Rush was kind enough to have coffee out for them. The aroma was pleasant and gave Kylar some peace of mind as he looked at the notes again. Tessa scratched through a line about packing up some of the smithy items. They must have gotten that done yesterday at some point.
Two taps on the table.
He looked up to Tess and waited.
He looked from her hands to her eyes and thought about it. His eyes went down to her throat then. His hands pulled away from his cup slowly as he thought of how to say it.
He let his hands fall to the table slowly as she took it in.
"I can ask" He added after seeing the pain in her eyes. "...maybe she can."
Her attention went to the stairs from a creak in the wood above them. She knocked twice on the wood and got up and pushed the chair back in. Her hands were quick to come up but stopped for a moment. He waited, like he always had since she had to learn how to talk like this because of him.
Kairi came down the steps two at a time and turned stopping seeing them sitting and standing.
"Morning! Ready for another uneventful day of watching me work?"
The little shop felt different with the door propped open, bell looped out of the way. Morning customers came in pulses: a woman wanting something for cracked knuckles, a lad looking for a bar that didn’t smell too “flowery,” a man dropping off a sack of flour in trade. Kairi mentioned she could try making bread again. It sounded like last time didn't end well.
Kairi moved between counter and back room like she’d been born on that stretch of floor. Kylar took up position behind the counter, half-shadow, half-extra pair of hands. He wrapped bars as she talked, stacked jars where she pointed, and tried not to look like a prince who had never once in his life needed to ask the price of soap. She only teased that he doesn't have to pay for things like that when the barracks gives out rations of supplies.
“You can smile, you know,” she murmured to him at one point, under her breath as she passed. “You look like you’re about to arrest someone for improper lathering.” He raised an eyebrow, fighting down his own grin. “That is a serious offense.”
“Oh, absolutely.” She shook her head and went to fetch more wrapped bars. Mid-morning brought something a touch more serious.
“Willow?” An older woman leaned in, apron still on, flour dusting her arms. She held her hand in an odd half-curl. “Oven bit me. Again.”
Kairi waved her in at once. “Come sit. Let me see.” The burn stretched angry and red across the back of the woman’s hand, already starting to swell. Kylar moved without needing to be asked now, fetching a clean bowl, cool water, the little pot of honey they kept for these. Kairi cooled the burn in the water first, murmuring nonsense about rude ovens and greedy bread to keep the woman’s attention away from the sting. She patted the skin dry, spread a thin layer of honey and salve, and wrapped it in a loose, protective bandage.
“You’ll need to keep it clean,” she said. “No kneading today.” The woman made a face. “Who’ll do it then? Festivals coming up.” Kairi tilted her head toward the street. “Make any of those boys hanging around your shop useful. Tell them your apothecary said so.” Kylar, leaning against the shelf, caught the woman’s eye and gave the smallest of approving nods, backing Kairi’s authority without saying a word. That seemed to settle it. The woman chuckled. “All right then. I’ll tell them the guard will come yell at them if they don’t.”
“I’d never yell,” Kylar said mildly. “His disappointed look is worse,” Kairi added. The woman laughed outright at that, thanked them both, and went out with her hand cradled against her chest. Kairi watched her go for a moment, then let out a small breath and turned back to the table.
“You handled that well,” Kylar said.
“She’s burned that same spot three years running,” Kairi said. “You remember things.”
“I’m learning that,” he murmured.
The hours flowed like that: small needs, minor aches, Kairi’s steady competence at the center of it all. He could feel the map of Brindlecross settling into him in new ways, not just streets and walls and sightlines now, but people and patterns and the way they said her name.
By mid-afternoon, the trickle slowed. Kairi wiped her hands on a cloth, considering the bowls cooling along the far shelf.
“Come here a minute,” she said. Kylar, who had been reorganizing a stack of jars purely to soothe his own sense of order, turned. She went into the supply room and came back with a small wrapped rectangle, palm-sized, tied with a bit of red thread.
“I know you liked the pine,” she said, almost offhand. “So I… set one aside. For your kit. When you are sent somewhere else away from home.”
She held it out like it wasn’t a big thing. Her ears had gone a little pink, which he noticed then the scars again where she had clipped them. He took it carefully, thumb brushing the rough paper. The scent of pine came through faintly, clean and sharp, mixed with something he recognized now as her. Her choices, her hands, her work.
“This is for me?” he asked, because his brain had apparently stopped. “For Onyx,” she said, deadpan. “He hates bath day.” He huffed. “He does,” he admitted, then looked back down at the packet. “Thank you.”
“You're welcome” she said, turning away under the pretense of straightening an already-straight stack.
He tucked the little bar into an inner pocket of his coat with the same care he used for letters. It felt… disproportionate, how much one bit of soap could weigh in his chest. It nudged another thought loose: the letter she’d sent, the one still waiting, folded and unread, in the bottom of his satchel because Rush had interrupted and life had not stopped since. He added read it to the quiet, growing list of things he owed her.
Lists... He turned to look at the list of things they needed to pack and get ready before Damon and company interrupted all of this.
When she turned back from the shelf, she caught him looking at the list.
“I need to make extra,” she said, nodding toward it. “before we leave. Leave enough here so they’re well stocked for a while. Salves, ointments, the basics. So no one’s stuck waiting on the capital if they burn themselves or fall off a wall again.”
Her fingers worried the edge of the cloth in her hands. Then, a little more carefully: “There are herbs I like to gather fresh. Up in the hills by the mountains, good comfrey, yarrow, a few things I can’t grow well here.” She glanced at him. “Would you come? It’s a walk. Easier with two. And I don’t think Rush will let me wander off alone with the festival so close.”
Kylar didn’t even have to think about it. “Of course,” he said. “Onyx would love more time with you.” His mouth quirked. “Traitor horse.”
That pulled a real laugh from her, bright and quick. “Tomorrow, then,” she said. “If the weather holds.”
He nodded, “Tomorrow. If your brother says it's okay"
By the time the sun slid toward the rooftops, the shop door was closed again, bell looped back over the hook. Tessa looked at the tidy little boxes she had packed away from the list. Rush came back in looking tired and worn out. He sat down and looked at them at the table. They were just sitting there as Kairi was checking what all she wanted to make before they left and Kylar was keeping his gaze, waiting. Kairi looked over to him. "Tired?"
Rush signed something haltingly at Kairi that Kylar recognized as
Kairi’s face lit. “You’re getting it” she said.
Tessa tapped his wrist twice and signed
Kylar signed back,
Rush snorted. “I know what that one is,” he said. “Traitors, both of you.”
Dinner was slower that night, fatigue settling in the corners. Kairi talked about the baker’s burn and possibly trying to make bread. Rush mentioned what has been completed and how he would need to talk to a couple people around the town before the escort comes. Partway through, Kairi glanced up from her bowl, as if remembering something.
“Oh—tomorrow,” she said. “After the baker and the morning orders come through, Kylar and I were going to do a herb run. Up in the hills. I need comfrey, yarrow, a few things before we go.”
Silence fell just long enough to notice. Rush’s gaze slid from her to Kylar and stayed there. It wasn’t hostile, exactly, but it was measuring in a way Kylar knew down to the bone. The kind of look he had seen his father give Ryder before letting him take on more responsibilities for the kingdom.
Kylar kept his eyes steady on his stew for one beat, then made himself look up and meet it. He held Rush’s stare without flinching, without trying to soften his own expression into anything charming. Just here I am, this is what you get.
Across the table, Kairi’s fork hovered halfway to her mouth. Tessa glanced between the men, dark eyes bright, catching every beat. After a moment that felt longer than it was, Rush exhaled through his nose, some decision settling.
“All right,” he said at last. “You can go.” Kylar felt relief. He was making progress here.
“But,” Rush went on, before Kairi could grin, “Tessa goes too.”
Kairi blinked. “Rush, you don’t have to—”
“I do,” he cut in, not unkind. “I’ve got to talk to half the town tomorrow anyway. The mayor, Branson, the baker, Vivian’s husband… whoever’s going to help when we put this house up for sale and decide what we’re leaving. I've already started these conversations, they just need the final details now." He glanced to his sister kinder than before. "Besides, having two guards to carry all your herbs, plants and random stones you bring home wouldn't be terrible."
Tessa’s brows lifted. She signed, wry,
Rush gave a short, humorless huff. “Exactly.” Kylar let out the breath he hadn’t quite realized he was holding. Some small, selfish part of him sagged, he’d liked the thought of just the two of them in the hills, but the rest of him couldn’t find fault. Tessa at Kairi’s side was never a bad idea. Tessa wouldn't have let him go alone anyway. And Rush trusting him enough to say go at all… that counted.
“Understood,” Kylar said quietly. “We’ll be back before dark.”
Rush held his gaze one heartbeat longer, then nodded once and went back to his stew as if the matter were settled. Kairi, sitting between them, let her shoulders drop the tiniest bit in relief and bumped Kylar’s knee under the table. He nudged back, just enough that she’d feel it and no one else would see.
He found his gaze straying to the list on the wall more than once after that. The words blurred after a while: blankets, books, herbs to dig up, Onyx’s bridle, Tessa’s knives… Kairi’s handwriting there beside Rush’s and Tessa’s, all of them trying to put order on something that would never feel entirely orderly.
After the table was cleared, the evening broke apart into small tasks: Tessa sharpening a knife with slow, even strokes; Rush working through a few signs one more time; Kairi wiping down the counter and setting aside a few bars for the baker to pick up in the morning.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Another good day,” Rush said eventually, leaning back in his chair with a tired sigh.
Kairi nodded after checking her list one more time. " I have a couple more orders that need picked up before the festival. Then...its just extras to leave with anyone who will need them." She leaned against Rush's chair and tilted her head. " Are you going to dance this time?"
His eyes slid closed and he grumbled. "No" Kairi nudged him. "Come on, it will be fun! One last dance in Brindlecross."
"No...I've had more than enough dances in my lifetime." He muttered.
Kylar was on the couch listening while he tidied up his notes for the day for reports later. Then her weight was beside him looking at his notes. "You do the same thing Jayce does. Writes little notes about the day." He shrugged. "Habit now, he trained me for the most part." He gestured to Tessa reading. " She did the rest." Kairi nodded once taking that in and just sat beside him and pulled her book out to read. They sat like that as the evening went on in their own circles of relaxing. For a moment he looked at his own handwriting pausing on the thought if this quick jotted scribbles were different enough from his careful hand in the letter he wrote her. He closed the journal trying not to think more on it now.
As lamps were turned down and bedding brought out, the house folded into its nighttime shapes. Rush disappeared to his room, grumbling amiably about sore hands. Tessa claimed her pallet, signed a lazy
Kairi hovered a moment by the bottom of the stairs, looking back toward the little shop, as if she could see tomorrow’s work already waiting there. Kylar caught her eye.
“Worried?” he asked.
She shrugged one shoulder. “Just a day. The baker’s picking up in the morning. Then the hills, if the weather behaves. Mena says we’re trying the pins again tomorrow night. Raelin says if you hide in the back room she’ll come haul you out herself.”
He made a face. “Noted. I’ll increase security.”
Her mouth softened. “Thank you,” she said again, and he knew this time it wasn’t just for today. It was for being in her space without trying to rearrange it. For saying yes to her herbs. For not arguing when Rush added Tessa to the plan. “Get some sleep, Willow” he said with warmth. “You have a town to manage in the morning. And a mountain to bully into giving up its plants.”
She rolled her eyes at him, but the corner of her mouth stayed curved as she turned and went up.
He lay down on his pallet a little later, the smell of stew, pine soap and ink still hanging in the air, and listened to the house settle around him. Somewhere above, a floorboard creaked as Kairi moved in her room. On the other side of the main room, Tessa was already breathing evenly, solid as a drawn blade between worlds.
In his pocket, the pine bar pressed a small, steady weight against his ribs. He pulled it out and placed it in his pack and looked at the letter there. He pulled it out holding it for a handful of heartbeats before he slipped it into his inner pocket of his jacket.
Sleep came easier than it had any right to. When it found him, it brought the place his soul called home.
Ryder walked down the corridor toward the guest wing. It had always been a quiet part of the palace, meant for visiting nobles, diplomats, and foreign visitors. Today it held something different. The sound of trunks being shifted. A low murmur of women's voices. The faint clink of porcelain. and under it all, the simple fact that she said yes this time.
Not to marriage. Not yet. To the in-between thing he’d offered months ago, standing in the shadow of her parents’ house while the carriage waited: When you come back to the city… there’s a place for you in Carlbrin. In the palace. If you want it. To learn what life here is like. Properly. Before we ask more of you.
He’d meant it as a promise, half as a hope. He’d expected politeness, time, some future conversation where they circled around the idea again.
Instead, six months and a ream of letters later, Serenity LaRue had stepped out of her carriage into the palace courtyard, looked up at the stone and glass and banners, and said, “If the offer still stands… I’d like to stay.” Now she was down the corridor, moving into a guest suite that had seen minor princes and foreign envoys and never once someone he’d asked to court. Ryder closed the ledger he’d been pretending to read and set it aside.
Work could wait. For once. He was already walking this way and his thoughts were scrambled with too many thoughts for ledgers anyway. He paused for a moment to smooth an imaginary crease from his sleeve. Ridiculous, that he could face a council chamber full of bickering lords without checking his reflection and then get wrong-footed by one woman and her unpacked trunks.
You’re not seventeen, he told himself wryly, and continued. The palace had a different quiet here than in the state halls. No echo of booted patrols or the distant roar of the great hall. Just rugs softening footsteps, light pouring in through tall windows, the occasional clatter of a servant shifting a stool.
Serenity’s door stood open. He knocked on the frame anyway.
“Come in,” she called, voice light, and he did. The guest suite had transformed in a way only a woman used to making spaces her own could manage in half a day. One trunk open, clothes folded in careful layers across a low bench. A shawl, he recognized the pattern from a sketch in one of her letters, draped over the back of a chair. A vase with three fresh sprigs of something green on the windowsill, stealing light.
And Serenity, in the midst of it all. She stood near the wardrobe, bare feet on the rug, sleeves rolled to her elbows as she debated the fate of a stack of books. Her hair was half up, half down, pinned in a way that bared the length of her neck. Six months ago it had fallen straighter; now it had a faint wave to it, maybe there was some humidity in the air. Damon complained about it sometimes when he was trying to be roguish, but the curls came anyway.
She turned at the sound of his step. For a heartbeat the world did that odd, slow thing where memory and present overlapped, Serenity on a country road with dust on her hem; Serenity here, with sunlight at her shoulder.
“Highness,” she said, and dipped a small curtsey out of habit.
He grimaced. “Ryder,” he reminded her. “Please. If you’re going to insist on living in my house, we can at least skip the formal titles when there’s no one to impress.” Her mouth curved. “There are always walls,” she said. “Walls have ears.”
“Then we’ll bribe the walls,” he said. “With fresh plaster. They like that.” It earned him a real laugh, quick and unguarded. His chest loosened a fraction.
“You’re sure I’m not… intruding?” she asked after a moment, gesturing around the room. “I know this wing is for important people.”
“You’re very important,” he said before he could dress it up. “To the crown. To me.” He cleared his throat. “And we invited you. It would be rude to change our minds now that your trunks have done all the hard work.”
Her eyes softened at that. “Your father?” she asked. “He seemed… pleased. At breakfast.” Ryder thought of King Niveus’s expression when Serenity had been announced in the hall, how quickly the formal smile had turned genuine, old fondness easing lines from his face. “He is hoping to see one of his sons married and grandchildren shortly after."
She flushed, laughing. “oh"
“He also has watched us for years.” Ryder said dryly. “He’s delighted you’re staying. He said, and I quote, ‘About time you brought someone with sense into this madness.’” Her brows rose. “Someone? Singular? I’m flattered and alarmed.”
“As you should be,” Ryder said. The easy banter sat comfortably between them, a road worn by letters. Up close, though, the small differences tugged at his notice. The way she held her shoulders, a fraction more squared than before. The cadence of her speech, half a beat slower when she reached for a word. She’d always been careful with her phrasing; now it was… finer, somehow, like lace worked over the same scaffolding.
Six months, he reminded himself. People change. You’ve had courts and councils and a war on your horizon. She’s had her own life.
“Can I help?” he asked, nodding toward the books. She hesitated, then handed him two small stacks. “If you don’t mind putting these on the table,” she said. “I keep changing my mind about the shelf order.” He took them, noting titles as he set them down. A history of western trade routes. A slim volume of poetry he knew she liked. A treatise on governance that had once sparked a four-page argument in the margins of a letter.
“Light reading,” he observed. “Blame you,” she said. “You’re the one who kept sending me copies of your council notes.”
“They were supposed to scare you off,” he said. “You were meant to take one look at the budget sheets and decide no sane person would want to marry into this mess.” She gave him a look over her shoulder. “You miscalculated.”
“Story of my life,” he murmured. She paused in her folding, fingers resting on the spine of the poetry book. “I’m not naive, Ryder,” she said quietly. “About what this will ask. About what people will expect of me if—when—we make this formal.” The if and when both hit him in the same place.
“I know,” he said, equally quiet. “That’s why I wanted you here. To see it before you’re in the middle of it. To let you walk the corridors and hate them, if that’s what happens.”
“And if I don’t hate them?” she asked. He allowed himself a small smile. “Then we’ll talk to the priesthood and the scribes and everyone whose job it is to make two people’s lives more complicated with ink. Sign a lot of papers, have a grand ceremony. The works."
She laughed again, but he caught the way her eyes slid briefly toward the window, toward the distant white line of the palace walls against the city. “You mentioned… small differences,” she said suddenly. He blinked. “Did I?”
“In your last letter,” she said. “You said when people come back after a long time apart, you always notice the small differences first. The way they take their tea. The side they favor when they sit. The new lines at the corners of their eyes.” He remembered writing it, ink smudged on his thumb, a late hour, trying to explain why Jayce looked different each time he returned from a long patrol. The wanting there, the ache. Sometimes the joy he carried or a new tea he brought for them to try. “I did say that,” he admitted. “You took it as a warning?”
“As a challenge,” she said. “To see what you’d notice.” He studied her, letting himself actually look instead of only glancing. Her hairline pulled a touch differently where she’d started braiding it higher. She wore a different ring than the last time he’d seen her, a small, simple band on her right hand, not left. Her steps were quieter, more measured; she paused a fraction before addressing each servant, as if weighing titles.
“You’ve grown more terrifying,” he said finally, earning a startled huff. “You walk like someone who knows half the hall is watching and wants them to trip over their own feet instead.” She tilted her head, considering. “Not entirely wrong,” she said. “Court is a performance. I thought it might be useful to start… rehearsing.” The answer sat true enough. Still, something in the back of his mind hummed, dissatisfied, like a string a half-step out of tune. When she poured tea for them both, she sweetened hers with honey instead of the splash of cream he remembered. When he commented, she smiled and said, “I’m trying to avoid cream before council meals. It sits poorly if I have to argue.”
He accepted it. He wanted to accept it.
They spent the late morning walking. He showed her the small gardens tucked between wings, the ones few visitors saw. The gallery with the paintings of past kings and queens, some stern, some laughing, one whose nose had been accidentally smudged by a toddler Ryder himself, years ago.
“Will you hang here?” she asked, head tipped, considering the empty stretch of wall near the end. “If we survive long enough,” he said. “And if the artist is kind.”
“You’ll insist on honesty,” she said. “You always do.” There it was again, that note of certainty, of knowing him. In some places it fit like a glove; in others it brushed against things she couldn’t possibly know from letters and rare visits. How he stood when he was too tired to show it. How he ran a finger along the edge of the old map of Tearia when he thought no one was looking.
Six months of letters, his mind argued. Maybe she had been paying more attention than he thought.
They lingered near the east windows where morning light spilled in thick and warm. He found himself watching the way she watched the city.
“The escort will take that road,” he said, nodding toward the distant northern gate. “If the weather holds.” Serenity followed his gaze. “This is the… routine security matter you wrote about?” she asked. Her tone was casual; her knuckles had whitened slightly on the windowsill. He let his hand rest over hers, just for a moment. “Routine for us,” he said. “Less so for the people we’re bringing in. New lives. Old debts.” She didn’t look at him. She turned her hand under his and weaved her fingers with his. “Will you be gone long?” she asked. “I won’t be going,” he said, and watched her surprise flicker and squeezed her hand lightly. “Jayce leads the escort. Damon goes. Dato is already there ready for the escort to come.” His mouth twisted. “If I leave, the entire court takes it as license to panic. Someone has to stay and keep the lords from setting the council chamber on fire.”
She glanced at their joined hands, then out at the road again. “I see,” she said. “Then I suppose I’ll have to find ways to keep your seat warm in the gallery while you’re minding the flames.” The image of her in the council gallery, taking notes, watching, learning where the knives were, was both comforting and oddly sharp, like a future that had stepped a bit closer while he wasn’t looking. "Come on" He he said and pulled her along. "Let's go eat."
They ate in the smaller family dining room at midday: just Ryder, his father, Serenity, and two empty chairs where Damon and Dato should be. Dato's was expected to be empty, Damon who knew where he was. Niveus asked after her family; she answered with the right details, the right warmth. When the dessert course came and the cook sent out honey cakes, Niveus brightened.
“Your favorite,” he said, pleased. “From that winter you wouldn’t eat anything else.” Serenity hesitated a heartbeat too long, then smiled. “I… haven’t had them in a long time,” she said. “Thank you.” She ate them. She didn’t quite hide the way the sweetness seemed to surprise her. A small thing. A half-beat. Maybe she was trying to have an appetite of a lady to impress the court. He had seen plenty of ladies at the dances eye the cakes and tarts, but never touch. After the meal his father drifted off to his papers, humming an old marching song under his breath. Ryder walked Serenity back toward the guest wing.
“You don’t have to spend every waking moment in these halls,” he said as they walked. “The city is yours to explore, with a guard. The markets, the lake. If you want.”
She glanced at him, something like curiosity in her eyes. "Only with a guard?" He nodded. " I wouldn't want anything bad to happen. In case some disgruntled noble that is angry with me tries to take it out on you." She nodded with her appreciation for her well being. "I meant more so, what about with you, Ryder?" She said softer, without really looking into his face. She gazed at his shoulder as his eyes watched hers. The uncertainty there. Maybe, she has just been scared again. His shy, unsure Serenity. "Whenever I have the time, I am all yours my love." He answered as honest as he could. The way her eyes brightened looking up into his removed all his concerns and doubts from today. She was just nervous. Give it time.
He took her hand, bent and kissed it. "I will leave you here for now. I will come find you when I have spare time tomorrow. I promise." Her smile was warm and he started making lists in his mind of things to do with his Serenity.