” Alice considered the question. It was the kind of thing one asked a guest, polite and impersonal, but something in his voice suggested he actually wanted to know. “Yes,” she said. “Everyone has been very kind, Marin especially.” “Good.

” He was quiet for a moment, then his voice lower. I’m glad I was. He stopped and something flickered across his face. I was worried you might find it difficult being sent here without warning. Without He set his cup down, his jaw tightening without being asked. Alice felt her chest ache at his words. He was trying to say something.

She realized something he didn’t have words for. She understood that struggle better than most. It was strange at first, she admitted, being moved from one place to another, not knowing anyone, not knowing if I was meant to stay, or if I’d be sent on again. Sent on again? She looked down at her hands, twisting the fabric of her skirt between her fingers.

Lord Aldrich, he took me in when my father died. My mother had passed some years before, and there was no one else. He was my father’s brother, so he was obliged to take me in. But I was always, she searched for the word, a burden, a thing to be managed. When he decided to send me here to show good faith with your territory, he told me it was an honor, a chance to serve a great house.

And you didn’t believe him?” She looked up, surprised by the sharpness in his voice. But his expression wasn’t angry. It was something else. something almost like pain. He’d said similar things before, she said quietly. Each time I was sent somewhere, he said it was an honor, a privilege.

And each time when I arrived, I learned the truth that I was there to work, to be useful, to justify the space I took up. And when I stopped being useful, I was sent somewhere else. The words hung in the air between them, heavy and raw. She hadn’t meant to say so much. She had never said this much to anyone. William was very still. His hands were wrapped around his cup, but he wasn’t drinking.

His gray eyes were fixed on her, and there was something in them she couldn’t quite name. “Alice,” he said slowly. “Why did you come here this morning? She blinked at the sudden shift. “I I saw your light from my window. I thought you might be unwell. And Marin said you don’t sleep. And I thought, she stopped, her cheeks burning. I don’t know what I thought.

I just I wanted to make sure you were all right. Something shifted in his face. The guarded distance she had grown accustomed to seemed to crack just a little, and she caught a glimpse of the man beneath the crown. “No one has asked me that in a long time,” he said quietly. “Whether I was all right.” “Then they should have,” Alice said before she could stop herself.

He stared at her, a long searching look that made her feel as though he could see straight through to the deepest part of her. And then slowly he smiled. It was a small smile, barely a curve of his lips, but it transformed his face, softened the hard lines, warmed the gray of his eyes. “Thank you,” he said, “for the tea and for asking.

” Alice felt her heart flutter. “You’re welcome.” They sat in silence again, but it was a different kind of silence now, comfortable, shared. The fire crackled in the hearth, and the rain continued to fall against the windows. And for the first time in as long as she could remember, Alice felt like she was exactly where she was meant to be.

There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell. IQ, William said suddenly. Alice looked up, her breath catching. From the first night you arrived, he said, his voice careful measured. I’ve wanted you to know that you’re not a burden here. You’re not a thing to be managed or a tool to be used. You’re he paused as if searching for the right words.

You’re a person, a guest, and I want you to stay. Alice felt tears prick her eyes. You You want me to stay? Yes. His voice was firm now, certain. Not because you’re useful. Not because you’ve earned it. Because I want you to, that’s all. She opened her mouth, but no words came. The tears spilled over, sliding silently down her cheeks. William leaned forward, his expression urgent. Please don’t cry.

I didn’t mean to upset you. You didn’t, she managed, her voice thick. It’s just no one has ever said that to me before, that they wanted a stay. Not because I was useful, but just because. He was silent for a long moment. Then he reached out slowly, hesitantly, and took her hand in his. His palm was warm and calloused, and his touch was gentle, beyond anything she had expected from a man who had bitten men who deserved it.

“Then I’ll say it again,” he said quietly. “Alice, you may stay. You may stay as long as you like. This is your home now, if you want it to be.” She looked at him through her tears at the man who had called her a guest, who had walked her home, who had stood in the rain shadow and looked up at her window. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“I I want to stay. I really do.” He squeezed her hand, and for a moment, neither of them spoke. The fire crackled, the rain fell, and the world outside the library seemed very far away. Finally, Alice pulled her hand back gently, wiping at her cheeks with the back of her sleeve. I should let you get think to your work.

I’m sorry for keeping you. You didn’t keep me, William said. You were? He paused, a hint of color rising to his cheeks. I was glad of the company. Alice felt a warmth spread through her chest. I could bring you tea again if you’d like. Tomorrow morning, William’s eyes met hers, and there was something in his gaze that made her breath catch.

“I would like that very much,” he said. She gathered the tray and made her way to the door. Her hand was on the handle when his voice tarked her. “Alice,” she turned. William was standing by the fire, his face half in shadow. “Forgive me,” he said quietly. “But I have to ask.

The night you arrived, you were in the garden. You said something. something about about wishing someone would choose you. Alice’s blood ran cold. She stared at him, her heart pounding. You heard that? I was walking the walls, he said. The wind carried your voice. I didn’t mean to eve drop, but I heard it. And I’ve thought about it every day since.

She felt the heat rise to her face. She had thought she was alone. She had been so certain. Alice, his voice was gentle. I want you to know I heard you. And I want you to know that I He stopped. The words hung in the air, unfinished. Alice waited, her heart in her throat, but he only shook his head, a small, rofal smile on his lips. “Never mind.

It’s too early for confessions. We<unk>ll talk again tomorrow. I promise.” She nodded, not trusting her voice, and slipped out the door. As she walked back down the stone corridor, the tray clutched to her chest. She heard him speak again so softly she almost missed it. I heard you, Alice, and I choose you. She stopped.

Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat. She turned back toward the door. It was closed now, and she could not see him, but his words echoed in her ears, clear as a bell in the morning air. Had he really said that, or had she imagined it? She pressed her hand to her chest, feeling the rapid beat beneath her palm. He had called her a guest.

He had walked her home. He had said her name like it mattered. He had told her she could stay. And now she thought he had said something else, something she was almost afraid to believe. Alice walked back to the kitchen in a days, Marin’s words ringing in her ears alongside his. He is not good with words, but he shows it in his own way. He shows it.

She set the tray down on the kitchen table, and Marin looked up, eyebrows raised. Took you long enough. Did he drink the tea? Alice nodded, her cheeks burning. He He said I could stay, that he wanted me to stay. Marin’s face softened into a knowing smile. Did he now? And then he said. Alice hesitated. I think he said something else, but I’m not sure.

He spoke very softly. Marin’s smile widened. Well, she said, turning back to her dough. I suppose you’ll just have to ask him tomorrow when you bring the tea. Alice looked down at her hands, still trembling slightly. Tomorrow? He had promised they would talk again tomorrow. For the first time in her life, she was not afraid of what the morning might bring. She was looking forward to it.

The morning light came thin and pale through the kitchen windows, and Alice was already at the hearth before the first servant stirred. She had slept badly, but it did not matter. She had promised she would bring the tea, and she intended to keep that promise. She measured the leaves carefully into the pot, the way Marin had taught her, not too much, not too little.

Water just off the boil. She had done this every morning for the past. But this morning her hands were unsteady, and she had to set the pot down twice before she trusted herself to carry it. The corridor to the study had never felt so long. She knocked softer than she meant to. For a moment there was no answer, and her heart sank, but then she heard the scrape of a chair, and the door opened.

William stood in the doorway, and Alice’s breath caught in her throat. He looked as though he had not slept at all. There were shadows beneath his gray eyes, and the light of his jaw was tight. Good morning, she said, and her voice came out smaller than she intended. I brought the tea. He looked at the tray in her hands, and for a moment something flickered across his face.

It might have been warmth, or it might have been something else entirely. Then he stepped aside and let her in. The study was the same as it had been the day before. The fire crackled low in the great. The book stood in their orderly rows, but something had changed in the air between them, and Alice could not name it.

She set the tray down on the corner of the desk, careful not to disturb the papers scattered there. Her eye caught a folded parchment lying apart from the others, sealed with dark red wax. She did not mean to stare at it, but something about the seal made her pause. It bore a crest she did not recognize. William followed her gaze, and his hand moved almost unconsciously to the edge of the desk.

“You need not linger,” he said, and his voice was gentler than his words. I have much to attend to today. Alice nodded and stepped back. Of course, I will I will leave you to it. She was at the door when his voice stopped her. Alice? She turned. He was standing by the window now, the gray morning light falling across his face.

He looked as though he wanted to say something, but the words would not come. “Yes,” she prompted softly. He was silent for so long that she thought he had changed his mind. Then he said, “Whatever you hear today in the kitchens or the corridors, do not let it trouble you.” Alice frowned. What would I hear? He did not answer.

His hand found the hilt of his sword, and he gripped it tightly, the knuckles going white. “Just remember what I told you yesterday,” he said at last. “That has not changed.” She wanted to ask him what he meant. She wanted to ask him why he looked like a man carrying a weight too heavy for his shoulders.

But she had spent too many years learning not to ask questions, not to press, not to make herself a burden. So she only said, “I will.” And slipped out of the room, closing the door softly behind her. The kitchens were already bustling when she returned. Marin was at the long table rolling out dough with practice efficiency and Bram was perched on a stool by the fire nursing a cup of something that steamed.

“There you are,” Marin said, glancing up. “Did he drink it this time, or did he let it go cold like yesterday?” Alice forced a smile. “He was busy. I did not stay long.” Marin’s sharp eyes studied her for a moment, but she said nothing. Instead, she nodded toward a basket of apples by the window. Those need peeling for the pie.

Mind you, don’t slice your finger off. Alice took the basket and settled onto a low stool near the hearth, a small knife in her hand. The familiar rhythm of peeling and cing was soothing, and she let herself sink into it, trying not to think about the look in William’s eyes. “It was Bram who broke the silence.” Ryder came through the gate this morning, he said, not looking up from his cup.

From the Aldrich lands, fine horse, fine cloak, carried him. Think like a man with important business. Alice’s handstilled on the apple she was peeling. Did he now? Marin said, her voice carefully neutral. And what business would a man from Aldrich’s lands have with our king? Bram shrugged. Didn’t hear it myself. But he was shown straight to the study, and he’s been in there a good while.

The guards say he brought a letter with a heavy wax seal. A letter? The folded parchment on William’s desk, the one with the dark red seal, Alice not meant to look at it, but she had, and now she could not stop thinking about it. Probably some tax business, Bram said easily. Or a hunting invitation. The Aldwick lords were always fond of their hunts.

Marin made a sound that was not quite a laugh. Hunting, she repeated. Is that what they call it these days? Alice bent her head over her apples, her fingers moving faster now. She did not want Bram to see her face. It was not until the afternoon that the whispers began. She had gone to the pantry to fetch a jar of honey, and two of the younger maids were standing by the door, their heads bent together.

They did not notice her at first. Heard it from one of the guards. The first maid was saying, her voice low. The rider is from Lord Aldrich. He came to take back the girl. Which girl? The one they brought in last week. The one from the north. They say Lord Aldrich changed his mind about sending her.

Alice stood frozen in the doorway of the pantry, the jar of honey cold in her hands. Can he do that? The second maid asked. Send her back? I mean, once she’s been given. The first maid shrugged. She was never given. That’s the thing. She was only lent, so to speak. A courtesy between lords.

And if Lord Aldrich wants her back, there’s little anyone can do to stop him. She’s his kin, after all. His brother’s child. Alice heard the words, but they seemed to come from very far away, as though she were underwater. His brother’s child. His brother’s child. She had known, of course, that her father had been someone once, a man with a name and a place in the world, but no one had ever spoken of him to her, not since she was small.

She had grown up believing that her father had been a nobody, a man who had died, leaving nothing behind but a daughter no one wanted. Now, in the space of a few whispered words, she had learned that her father was Lord Aldrich’s brother, that she was not some nameless orphan taken in out of charity, that she had a family, a bloodline, a claim, and that Lord Aldrich wanted her back.

But why, after all these years of treating her as a burden to be passed along? Why now? She did not realize she was still standing in the pantry doorway until one of the maids noticed her and fell silent, a flush creeping up her neck. “Alice,” the maid said, her voice bright and false. “We didn’t see you there. Can we help you with something?” Alice shook her head. She could not find her voice.

She clutched the jar of honey to her chest and walked past them, back into the kitchen, her legs moving without her permission. The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. She peeled apples. She stirred pots. She set the tables for supper. She did all of it on a kind of autopilot, her hands moving while her mind churned in circles. He had known.

That was the thought that would not leave her. William had known about the letter. He had known the writer was coming. That was why he had looked so tired, so strained. That was why he had told her not to let the rumors trouble her. He had known and he had not told her. She tried to tell herself that it was not his secret to share, that he might have been waiting for the right moment, that perhaps he had intended to tell her tonight when she brought the tea.

But the afternoon wore on, and no summons came from the study. The supper hour came and went, and still no summons came. And as the evening darkened into night, the small flame of hope that Alice had been tending since yesterday began to gutter and fade. She could not bear it any longer. She found Marin in the small room off the kitchen, sorting linens by candle light.

The older woman looked up as Alice entered and her face softened. “Child,” Marin said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Alice stood in the doorway, twisting the edge of her apron in her hands. “Marin,” she said, and her voice cracked. “The writer, the one from Laur. Is it true that he came for me? Marin set down the linen she was holding and looked Alice for a long moment. Then she sighed deep and heavy.

Sit down, she said, gesturing to the stool beside her. Sit down before you fall down. Alice sank onto the stool, her hands still twisting in her apron. They said I am Lord Aldrich<unk>’s brother’s child, she said. They said he wants me back. Is it true? Marin was silent for a long moment. Then, she said slowly, “It is true that you are the child of Lord Untuk’s late brother, and it is true that a writer came from the Aldrich lands today, bearing a letter, and he wants me back,” Alice said.

It was not a question. Marin’s jaw tightened. “Lord Aldrich wants many things,” she said. “Whether he shall have them is another matter.” Alice shook her head, a bitter laugh escaping her. He does not want me, she said. He never wanted me. He only wants I do not know what he wants, but it is not me. Marin reached out and took Alice’s hand, her grip firm and weight arm.

Listen to me, child. Whatever Lord Aldrich wants, it is not for you to decide, and it is not for you to fear. The king will handle it. But Alice could not be comforted. The words from the kitchen maid echoed in her head. She was only lent, a courtesy between lords. And if Lord Aldrich wants her back, there’s little anyone can do to stop him.

She pulled her hand free and stood up. I should finish the dishes, she said, her voice hollow. I should not have left them. Alice, but Alice was already gone, walking back into the kitchen with her shoulders straight and her heart crumbling in her chest. The night settled over Thornwood Keep like a heavy cloak.

Alice finished her work in silence, and when the last pot was scrubbed and the last surface wiped clean, she found herself standing at the kitchen door, looking out at the moonlit courtyard. She had nowhere to go. She had known that for as long as she could remember, but tonight the knowledge sat heavier than it ever had before. She slipped out into the night, her feet carrying her without thought toward the low stone wall at the edge of the keep’s garden.

It was the same place she had come on her first night here, when she had been too tired and too frightened to sleep. She had whispered her wish into the darkness that night, and somehow, impossibly, he had heard her. Now she stood in the same spot under the same cold moon, and she did not know if she dared to wish again. She heard the footsteps behind her just before he spoke.

“Alice,” she did not turn around. She could not. If she turned around and saw his face, she would fall apart. “You knew,” she said, and her voice was barely a whisper. “You knew.” The rider was coming. “You knew what he came for, and you did not tell me. I did not want to trouble you until I knew more,” William said. His voice was low. Careful.

“I was going to tell you.” “Tell me what?” Alice turned now, and the tears she had been holding back spilled down her cheeks. Tell me that I am to be sent back. Tell me that Lord Aldrich has changed his mind, and I am to be packed up and returned like a parcel that was posted to the wrong address. No, William said, and there was something raw in his voice that she had never heard before.

No, Alice, that is not what I was going to tell you. Then what? she demanded, her voice breaking. What were you going to tell me, your grace? Because all I know is that I have been passed from hand to hand my whole life, and every time I begin to think, every time I begin to hope that this time might be different, someone comes to take me away again.

She was crying now, ugly and open, and she did not care. I told myself this morning that I would not hope. I told myself that it was foolish to think that anyone would want me to stay. But I did hope. Your grace. I hoped because you said I could stay because you said you wanted me to stay. And now she stopped pressing her hands to her face.

If you are going to send me back, she said, her voice muffled. Please just tell me now. I would rather know than wonder. The silence stretched between them long and painful. When William spoke again, his voice was rough, as though the words were being dragged out of him. You will not be sent back. Alice lowered her hands, staring at him through her tears.

But the letter, the letter is mine to answer, William said. And my answer is no. Lord Aldrich does not get to change his mind. You are not his property to reclaim. You are, he stopped, his jaw working. You are not going anywhere. Alice stared at him, her heart pounding. But why? She whispered. Why would you refuse him? It would be easier to send me back.

It would avoid a quarrel between your lands. William<unk>’s hand found the hilt of his sword, gripping it so hard that his knuckles went white. “Because I promised you that you could stay,” he said. “And I do not break my promises.” He said the words as though they cost him something, as though he were giving her a piece of himself that he could not afford to lose.

Alice opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. She stood there in the moonlight, her tears drying on her cheeks, and for the first time since the rider had arrived, she felt the cold knot of fear in her chest begin, just barely to loosen. William turned away, his silhouette sharp against the pale stone of the keep. “Go inside,” he said.

It is cold and you have not eaten properly all day. William, she said. He stopped. Thank you, she said, for not sending me back. He did not turn around, but she saw his shoulders relax just slightly, and she heard him say quiet enough that she almost missed it. I told you I do not break my promises.

Then he was gone, striding back toward the keep, and Alice was left alone in the moonlight, her heart full of something she did not dare to name. She walked back to the kitchen slowly, her mind turning over everything he had said. He had refused Lord Aldrich. He had told her she would not be sent back.

He had said he did not break his promises, but he had not told her why. He had not said that he wanted her to stay. He had only said that he had promised and that he would not break it. And Alice, who had spent her whole life being kept because of duty and obligation and pity, could not help but wonder if this was just another form of the same thing.

She reached the spot where the pro quarter split, one way toward the kitchens, the other toward the servants’s quarters. She hesitated, then turned instead toward the low stone wall at the edge of the garden. She did not know why she went back there. Perhaps she was hoping to find some echo of the girl who had whispered her wish into the darkness a week ago.

Perhaps she was hoping to find the courage to believe that this time it might be different. She stood at the wall, looking up at the cold white moon, and she whispered to the night so softly that no one should have been able to hear. I should have known better than to hope. She did not see the shadow in the darkness beyond the wall.

She did not see the tall figure that stood motionless among the bare trees. his hand clenched white around the hilt of his sword. But William heard her. He heard every word. The morning after her tears in the garden, Alice woke to a gray sky and a wind that smelled of rain. She lay still for a long moment, staring at the crack in the ceiling above her bed, and she tried to gather the pieces of herself that had scattered the night before.

She had not slept well. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw William’s face in the torch light, heard him say, “I promised, “I do not break my promises.” And every time, a small voice inside her whispered, “But that is not the same as wanting me to stay.” She rose and dressed slowly, braiding her hair with fingers that still trembled slightly.

She had decided, in the gray light of dawn, that she would not ask him again. She would do her work, keep her head down, and try not to hope. Hope, she had learned, was a luxury she could not afford. The kitchens were already bustling when she arrived. Polly was needing bread at the far table, her round face flushed with effort, and old Tom was tulking the great hearth with the practiced ease of 40 years.

Alice slipped into her usual place by the washing basin, and began to scrub the pots from the night before, letting the warm water soothe her raw nerves. She had been at work for perhaps an hour when Marin appeared in the doorway, her broad frame filling the frame like a ship’s prow cutting through fog. The housekeeper surveyed the kitchen with her usual sharp eye, then fixed her gaze on Alice.

“You,” she said in the tone of a woman who was not accustomed to being disobeyed. “Come with me. I need help sorting the stores in the cellar.” Alice dried her hands on her apron and followed without question. It was easier to obey than to explain why her eyes were still red rimmed, why her voice came out horsearo.

Marin led her down the narrow stone steps to the cellar, where the air was cool and thick with the smell of dried herbs and apples. “Sit,” Marin said, pointing to a wooden stool near the shelves of preserved goods. Alice sat. Marin did not immediately begin sorting anything. Instead, she crossed her arms and studied Alice with an expression that was difficult to read.

You were crying last night, Marin said. It was not a question. Alice looked down at her hands. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. Stop apologizing. Marin cut her off, though her voice was not unkind. I’ve been in this castle for 40 years, girl. I’ve seen more tears than there are stones in the walls.

But I’ve also seen the king ps the corridor outside your door at midnight. And I’ve seen him leave the great hall midmeal because someone mentioned your name in a way he did not like. Alice’s head snapped up. What? Marin let out a long breath and lowered herself onto a second stool, her joints creaking in protest.

You think I don’t know to be nor girl. I held him when he was a squalling infant. And I held him again when they brought his parents’ bodies home from the border. I know that boy better than he knows himself. The housekeeper’s voice softened just a fraction. He came to me yesterday after the messenger left. He did not say much. He never does.

But he sat in my kitchen and drank my tea without complaining once. And that, mark my words, is a sign of great distress. Alice felt her heart twist. The messenger, Lord Aldrich’s man, he came to take me back. I Marin said and the king refused him. I know, Alice said quietly. He told me. He said he does not break his promises. Marin snorted.

Promises? That boy has a talent for saying the least of what he means. Do you know what he said to Aldrich<unk>’s messenger? I was in the hall fetching the wine. I heard every word. Alice held her breath. He did not raise his voice,” Marin said slowly, her eyes distant as if she were seeing the scene again.

“He does not need to.” He rose from his chair, walked to where the messenger stood, and looked at him for a long moment. Then he said, “The answer is no. She is not a parcel to be claimed and reclaimed. She is under my protection, and she will remain so. You may tell your lord that if he wishes to contest this, he may come to Thornwood himself and say it to my face.

Alice’s hands had gone cold. He said that. He said that and more. Marin replied. He said, “I do not know what game your lord plays, but I will not be a peace in it. And I will not return a woman to a household that treated her as chatt.” Then he turned his back and walked out of the hall, and the messenger stood there with his mouth open, clutching his seal ring like it might say him. The cellar was silent.

He Oh my, thinking of suggest. Thinking of suggesting, setting the distant sound of the wind outside, Alice stared at her hands, at the old burn scar on her finger, and she felt something shift inside her, a small, fragile thing like ice beginning to crack in a spring thaw. He never told me,” she whispered.

“He only said he does not break promises.” “I,” Marin said. “That is William. He will move mountains for you and never say a word about it. He thinks that if he speaks his heart aloud, the world will find a way to use it against him.” She paused, and her voice grew gentler. “But I will tell you something, girl. A man who keeps a woman close for duty sake does not pace outside her door at midnight.

A man who keeps her for duty sake does not leave the hall because someone spoke her name unkindly. Alice looked up and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. Then why does he not? She stopped unable to finish the question. Why does he not say it? Marin finished for her. Because he is a fool, a great stubborn foolish man who has spent so many years learning to guard his heart that he has forgotten how to open it.

She reached over and patted Alice’s knee with a calloused hand. But I have known him since he was a boy, and I tell you this, he looks at you the way he used to look at the sky before a storm, like he is afraid of what he feels.” Alice did not know what to say. Her heart was beating too fast, and her throat felt tight.

She sat in the cool, dimness of the cellar, and for the first time since she had arrived at Thornwood, she allowed herself to wonder, “What if it was not only duty? What if it was something more? Marin rose, groaning slightly, and began to sort the jars on the shelves with brisk efficiency. Now, she said, her voice returning to its usual gruffness.

You will drink a cup of my tea before Sir, go back to work. It will put hair on your chest, but it will also settle your nerves. Alice laughed despite herself, a small, watery laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. Thank you, Marin. The housekeeper waved a hand dismissively. Thank me by not moping around the castle with red eyes. It upsets the king, and when the king is upset, he stalks the hallways like a bear with a sore tooth, and nobody gets any peace.

” Alice spent the rest of the morning in a days. She washed the pots. She peeled the vegetables. She helped Polly carry bread to the ovens, but her mind was elsewhere, turning over Marin’s words like smooth stones in her palm. He paced outside her door. He left the great hall because someone spoke her name unkindly.

He said she was under his protection and she would remain so, but he had not said he wanted her. By midafternoon, the clouds had broken and a pale, watery sunlight fell over the castle. Alice found herself standing at the edge of the courtyard, looking out toward the dark line of pines that boarded the thornwood lands. She had heard the servants speak of the forest, how the king walked there alone, how he had forbidden the widsman from cutting the oldest trees near the northern ridge. She did not plan to go far.

She only wanted to walk, to clear her head, to breathe air that did not smell of smoke and stone. She wrapped her shawl more tightly around her shoulders and set off across the damp grass toward the treeine. The pines swallowed her quickly, the air grew cooler, softer, and the noise of the castle faded until it was only a distant memory.

Alice walked along a narrow deer path, her boots sinking slightly into the carpet of fallen needles, and she let her mind drift. She was thinking of Marin’s words of the way the housekeeper had settled. He looks at you the way he used to look at the sky before a storm. What did that mean? Was it fear? Was it longing? Or was Marin simply an old woman who saw romance where there was only duty? She rounded a bend in the path and she stopped.

There in a small clearing where the sun fell in pale golden shafts stood a deer. It was an old stag, its coat rough and gray with age, its flanks scarred from a lifetime of battles in the forest, and its left antler was broken, snapped off near the base, leaving only a jagged stump where a proud crown had once been. Alice stood very still.

She knew she should not approach. Deer were wild creatures, wary of humans, but this one did not bolt. It lifted its head and looked at her with dark, patient eyes, and it did not move. She took a slow step forward. The stag’s ears flickered, but it held its ground. Another step. She could see the scars now, the old wounds that marked its hide like a map of survival.

It had been beautiful once, she thought. It had been strong, and now it stood alone in the quiet of the pines, waiting for something she could not name. She heard a sound behind her, the soft crunch of a boot on pine needles, and she turned, her heart leaping to her throat. William stood at the edge of the clearing, his dark hair loose around his shoulders, his gray eyes fixed on her with an expression she could not read.

He wore no cloak, no sword, and for a moment he looked younger, less like a king, and more like a man who had been walking in the woods and had stumbled upon something he had not expected to find. “Alice,” he said. His voice was low, rough, as if he had not spoken in hours. “Your grace,” she said, and she dropped into a quick curtsy, her heart hammering.

She had not seen him since the garden last night, and the memory jock of her tears rose unbidden to her cheeks. He did not acknowledge the curtsy. His gaze moved past her to the stag, and something in his face softened almost imperceptibly, but she saw it. “He does not run from you,” William said quietly.

Alice looked back at the stag, which had lowered its head to graze on the sparse grass at the clearing’s edge. “He does not run from you either,” she said. William was silent for a long moment. Then he walked past her slowly, deliberately, and stopped a few paces from the deer. He reached into the pocken of his tunic and pulled out a handful of something.

Dried apples, Alice realized, from the smell of them. He held out his hand, palm flat, and the stag lifted its head and stepped forward to eat from his fingers. Alice watched, transfixed. The great old beast, scarred and broken antler, nuzzled William’s hand with the trust of a creature that had known him for years.

“He was the leader of the herd once,” William said without looking at her. “He lost his antler fighting a younger stag three winters ago. The herd drove him out. He has lived alone in these pines ever since.” Alice came closer, careful not to startle the deer. “You feed him.” “I bring him apples when I can,” William said. He has no one else.

The words hung in the air between them, heavy with something neither of them dared to name. Alice looked at the old stag at its patient eyes and its broken crown, and she felt her heart ache with a sudden, inexplicable sorrow. “He trusts you,” she said softly. William turned to look at her then, and his gray eyes were unreadable.

“He has learned that I will not hurt him,” he said. “That is all trust is in the end. A creature learns that you will not hurt it and it decides to stay. Alice held her breath. She wanted to ask him. He wanted to ask him so badly whether he was speaking of the deer or of her, but the words stuck in her throat, and she could not force them out.

The stag finished the apples, and with a flick of its ears, turned and ambled away into the deeper shadows of the pines. William watched it go and then he looked at Alice and his expression was strange, almost vulnerable. “You should not walk in the forest alone,” he said. “The nights are growing cold and the paths can be treacherous.

” “I was only walking,” Alice said. “I needed to think.” He nodded slowly as if he understood. “The forest is a good place for thinking,” he said. “The trees do not ask questions. They do not expect answers. They stood in the clearing for a long moment, the silence between them filled with all the words they could not say.

Then William turned and began to walk back toward the castle. Alice watched him go, tall and solitary, his dark hair catching the pale sunlight, and she felt something crack inside her. Not break, but crack, just enough to let a sliver of light in. He had not said he wanted her to stay, but he had fed a broken old stag from his own hand, and he had looked at her with those gray eyes, and he had said, “He has no one else.

” And Alice, who had been no one’s chosen for her whole life, wondered if perhaps, just perhaps, Will of House Thornwood understood what it was like to feel unwanted. She stayed in the clearing until the light began to fade, and then she walked back to the castle with slow, thoughtful steps. The wind had picked up, carrying the first bite of evening cold, and she pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

When she reached the corridor that led to her small room, she noticed something on the floor outside her door. A bundle of folded cloth, dark and heavy. I had bent down and picked it up, and her breath caught in her throat. It was the old woolen cloak, the one she had mended in secret weeks ago, the one with her careful stitches along the torn seam.

It had been washed and brushed until the wool was soft and clean, and it was folded with a care that spoke of a deliberate hand. There was no note, no message, just the cloak, warm and solid in her arms, smelling faintly of woods and pine. Alice stood in the corridor, clutching the cloak to her chest, and she felt the tears prick at her eyes.

She did not know why he had sent it back to her. She did not know if it was a gift or a message or simply a king’s way of returning something that was not his to keep. But as she pressed the soft wool to her cheek, she remembered the way William had fed the broken antler stag, and she remembered the words he had said in the clearing.

He has no one else. And she thought with a wild, fragile hope that she could not quite suppress, “Neither do I.” She carried the cloak into her room and laid it across the foot of her bed. She did not light a candle. She sat in the darkness, running her fingers over the stitches she had sewn with such care, and she whispered into the silence of her small room.

“Thank you,” she said to no one, to the darkness, to the memory of a man’s gray eyes in a quiet forest. And somewhere in the castle, in a great hall lit by torch light, William of House Thornwood sat alone at the head of the long table, staring into the fire, and he did not know why his heart felt lighter than it had in years. The morning came cold and pale, with a thin frost whitening the stones of the courtyard.

Alice was in the kitchen kneading bread dough for the midday meal when she heard the commotion boots on stone. Voices raised the shock thick clatter of a runner’s steps on the stairs. She wiped her hands on her apron and stepped to the kitchen door. Bram was crossing the yard at a near run. His face flushed with more than the cold.

“Riders on the north road,” he said to the guard at the gate, his voice carrying. “20, maybe more banners up gray falcon on a field of red.” Alice felt the words land in her stomach like a stone. Gray falcon on red. She knew that banner. She had known it her whole life. In one way or another, the mock of the house that had passed her from hand to hand like a loaf of bread no one quite wanted to eat.

Lord Aldrich’s banner. She went back to the dough, but her hands were shaking, and the bread would not come together the way it should. She pressed her palms flat against the table and tried to breathe. It was Marin who found her there, standing over a ruined lump of dough, staring at nothing. “Come away from there,” Marin said quietly, and there was no bark in her voice for once.

“Come and sit by the fire.” Alice let herself be led to the bench by the hearth. Marin sat down beside her, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. “He has come for me,” Alice said. It was not a question. Marin was silent for a long moment. Then she said, “He has come to try.

” What is the difference? The difference, Marin said slowly, is that trying and doing are two different things. And the man who sits in the great hall upstairs, he does not try. He does. Alice looked down at her hands. The old tar on her left forefinger was pale against the flower dust. He has not said anything to me. Not about this.

He will not, Marin said. Not until he must. That is his way. He moves mountains and says nothing. He has been that way since he was a boy with scraped knees who would not cry wherein Jang could see him. But he moves the mountains, child. He always moves the mountains. Alice wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe it so badly that it achd behind her ribs like a bruise.

But she had believed things before, believed that a kind word meant a kind future, believed that a warm bed would stay warm, and she had been wrong each time. She did not know what to believe now. The afternoon passed in a strange stretched silence. The castle felt different guards moved more quickly through the corridors, their faces set in careful blankness.

Alice was sent to the upper floor to deliver fresh rushes for the floor of the guest chamber, and from the narrow window at the end of the corridor, she saw them. 20 riders, more or less, coming up the valley road in two neat columns. At their head on a tall gray horse rode a figure in a heavy dark cloak.

Even at this distance she could see the way he sat, the saddle straightbacked, self-important, one hand rest on his hip as if the whole world owed him difference. Lord Aldrich, she watched until the column disappeared behind the curve of the outer wall, and then she went back to her work, because that was what she had always done. When the world shifted beneath her feet, she picked up the nearest task and held on to it like a rope.

By the time the riders reached the castle gates, the evening meal was being laid in the great hall. Alice was not invited to the table, she was a kitchen woman, and the kitchen women ate in the kitchen, but she heard the arrival from where she stood at the sink, scrubbing pots, the heavy thud of the gates, the stamp of hooves in the yard, the raised voices of men greeting or challenging one another.

Bram came through the kitchen door a few minutes later, looking like a man who had been sent to fetch something and forgotten what it was. They’ve asked for a private audience with the king, he said to no one in particular. He refused, said he would receive Lord Aldrich in the great hall in the open where all could hear.

Marin made a small sound that might have been approval. Good, she said. Let the man see that he is not dealing with a boy who can be bullied in a corner. Alice scrubbed the same pot three times over, listening to the murmur of voices from beyond the kitchen door. She could not make out the words, but she could hear the shape of them, the deep, steady rhythm of William’s voice, and the thinner, sharper cadence of a stranger’s.

She wanted to go to the door. She wanted to press her ear to the crack and listen. But that was not what a kitchen woman did. And so she stood at the sink and scrubbed the pot, and her hands were shaking again. It was nearly dark when the voices in the great hall grew louder. Alice had finished the pots. She had wiped down the tables and swept the floor, and there was no more work left to hide in.

She stood in the shadow of the kitchen doorway where the passage to the great hall opened, and she could hear them now, not every word, but enough. My brother’s daughter, the stranger was saying, Aldrick<unk>’s voice, thin and precise as a blade. She was entrusted to my care when her father died. I have allowed her to remain here out of courtesy, but the arrangement was never meant to be permanent.

She belongs with her family. There was a pause, then William’s voice, low and unhurried. She has been here for less than a fortnight, and she was not entrusted to you. She was brought here as part of a settlement between our houses, a gesture of good faith, as I recall, a gesture that has served its purpose.

A gesture, William said, that involved a person. My understanding was that the Lady Alice came here of her own will and that she may leave the same way. Alice’s breath caught. She pressed her back against the cold stone of the corridor wall. “Lady Alice,” Aldrich said, and the word dripped with something that might have been scorn, is not in a position to choose what is best for herself.

She is young, and she knows nothing of the world beyond kitchen walls. I have a duty to see that she is properly cared for. She is properly cared for here by a king who has no kin, no wife, and no interest in the conventions that bind decent houses together. Olguk’s voice rose slightly. Forgive me your grace, but I find it difficult to believe that your interest in my niece is entirely disinterested.

The silence that followed was long and dangerous. Alice heard the scrape of a chair against stone. She imagined William rising from his place at the head of the table, and she imagined the way his gray eyes would look in the torch light, flat, cold, unreadable. “You may believe whatever you wish,” William said, and his voice was so quiet that Alice had to strain to hear it.

“But the Lady Alice will not be returned to a household that treats her as property. She is not a parcel to be claimed. She is a woman, and she will decide her own fate. And if I insist, then you will find that the hospitality of Torwood has its limits. Another pause. Alice could picture Aldrich<unk>’s face, the tight set of his jaw, the way his hand would move to the ring on his finger.

Very well, Aldrich said at last, and his voice was cold. I will give her three days. Three days to decide whether she wishes to return to her family or to remain in the service of a king who has no word for what she is to him. If she had has not made her choice by then, I will take it as her answer, and I will return home, and the alliance between our houses will be reconsidered.

She is not a bargaining chip, William said, his voice like iron, and she will not be treated as one. But she shall have her three days, and she shall have them free of pressure from you. You will not speak to her privately. You will not send her messages. She will decide as she sees fit, without your shadow over her shoulder.

Aldrich made a sound that might have been a laugh. You cannot keep her in a glass case, your grace. If she wishes to hear what her family has to say, she will find a way. Then that is her choice, William said. But it will be her choice, not yours, not mine. Hers. Alice stood in the dark corridor, pressed against the cold stone, and she felt something shift inside her chest.

He had said her name. He had called her Lady Alice, and he had said that she was not a parcel to be claimed. He had said that she would decide her own fate. And he had said, “Not mine, hers.” She did not know what she felt. Relief? Fear? Something stranger? Something that burned low and warm in her belly like a coal that would not catch fire.

She turned to go back to the kitchen to find some task to hide in, but her foot caught on the hem of her skirt, and she stumbled against the doorframe. The sound was small, a scrape of wool against wood, but in the silence of the great hall, it was enough. She heard the scrape of chairs. She heard footsteps. And then the door opened and she was standing in the light of the torches, caught like a deer in an open clearing with Lord Aldrich’s cold eyes and William’s gray eyes both fixed on her.

Alice felt the heat of shame rise up her neck. I’m sorry, she said, the words tumbling out before she could stop them. I didn’t mean to. I was only I came to see if the hall needed. Her voice trailed off. She could not think of a single lie that would hold together under the weight of Aldrich’s stare. Lady Alice, Aldrich said, and his voice was smooth as oil.

We were just speaking of you. How fortunate that you should appear. I was beginning to wonder whether the king of Thornwood kept you under lock and key. No one keeps me under lock and key, Alice said, and she was surprised by the steadiness of her own voice. I work in the kitchens. I heard voices. I came to see if anything was needed.

Eldrich<unk>’s mouth curved into something that was not quite a smile. How domestic. And tell me, niece, is this what you want? To spend your days scrubbing pots in a stranger’s castle when you could return to a home where you would be cared for? Alice looked at him. She looked at the ring on his finger, the heavy, ornate seal of the house that had passed her around like a piece of furniture, and she thought of the cloak folded at the foot of her bed.

the cloak she had stitched with her own hands that a king had washed and returned to her without a single word. “I do not know what I want,” she said, and her voice was quiet but clear. “I have never been asked before. I would like time to think about it.” Aldrich’s eyes flickered. “Three days,” he said. “You have three days.” Alz nodded. She did not look at William.

She turned and walked back down the corridor, her feet steady on the cold stone, and she did not run until she was out of sight of the great hall. She did not light a candle when she reached her room. She sat on the edge of her bed in the darkness, and she reached out and touched the folded cloak at the foot of the bed.

She thought about what Aldrich had said. She thought about what William had said. She is not a parcel to be claimed. She is a woman, and she will decide her own fate. and she thought about the question that had been circling in her mind since the morning. The question she was afraid to ask because she was not sure she could bear the answer.

Was William protecting her because he felt responsible for her? Because she had been placed in his care and he was a man who did his duty, or was he protecting her because he wanted her to stay? She pressed her face into the wool of the cloak and she breathed in the smell of it. Clean wool, wood smoke, and something else. something faint and unfamiliar, a scent she could not name, but that she had come to associate with the quiet corridors of Thornwood Keep.

Three days, she thought, three days to decide. And somewhere in the castle, in a room lit by a single candle, William of House Thornwood sat with a small silver ring in his palm and eagle, its wings spread, its eyes set with chips of dark stone. It was the ring he had taken from Alice’s belongings the day she arrived, the ring he had meant to question her about, and had never found the words to mention.

He turned it over in his fingers, and he thought about the way she had looked at him in the torch light, not with fear, not with hope, but with something in between. He did not know what she would choose. He did not know what he wanted her to choose, because he did not know if he had the right to want anything at all.

But he knew one thing, with the same certainty that had carried him through a dozen battles and a hundred long winters, he did not want her to go. The morning of the 15th day came cold and clear, and Alice woke before the first light touched the window. She lay still for a long moment, listening to the wind mour. Think the pan hood the primes below the keep, and she thought about how strange it was that a place she had known for barely 2 weeks could feel more like a beginning than any place she had ever lived.

She dressed slowly in the gray gown and the blue apron that had become her uniform. But before she left the room, she reached for the cloak that hung on the peg by the door, the old cloak with the mended shoulder, the one that smelled faintly of woodm smoke and pine. She had not worn it since the night he had wrapped it around her.

Now she put it on and the weight of it settled against her shoulders like a promise she was not sure she was allowed to keep. Marin found her in the kitchen stirring a pot that did not need stirring and said nothing about the cloak. She only poured two cups of her terrible herbal tea and pushed one across the table. Drink it, Marin said.

It will put hair on your chest. I do not want hair on my chest, Alice said. But she drank it anyway because the warmth was real and the old woman<unk>s eyes were kind. He sent word at dawn, Marin said quietly. Lord Aldrich will present himself at the great hall when the bell tolls noon. He asked that you be brought before him to give your answer in front of the court.

Alice’s stomach tightened. In front of the court, he wants witnesses. Marin said he wants it done publicly so that there can be no argument later. He is a man who believes that words spoken before others are harder to take back. Alice was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “I have spent my whole life being spoken for.

Perhaps it is time I spoke for myself. Marin looked at her for a long moment, and something in the old woman’s face softened. The king will be there, she said. He will not let anyone pressure you into a choice you do not want to make it. How do you know? Because I have known him since he was a boy with scraped knees and a stubborn chin, Marin said.

And I have never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you. Alice felt her cheeks grow warm, and she looked down at her cup to hide it. He looks at everyone the same way, she said. As if he is weighing whether they are a threat. He looks at you, Marin said, as if he is trying to remember how to breathe. The bell told noon, and Alice walked to the great hall with her heart beating hard against her ribs.

The cloak hung heavy on her shoulders, and she kept her hand on the fabric at her throat as if it could anchor her. The hall was fuller than she had expected. The lords of the surrounding manners had come and the elders of the villages and a crowd of household servants pressed against the back wall. Bram stood near the door with his hand on his sword and beside him stood Polly, her cheeks flushed with excitement and worry in equal measure.

At the far end of the hall on the dis where the throne stood, William sat with his back straight and his hands resting on his knees. He wore the dark wool tunic and the plain sword at his hip, and his gray eyes found her the moment she entered. And in the center of the hall, standing with his feet planted wide and his chin lifted, stood Lord Aldrich.

He wore a heavy fur trimmed cloak and a velvet tunic that had cost more than Alice had earned in a year of service, and he was turning his signate ring around and around on his finger as if it could give him patience. Lady Alice,” Aldrich said, and his voice rang out across the hall. “I am pleased to see you looking so well.

I had feared that this harsh northern air might have worn on you.” Alice stopped a few paces from him. She was aware of, “Think every eye in the hall on her, and she could feel the weight of William<unk>s gaze like a hand on her back steadying her.” “I am well, my lord,” she said. The air of Thornwood suits me.

Aldrich<unk>’s smile did not reach his eyes. I am glad to hear it, but the time has come for you to return to your family. Your father’s lands have been left too long without a proper heir in residence, and it is only right that you should take your place among your own blood.” Alice felt the words land like stones in her chest, among her own blood.

She had been sent away from that blood when she was 9 years old, passed from one household to another like a parcel that no one quite knew what to do with. I was not aware, she said carefully, that my father’s lands required an heir. I was never told I had a claim to them. Aldrich smiled tightened.

There are many things you were never told, child. That is why it is my duty as your father’s brother to see that you are properly settled. Duty? Alice repeated. The word tasted strange in her mouth. You have never once come to see me, my lord. In all the years I was passed from house to house, you never sent word, never asked after me.

And now you come with 20 armed men to tell me of duty. A murmur ran through the hall. Aldrich<unk>’s face reened. “You are young,” he said. “You do not understand the ways of inheritance and property. Your father’s marriage contract promised a portion of his estate to any child who should claim it. For years I have held that estate in trust, waiting for you to come of age.

And now that you have, it is time for you to take your rightful place.” Alice’s heart was pounding now. She understood with a sudden clarity that made her feel cold what he was really saying. It was not about family. It was not about her father’s memory. It was about the estate, about the land and the wealth that he had held for years and did not want to give up.

He wanted her back under his control so that he could continue to hold what was not rightfully his. “You want me to return?” she said slowly. “So that you can marry me off to someone who will pay you for the privilege of my father’s lands?” The hall went very quiet. Aldrich<unk>’s face went from red to white. “That is a grave accusation.

It is not an accusation,” Alice said. “It is an observation. You have had years to come to me. You have had years to tell me about my father, about my family, about the lands that you say are mine. You did none of those things. You came only when I was old enough to be married, and you came with soldiers.

She took a breath, and she felt the cloak settle around her shoulders like an arm around her. I have been chosen and unchosen my whole life, she said, and her voice trembled only a little. I have been sent away when I was inconvenient, taken in when I was useful, and passed along when I became a burden.

No one has ever once asked me what I wanted. Not once. She looked at Aldrich, and then she turned slowly to face the man on the dis. William had not moved. His gray eyes were fixed on her, and there was something in them that she could not quite name something raw and open and terribly vulnerable. So, I will tell you what I want,” she said, and her voice rang out clear across the hall.

“I do not want to go back to a family that forgot I existed. I do not want to be married off to settle a debt I never owed. I want to stay here in Thornwood, where I have been treated with more kindness in two weeks than I was shown in 20 years.” She turned back to Aldrich. “I choose to stay.” The silence that followed, so complete that Alice could hear the crackle of the torches in their brackets on the wall.

Then Aldrich spoke and his voice was cold. You have no right to choose. You are a woman and you are my brother’s daughter and by the law of this land I am your guardian until you are wed. By the law of this land, a voice said, and it cut through the hall like a blade. She is under the protection of the alpha king of Thornwood, and she is not yours to command. William rose from the deis.

He did not walk so much as descend upon the hall, his presence filling the space as he crossed the stone floor until he stood between Alice and Aldrich. “Lord Audrich,” he said, and his voice was quiet and utterly without warmth. “You have come into my hall under my roof, and you have attempted to claim one of my household as if she were a piece of property to be collected.

You have done so without my leave, and you have done so against the expressed wishes of the lady in question. She is my niece, Ultra began. She is a woman of full age, William said. And by the laws of this territory, she has the right to choose her own guardian. She has chosen to remain in Thurmwood. That choice is final.

Aldrich’s face was a mask of barely controlled fury. “You cannot simply, I am the Alpha King,” William said, and the words fell like stones into still water. “I can do whatever I deem just and right within my own lands. and idea it just right that a woman who has been shuffled about like a stray dog for 20 years should finally be allowed to put down roots where she wishes to grow.

He reached into the collar of his tunic and drew out a thin leather cord. On it hung a small silver ring and eagle with spread wings, its eyes set with chips of dark stone. Alice’s breath caught in her throat. “This ring belonged to Alice’s father,” William said, holding it up so that the light caught the silver. It was among her belongings when she arrived.

I took it, I will not pretend otherwise, because I wanted to know its story before I returned it. I have since learned that it is the signate of the house of the eagle, the mark of a lord who died too young and left a daughter who was never given what was rightfully hers. He stepped toward Aldrich, and the older man took an involuntary step back.

“You have held her father’s estate for 20 years,” William said. You have collected its rents, its harvests, its wealth, and in all that time you never once told her that she had a claim to any of it. You kept her ignorant so that you could keep her powerless. And now you come to take her back, not as a niece, but as a bargaining piece.

Aldrich’s mouth opened, but no words came out. This ring, William said, should have been returned to her the day she arrived. I kept it because I was a coward and I did not know how to tell her what I had done and I am sorry for that. It was not my right to hold it from her. He turned to Alice and his gray eyes were soft now, softer than she had ever seen them.

Alice, he said, and her name sounded like a prayer. This is yours. It was your father’s, and it belongs to you. Not to me, not to your uncle, not to any man who thinks he can claim you. It is yours, and you may do with it as you wish.” He pressed the ring into her palm, and his fingers lingered on hers for just a moment longer than necessary.

Alice looked down at the ring at the eagle, with its spread wings and its dark stone eyes, and she felt something crack open in her chest. She had never known her father. She had been told only that he had died when she was small, and think that she had been sent away because no one could care for her. She had never had anything of his.

She had never had any proof that she had belonged to anyone at all. “Thank you,” she whispered, and her voice broke on the words. “I have one more thing,” William said, and he reached into his tunic again. “This time he drew out a small brooch, an old thing, silver and enamel, shaped like a thorn branch with a single white flower.

This belonged to my mother. She wore it on the day she died, and I have kept it ever since. I have never shown it to anyone. He held it out to her. I do not have words, Alice. I never have. I have spent my whole life believing that if I did not speak, I could not be hurt. That if I did not ask for anything, I could not be refused.

But I heard you that night when you did not know I was listening, and I have not been able to stop hearing it since. Alice’s heart stopped. You stood at the edge of the courtyard, William said, and you looked up at the moon and you said, I wish someone would choose me. And I stood in the shadows, and I heard every word.

I have thought about that night every day since, and I have been a coward, because I did not know how to tell you that I have chosen you, that I choose you now. The hall was utterly silent. Even the torches seemed to hold their breath. “I am not good at this,” William said, and there was something almost helpless in his voice. I do not know how to be soft.

I do not know how to say the things that matter. I have spent so many years alone that I forgot what it felt like to want someone to stay. But I want you to stay, Alice. Not because you are useful. Not because you have nowhere else to go. I want you to stay because I cannot imagine this keep without you in it.

Because I cannot imagine my day think without the sound of your voice. because you make me remember that I am not only a king, I am a man. He held out the brooch and his hand was not quite steady. I am not offering you a cage, he said. I am offering you a home if you want it if you choose it. I will not command you to stay. I will not make it a duty.

I am asking you, Alice, the way I have never asked anyone for anything to stay with me.” Alice looked at the brooch in his hand, and she felt the tears sliding down her cheeks before she could stop them. She thought about all the years of being passed along, all the years of being an inconvenience, all the years of believing that she was only worth something when someone needed her.

And she thought about the man standing in front of her, this great, powerful, terrifying king who had spent his whole life learning not to need anyone, and who had just opened his hand and given her everything. She took the brooch, her fingers closed around it, and she held it against her chest.

“Yes,” she said, and her voice was small and fierce at once. “I choose you. I choose this place. I choose to stay, not because I have nowhere else to go, but because I cannot imagine being anywhere else.” She looked up at him and she smiled through her tears. “I choose you, William of House Thornwood. I choose you.

” The hall erupted. It was not a cheer. It was something more complicated, a sound of release and joy and relief that seemed to rise from the stones themselves. The servants clapped, the lords nodded, and Bram let out a whoop that he tried to cover with a cough. Polly was openly weeping.

Aldrich stood frozen, his face a mask of fury and disbelief. “This is not over,” he said. “I will contest this. I will You will leave my lands,” William said, and his voice was ice. You will might leave before sunset and you will not return. If you contest this, you will contest it against the full authority of the alpha king of Thornwood.

And I promise you that you will not like the outcome. Aldrich’s jaw worked. He looked at Alice and there was something ugly in his eyes. But he was not full enough to challenge a king in his own hall. He turned on his heel and stroed toward the doors, his boots ringing against the stone. The doors slammed shut behind him, and the hall was silent for one breath, and then it was filled with noise again, with laughter and chatter, and the bustle of servants moving to prepare the feast that Marin was already ordering into existence. Alice stood in the middle of

it all, holding her father’s ring in one hand and William’s mother’s brooch in the other, and she felt the cloak warm against her shoulders. William was still standing in front of her, looking at her as if he had never seen her before. You said my name, he said, and there was wonder in his voice.

You said my name, William, not my lord, not the king. You said my name. Alice laughed. A small wet sound. Is that all you heard? I heard every word, he said. I will hear them for the rest of my life. The crowd was beginning to surge around them, pulling them apart, pushing them toward the feast.

But for one moment, in the middle of the noise and the joy and the chaos, they stood close enough that Alice could see the gray of his eyes, could see the old scar on his brow, could see the way he was looking at her as if she were something precious. Marin was right, Alice said softly. About the tea? About you, she said.

She said, you look at me as if you are trying to remember how to breathe. William was quiet for a long moment. Then he reached out very slowly and to hear her hand, her left hand with the old scar on her finger, and he lifted it to his lips and kissed it. “I am,” he said. “I am remembering how to breathe.

” The winter passed the way winters do in the Thornwood territory, slowly at first, then all at once. The snow came late and left early, and by the time the first green shoots pushed through the frozen ground, Alice had begun to understand that she was no longer a guest in this place. She was home. The words still felt strained in her mouth like a pebble she had picked up from a riverbed, smooth and unfamiliar.

She turned it over when she walked the corridors of Thornwood Keep. When she sat in the kitchen with Marin, when she stood at the window of the room that was now hers, not a servant’s alco, not a visitor’s chamber, but a room with a bed she had chosen herself, with curtains the color of moss, with a small writing desk beneath the window where she kept the silver ring and the bronze brooch.

The ring had belonged to her father. The brooch had belonged to William<unk>s mother. She did not know what to do with such treasures except to keep them close. So she wore the ring on her right hand and pinned the brooch to the inside of her shawl where no one could see it but her. She touched them when she felt uncertain.

She touched them when she remembered that she had chosen and been chosen and that the choosing had not been a mistake. The first morning of spring, Alice woke to the sound of birds she had not heard since autumn. She lay still for a moment, listening to the chorus of them in the trees beyond the wall, and then she rose and dressed quickly.

There was work to do. There was always work to do in a castle that was waking from winter. But this morning, the work felt different. It felt like beginning. Marin was already in the kitchen when Alice arrived, stirring a pot of something that smelled of honey and herbs. She glanced up, her eyes sharp as ever, and pushed a steaming cup across the table.

“Drink it,” she said. It will put hair on your chest. Alice laughed and drank. The tea was bitter and sweet at once, and it warmed her all the way down. “What is it for this time?” “Spring fever,” Marin said. “Weak blood. Too much mooning about in the cold.” She fixed Alice with a look that was both stern and fond.

“You look better than you did in the autumn, girl. The color is back in your cheeks.” Alice touched her face. “I feel better,” she said, and was surprised to find that it was true. Of course you do, Marin said briskly. You eat proper now. You sleep proper. And you have someone who looks at you as if you hung the moon.

She shook her head. I have known that boy since he was in swaddling clothes, and I have never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you. Alice felt the heat rise in her cheeks. Marin, I am only saying what I see, Marin said, but she was smiling. Now eat your porridge. The king wants to see you in the solar after the morning meal.

Alice’s heart gave a small pleasant lurch. She had seen William everyday since the night of the choosing at meals, in the corridors, in the brief moments when he passed through the kitchen to speak with Marin, or to steal a piece of bread from the cooling rack. But they had not been alone together. Not truly, not since the night he had kissed her hand in the middle of the crowd.

There had always been someone nearby, a servant or a guard or a messenger. and the words that hung between them, the words about the whisper he had heard, about the night he had stood outside her window and listened to her heart’s most secret wish, had remained unspoken. She thought about those words all morning. She stirred the porridge without tasting it.

She helped Polly carry the clean linens to the drying room, and she did not notice the way Bram, the young captain of the guard, happened to be standing in the corridor at exactly the moment Polly passed, or the way he dropped the bundle of arrows he had been carrying, or the way Pauliey’s cheeks went pink as she helped him pick them up.

“The honey jar,” Alice said softly, half to herself. She remembered the autumn, the way Bram had knocked over the honey jar in the kitchen whenever Polly was near. Some things did not change with the seasons. By the time she made her way to the solar, the sun was high and warm. The solar was William’s private chamber, a round room at the top of the east tower with windows that looked out over the valley. Alice had never been inside it.

She paused at the door, uncertain, and then she raised her hand and knocked. Kmen, his voice said. It was the same voice that had said so many weeks ago, you may stay. It was the same voice that had said in front of the whole hall, “I choose you.” She still was not used to the way it made her feel, as if something in her chest had loosened, as if she could breathe properly for the first time in years.

She pushed open the door. William was standing at the window, his back to her, looking out over the valley. He was wearing a plain linen shirt, no cloak, no armor, and his dark hair was loose, falling past his collar. He looked younger like this, less like a king and more like a man. He turned when she entered, and his face, his guarded, careful face softened in a way that made Alice’s breath catch.

“Alice,” he said, “come here. Look.” She crossed the room and stood beside him at the window. The valley below was a patchwork of green and brown. The fields being turned for planting, the orchards beginning to show the faintest blush of blossom, the river glittered in the distance, and beyond it, the black pines of the thornwood rolled toward the horizon. It is beautiful, she said.

It is yours, he said. All of it if you want it. She turned to look at him. William, I have been practicing, he said, and there was something almost shy in his voice. What to say to you? I have been practicing for weeks. Marin helped. Alice blinked. Marin? She said I was hopeless. William said, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

She said, “A man who can command an army should be able to say three words to a woman he stopped and the shyness deepened. She said I should stop brooding and speak plainly.” “And have you?” Alice asked softly. “Practiced?” I have,” he said. He turned to face her fully, and she saw that he was nervous. This man who had faced armies, who had stood unmoved before Aldrich<unk>’s accusations, who had held an entire hall silent with the weight of his voice.

“He was nervous, and he was trying to hide it, and he was failing, and the failure made Alice’s heart ache with tenderness. “I heard you,” he said. The night you came, I was walking the wall and I heard you through the window. You said, he stopped and his voice dropped. You said you wished someone would choose you.

And I stood there in the dark and I thought I would choose her. I would choose her a thousand times, but I did not say it. I did not know how. Alice felt tears prick at her eyes. You did not know me then, she said. I knew enough, he said. I knew you were brave. I knew you were kind. I knew you were afraid.

And you did not let the fear make you cruel. That was enough. It was more than enough. It is more than I have ever had. William, I am saying it now, he said, and his voice was rough with feeling. I am saying it plainly, the way Marin told me to. I heard you, Alice. I heard every word you said that night, and I have carried them with me ever since. I choose you.

I chose you before I knew your name. I chose you when I did not know if you would ever look at me with anything but fear. I choose you now. In the spring, in the daylight, with my whole heart and my whole life, I choose you, and I will keep choosing you. Every day, for as long as you will let me.

The tears were falling now, and Alice did not bother to wipe them away. She reached up and touched his face, her fingers tracing the old scar on his brow, the line of his jaw, the hollow beneath his cheekbone. “You heard me,” she whispered. “All this time. You heard me. I heard you,” he said. “And I have been trying to find the words to tell you ever since.

” “You found them,” Alice said. “You found them tonight.” He caught her hand and pressed it to his chest, where his heart beat strong and steady beneath her palm. “Say it,” he said. “I need to hear you say it. Not in front of the hall, not for the sake of the crowd, just to me. Say you choose me.” Alice looked at him, this man who had been a stranger in the autumn, who had become a presence in her life, a warmth in her chest, a reason to hope.

She remembered the night she had stood at the window of her small room, alone and afraid, and whispered a wish she had never dared to voice aloud. She remembered believing that no one would ever hear it, that no one would ever answer. She had been wrong. He had been listening all along. “I choose you,” she said.

“I choose you, William of House Thornbed. I choose your castle.” and quote on people and your cold drafty hall. I choose your solemn face and your clumsy words and the way you feed the deer in the pines. I choose you on the days when you are easy to love. And I will choose you on the days when you are not.

I choose you for today and I will choose you for tomorrow. And I will keep choosing you for as long as you will let me. He let out a breath that seemed to have been held for years. And he pulled her into his arms and held her there, his face buried in her hair. She could feel the tremor in his hands, the way he held her as if she were something precious, something he had been afraid to touch for fear she would disappear.

“I am sorry it took me so long,” he murmured into her hair. “I am sorry I made you wait. I am sorry I was a coward.” “You were not a coward,” Alice said. “You were careful. You were kind. You were.” She pulled back to look at him, and she was laughing and crying at once. you were practicing. William laughed, a low surprised sound, and the laugh transformed his face, made him look young and open and unguarded.

Marin said I needed a better strategy than brooding in silence. Marin is a wise woman, Alice said. She is, William agreed. She is also insufferable, and she will tell everyone in the castle that she was the one who brought us together. Was she not? William considered this. She was the one who told me to speak plainly, he admitted, but I would have found the words eventually. I was working up to it.

You had months, Alice said, smiling. I am slow, William said. I am very slow. But I am thorough and I am patient and I am. He stopped and a different look crossed his face. I am yours if you will have me. If you will stay. Alice reached up and touched the brooch pinned inside her shawl.

She, Lava Blame’s mother, a woman she had never met, a woman who had loved her son and left him too soon. She thought of her own father who had died when she was too young to remember his face, leaving only a silver ring and a legacy of being passed from hand to hand like a parcel no one wanted. She was no longer a parcel.

She was no longer someone to be handed over, to be traded, to be moved from place to place at the convenience of others. She was someone who had been asked and who had answered and who had been chosen in return. I will stay, she said. I will stay and I will not be a burden and I will not be a guest and I will not be a thing to be passed along when you grow tired of me.

I will be. You will be my wife, William said. And the words hung in the air between them, simple and enormous. If you want to be, I am asking. I am asking you properly, the way I should have asked from the beginning. Alice, will you be my wife? Will you stand beside me, not behind me? Will you rule this land with me and grow old with me and quarrel with me about the weather and the harvest and whether the kitchen should serve turnips or parsnips at the autumn feast? Alice laughed and the laugh turned into a sob and the sob

turned into a smile that felt too wide for her face. You are asking me to marry you after all this time. You are asking me now in the solar with no ceremony and no priest and no I am asking you. He said I should have asked you weeks ago. I should have asked you the night I first heard your voice.

I am asking you now and I will ask you again tomorrow and I will keep asking you every day until you say yes. Yes, Alice said. Yes, William. Yes, I will be your wife. Yes, I will stand beside you. Yes, I will grow old with you and quarrel. Len with you about turnips and parsnips. She was laughing and crying and she could not stop. Yes, yes, yes.

He kissed her then, not the careful kiss of a king bending to a subject, but the kiss of a man who had waited a very long time to hold the woman he loved. It was a kiss that tasted of spring, of new beginnings, of the thaw after a long and bitter winter. When they finally drew a part, Alice was breathless, and William was smiling a real smile, open and unguarded, the kind of smile she had only seen him wear in the privacy of the pines when he thought no one was watching. “I love you,” he said.

“I have been practicing that, too. I love you, Alice. I love you more than I know how to say. I love you, Alice said. I love you and I choose you and I will keep choosing you for the rest of my life. They stood together at the window looking out over the valley that was now theirs, not in the sense of ownership, but in the sense of belonging.

The fields were being planted, the orchards were beginning to blossom, the river glittered in the sun, and beyond it the pines of the thornwood stood dark and ancient and full of life. Alice thought of the night she had arrived, alone and afraid, and whispered a wish into the darkness.

She thought of the words she had never expected anyone to hear. And she thought of the man standing beside her, who had heard them, and who had answered them, and who had chosen her, not out of duty, not out of obligation, but out of love. She touched the ring on her right hand. She touched the brooch beneath her shawl, and she took William’s hand in hers, their fingers twining together.

and she did not let go. “Spring at Thornwood,” she said softly. “I never thought I would see it.” William looked down at her and his gray eyes were warm. “You will see many springs,” he said. “You will see them all if I have anything to say about it. You will have everything to say about it,” Alice said, and she leaned into him, feeling the solid warmth of him against her side.

“You are the alpha king. You always have something to say about everything.” William laughed. I am learning to say the right things, he said. Marin is teaching me. Remind me to thank her, Alice said. She has done more for us than she knows. They were quiet for a long moment, watching the valley. Then Alice spoke again, her voice soft, almost a whisper, the way she had whispered on that first night.

“Someone chose me,” she said. “Someone heard me and someone chose me. And I did not even know I was waiting for it until it happened.” William tightened his hand around hers. “I would choose you again,” he said. A thousand times, 10,000 times. “Every time I see you, I would choose you again.

” “And I would choose you,” Alice said. “Every time, every day, forever.” In the kitchen below, Marin was pouring two cups of her bittersweet tea. In the corridor, Bram had finally managed to speak a full sentence to Polly without dropping anything. In the valley the farmers were turning the soil, and in the pines a deer with a broken antler was grazing on the new spring grass, unafraid, at peace.

And in the solar at the top of the east tower, a woman who had been passed from hand to hand like a thing without worth stood beside a man who had been alone for most of his life, and they held hands, and they looked out over the land they would share, and they did not need to say anything more.

They had already said everything that mattered. I wish someone would choose me, she had murmured in the dark. And he had heard her, and he had chosen her. And that was the beginning of everything. And so, dear listener, the girl who was never chosen finally found her home, and the king who walked in shadows found his light.

Sometimes the quietest wishes echo the loudest. If Alice and Williams journey warmed your heart by our fireside today, subscribe and tell me in the comments what is the deepest wish you’re waiting for someone to hear. Until next time, keep the fire burning and good