"Father, you asked for me?"
Edrien stepped into the king's study, a dark space despite the large size and number of candles that burned. It was as if the very walls soaked the light from the room, leaving one's eyes to adjust if they had any hope of making out details. He never remembered it being this dark when grandfather used this room—but memories have a way of distorting.
"Yes, come in," King Alestan boomed, waving him in as if he was just another servant.
Edrien's eyes ran over his father's desk, parchment and letters lining the surface in patchwork fashion, a disorder of requests and demands. Then his eyes caught on a name—Lady Rhosyn Valewyn—and he lingered.
"I wanted to—"
"You're not going to accept this, are you father?" Edrien questioned, leaning over the polished wood and inked paper.
Alestan grumbled under his breath, irritated from being interrupted. "Why shouldn't I?" the words, cutting and sharp.
"Because, Rhosyn deserves a better match than Lord Merrow," Edrien argued, something hot coiling within him at his father's laxed expression.
The king hummed as he contemplated the letter, but there was no humour or pleasantries behind it. His fingers curled around the parchment, crinkling it in a fist.
"Better?" he asked simply. "Like who, Edrien—you?"
Edrien hadn't expected his father's hostility, though he didn't expect his father to rejoice happily and fawn over himself either. But Alestan was unhinged, and Edrien needed to tread carefully not to start a battle—his father loved a war.
"Father, it's—"
"Bed her, get her out of your system or take her as your mistress, boy. But whatever you do, don't marry her," his father warned.
The words crawled uncomfortably over him, and Edrien couldn't help the shocked expression he wore. To even suggest taking his Rhos as a lover in name only, his hand fisted.
"And why shouldn't I marry her?" he fired back, rage simmering just beneath the surface, but he tried to stay logical. "We'll keep your precious hold on the Ravelocke Duchy—"
"I already have the duchy," his father cut him off swiftly.
"Only until she marries, and when she does, it goes to her husband."
"I'm the king and her guardian, I choose who she marries and if she even does!"
"She's nearly twenty-one, father, even you can't hold back one of Aramor's oldest laws," Edrien retorted.
"I can do anything, son, this is my kingdom," Alestan seethed. "It's like arguing with her uncle all over again…" he half muttered. "With the girl, we'll gain nothing new. But with a Celandre Princess we'll gain the Corsta Isles."
His father hadn't changed. He didn't care for Edrien's desires—he was just one more piece on the board that he could play with.
"You'll be visiting Celandre in a few weeks—prepare yourself."
The image of his father's stern face faded away when the approaching footsteps drew him from his thoughts. Rhosyn returned, a pretty smile warming her face when her eyes fell on him and he couldn't resist smiling back.
After the argument with his father, he went to the only place where he felt happy—Rhosyn.
He wanted more than anything to claim her on her 21st birthday. Announce to the kingdom that they're engaged and watch as his father tries to worm his way out of it. But Edrien knew he would. His father had his eyes set on Princess Claude—well, the Corsta Isles.
"You're fretting over something," Rhosyn's voice sang to him as she made her way to join him on the sofa—she knew him too well.
"Is it really that obvious?" he asked, humour entering his voice, the way they always danced when they talked.
Rhosyn set expectant eyes on him, and he lost himself in them for a moment. She was so damn beautiful, and he wondered if he could give her up. He's wanted her for as long as he can remember—had her, as she was given to him. But now he had to either give her up, or ruin her.
And something dangerously selfish whispered deep.
Edrien sighed. "Fine, other than you nearly getting killed by some other party," their dry humour, an odd thing that they enjoyed. "Lord Merrow has asked for your hand as your 21st birthday is coming up."
She blinked, the only indication that she was taken aback by the news. She was calculating again—planning. Her eyes intently on him as she thought and he marvelled at her.
"What's the plan?" he finally asked, agitatedly bouncing his leg as he waited.
"Well," she breathed, eyes sparkling—a good plan then. "All I need is time," she explained. "Enough time for me to find someone more suitable."
"Suitable?"
"Yes," Rhosyn nodded. "Someone who would let me run my duchy."
"Is that it?" Edrien sat forward, annoyance slipping into his tone.
She blinked at him, sobered. "What else is there?"
She'll give up love—him—for autonomy to run her land.
"I just need a little more time, I was thinking of using your idea to force the king's hand by announcing—"
"I'm engaged, Rhos."
The room shifted eerily quiet. A draft seeped in through the open door and even Caerwyn slipped out the room. Rhosyn wore her usual stone-face, the one that was impenetrable, though he was sure something screamed behind her eyes—hoped.
Where she sat utterly still, Edrien couldn't stop shifting. He didn't know what agitated him more, the fact that she hadn't said anything yet, or that he wanted to take the words back and couldn't.
"Who is she?" her voice came quieter he was sure, the faint soft curve of her lips, polite.
Edrien clenched his jaw—this was not what he wanted. "She's a Celandre princess."
Silence lived in the space between them for a moment and they let it breathe. They needed something to relieve the suffocating news.
He would soon marry a foreign princess, and Rhosyn would marry a man his father picked. Probably to the highest bidder if he knew his father.
"It feels strange to think that we're not children anymore..." her words barely a whisper—but for the quiet, it was a proclamation. "Soon, we'll marry and have kids of our own." Rhosyn's eyes held his, a mix of bitter-sweet sorrow.
It felt wrong that the thought could hurt and comfort him at the same time.
Children of their own, but not their own. They'd each have a spouse chosen to suit the crown and the ledger, but their lives would still tangle together in all the spaces in between. He wanted to tell her everything—how she made him feel too much, how he wanted to save her and claim her and give her the world.
Instead, he reached for the safer jest.
"Let's hope they take after you," he said lightly, "that way they have a half-decent chance at life."
It was so normal, it almost hurt.
She huffed a breath that was almost a laugh, eyes dropping to her hands. "They'd be insufferable, then."
Edrien watched the way her fingers worried at the seam of the cushion, the way her shoulders sat too square for someone talking about some distant, hypothetical husband. He didn't like the idea of anyone having Rhosyn. His mind refused to picture it—or wouldn't let him. Some delusional part of him still whispered that he could keep her, that there might be a way around his father, around the law, around everything.
If he couldn't marry her… could he ruin her for everyone else?
The thought made his stomach turn. He was not his father. He would not take his Rhos and tuck her into the shadowed corners of his life like a toy the king had forbidden. And yet the darker part of him still prodded: if she married some placid little lord, some meek man who worshiped the crown from a safe distance, perhaps—
No. Merrow was not that man. Merrow was too slimy, too greedy, too much like looking into a warped mirror of his own worst traits. Edrien knew what men like that took when they wanted something. He would not hand Rhosyn over to that.
An almost awkward air settled between them, thick with all the things neither of them could say. He leaned in, laying his hand over hers where it rested on the sofa cushion. Her skin was softer than it had any right to be for someone who spent so much time wrestling with ledgers and lords. She drew a short, bracing breath, and something in her eyes sharpened—like she'd made a decision and he might be part of it.
His fingers curled around hers and, after a heartbeat, her hand coiled back around his. A storm ran through him.
"I'll help you find a husband, Rhos," he promised, the words rasping more than he meant them to. "But you're right. We need to buy time—your birthday is only a week away."
Her smile felt earned, and it made him ache.
"No matter what happens, you'll always be my Rhos," he added, quiet but certain.
"I'm not sure your future wife would like you being my Ed," she teased, a small, rich giggle escaping, the sound tugging at every softer part of him.
"Nothing will stop that," he said, trying for light and failing to hide the steel beneath it. "Not even a queen."
For a moment it was almost easy to pretend the world outside the office didn't exist. That there was no letter from Merrow on his father's desk, no Celandrean princess waiting across the sea, no law breathing down Rhosyn's neck demanding she marry for the kingdom.
Then a draft crept in under the door, stirring the candle flames and making the shadows jump, and reality settled back over his shoulders like a cloak that didn't quite fit.
He loosened her hand gently, afraid that if he held on any longer he wouldn't be able to let go at all.