Jayce rode with Kylar on the carriage’s shadowed flank, close enough to talk without shouting, far enough to keep an eye on the tree line.

  The road out of Brindlecross had that early-winter smell of dust and leaves and worked earth. Wagons rutted the lane into familiar grooves, and the wheels of the royal carriage made the same old sound any farmer’s cart did, just steadier, better greased. Behind them, the town’s noise thinned into birdsong and the occasional bark of a dog that had decided the world could keep turning without its opinion.

  Jayce watched Kylar in the way he always did when he was presented more publicly than he had wanted. Kylar rode like he always did on duty, posture easy, reins light, eyes scanning without making a show of it. No mask. No shadowed anonymity. Just the Prince’s face in open air, and the guard’s habits holding him together like stitching.

  Jayce could see the strain in the tiny things: the way Kylar’s jaw set when the carriage wheels slowed near a bend, the way his gaze flicked to rooftops even after they’d cleared the last of the town. Like he kept expecting the world to remember his name and throw something at him for it.

  “Alright,” Jayce said after a stretch of quiet that had started to feel like a test. “How was your week?”

  Kylar didn’t look over. His eyes stayed on the hedgerows. “Long.”

  “That’s not an answer,” Jayce said. “That’s a sigh with manners.”

  A corner of Kylar’s mouth twitched. “It was… good.” He hesitated on the word as if it might bite. “Hard. But good.”

  Jayce leaned in his saddle a fraction, matching Kylar’s pace so their horses’ hooves fell into the same rhythm. “You’re going to make me pry, aren’t you.”

  “I’m going to make you suffer,” Kylar muttered.

  Jayce laughed, because it was that or admit how relieved he was to hear Kylar sound like himself. “Start with the festival,” he said. “I need the truth. I heard there was dancing.”

  Kylar made a sound through his nose that was halfway a groan, halfway resignation. “Don’t.”

  “Oh no,” Jayce said brightly. “I insist. It’s my civic duty to mock you for any moment you looked like a normal man.”

  Kylar’s shoulders lifted in a minimal shrug. “There was… dancing.”

  “And?” Jayce pressed.

  “And the mayor now believes I personally blessed his cobblestones,” Kylar said. “And half the town believes I’m courting every girl with a ribbon.”

  Jayce’s grin widened. “Popular, then.”

  Kylar shot him a look finally, sharp and warning. Jayce held up a hand as if surrendering, though his eyes were still laughing.

  “I heard,” Jayce said, voice dropping to something more careful, “that you danced with her.”

  Kylar’s expression shifted. Not closed, not open, just… guarded in a different way. He looked ahead again, and when he spoke his tone was quieter. “Yes.”

  “And,” Jayce added, because he couldn’t help himself and because some truths mattered, “rumor is you were holding hands.”

  Kylar’s fingers tightened once on the reins. The smallest tell. Then he exhaled, slow, like he’d decided which battles were worth the energy.

  “The week… went well enough,” he said. "We held hands just like any other boy and girl at a festival"

  Jayce let that sit, tasted the shape of it. Not a boast. Not a deflection. An admission from a man who didn’t know how to admit he’d been happy.

  They rode in silence for a minute, listening to the carriage behind them, to the soft clink of tack and the far cry of a hawk.

  Then Jayce made himself step closer to what he wanted to talk to Kylar about.

  “Before I left,” he said, keeping his eyes forward so it didn’t feel like an interrogation, “you asked me to save you when I came back.”

  Kylar’s head tipped a fraction, as if he’d forgotten he’d said it.

  Jayce continued, because if he didn’t now he never would. “Was that… a real request for help? Or were you being dramatic for sport.”

  Kylar huffed a short laugh. “I was being stupid,” he said. “I was—” He searched, lips pressing together. “—stressed. And overwhelmed. And I chose humor because it was that or fall apart.”

  Jayce nodded slowly. That sounded like Kylar. That sounded like a man who held himself together with stubbornness and routine and a sense of duty sharp enough to cut.

  Jayce’s throat tightened anyway. “I didn’t know,” he said quietly and glanced to Kylar and then a little to the carriage rolling behind them and back

  Kylar’s gaze slid to him again. “About what.”

  Jayce grimaced. “Ryder told me. What Rush can do.”

  Kylar’s horse took a step sideways at a pothole. Kylar corrected with an effortless shift of weight, but something in him had gone still.

  “Really,” Kylar said. It wasn’t a question. It was disbelief shaped like one.

  Jayce nodded. “Really. We drank. He… confessed.” Jayce rubbed a hand down his face. “And then I spent the evening contemplating whether I could fake my own death and live in a cottage somewhere no one can find me.”

  Kylar stared straight ahead, and for a moment Jayce thought the man might genuinely ride off into the fields just to have space to think or avoid the topic all together.

  “Ryder knew,” Kylar said finally, voice flat. “When did he learn.” His eyes didn't shift from looking ahead.

  “He says Rush ‘messed up’ once,” Jayce replied. “Which is the most alarming way to phrase anything about mind-reading.”

  Kylar’s jaw worked. His voice lowered further. “You really didn’t know?” he asked, like he couldn’t make the words fit into reality. “He never… talked—”

  Jayce felt his stomach drop at the way Kylar said it. Talked. Not attacked. Not invaded. Talked. As if it was a conversation you didn’t consent to.

  “…mentally,” Kylar finished, and looked as if he regretted saying it at all.

  Jayce didn’t laugh this time. “No,” he said. “Not once. Not in my head. Not that I know of.” Then, because it needed saying: “And if he had, I don’t think I would have survived it quietly.”

  Kylar’s shoulders loosened a hair. Then tightened again as his gaze looked to see how far back the carriage was and then back to Jayce.

  “Are you okay?” Jayce asked, and meant it.

  Kylar’s mouth pressed into a hard line. He looked like he was weighing what he was allowed to say to Jayce, what he was allowed to feel at all, what he owed Kairi and Rush and his own fragile peace.

  “…I can endure,” Kylar said at last. “For her.”

  Jayce made a soft sound of dissatisfaction. “That’s not what I asked.”

  Kylar’s eyes flicked to him, then away. “No,” he said, and the honesty of it was almost brutal. “I’m not. But, I'm either very brave or very stupid in wanting her.”

  They rode another stretch in that raw truth, the road opening into fields where wheat was already harvested and the grass didn't have the speckles of wildflowers growing everywhere.

  Jayce let his horse drift closer. “Ky,” he said quietly, “if it helps at all… Rush didn’t tell Ryder because he wanted to torture him. He told Ryder because he had to explain what he accidently slip out."

  Kylar’s humor surfaced like a man breaking water. “Comforting.”

  “I’m trying,” Jayce muttered.

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  Kylar stared at the road, then spoke with a calm that made Jayce’s skin prickle. “I’m pretty sure if she ever gets angry at me and I have one wrong thought, you’ll find a corpse and not a prince anymore.”

  Jayce barked a nervous laugh. “You’re assuming he’d leave a corpse.”

  Kylar’s eyes narrowed. “I’m assuming he’d be polite enough to. I think I have earned that much respect.”

  Jayce winced. “Saints. Alright. First: you’re alive. Second: you’re still alive after a week in that house.” He leaned in slightly, voice dropping. “So he either doesn’t do it casually… or he decided you were worth not killing.”

  Kylar didn’t look reassured. "Jayce.."

  Jayce tried again, softer. “Do you want a trick?” he asked.

  Kylar’s gaze flicked to him. “A trick.”

  “Ryder’s trick,” Jayce said. “The one he uses whenever Rush is nearby and he needs to keep his brain from… being itself.”

  Kylar looked suspicious. “That sounds like a terrible idea.”

  “It is,” Jayce agreed. “But it works. Atleast, Ryder thinks it works"

  Kylar waited, and Jayce obliged.

  “Pick something painfully boring,” Jayce said. “Council seating charts. Grain taxes. The list of titles in the royal registry. Then memorize it. And whenever you feel him reach for your thoughts, you recite it. Word for word. In your head.”

  Kylar’s mouth twitched. “You’re saying I should weaponize bureaucracy.”

  Jayce’s smile was tired and sincere. “Exactly. If he’s going to eavesdrop, he can suffer.”

  Kylar huffed a laugh, quiet but real. Then his humor faded again, and Jayce watched him gather himself like a man tightening straps.

  After a lull, Jayce looked ahead, then back to Kylar. “Can I ask you something,” he said.

  Kylar’s shoulders lifted. “You’re going to anyway.”

  “That’s true,” Jayce admitted. “Have you… done anything with her in that dream world. Anything you don’t want him to know about.”

  Kylar stilled and his gaze went to Jayce assessing. Jayce regretted it instantly. Not the question, but the way it landed. Like a knife slid under armor.

  Kylar’s voice came out low. “You think I’m her dream boy.”

  Jayce stared forward, because he didn’t want Kylar to see the gentleness in his face and mistake it for pity. “I know you’re her stalker.”

  Kylar’s brows drew together. “You know?”

  Jayce let out a breath, half laugh, half exhale of something that had finally stopped clawing at him. “The way you reacted when we told you the escort list was a list of potentials. you said it felt like a trap,” he said. “No one else did. Not like that.”

  Kylar went still. For a long moment they rode in silence as Jayce watched as his gaze was fixed on a point in front of him and he was thinking. Like all the times he stared at some sort of training obstacle and broke it down on how to do better. Then, very quietly Kylar finally spoke. “I hated that name.”

  Jayce blinked, surprised. “What name.”

  “Stalker,” Kylar said, like it tasted sour. “It… wasn’t like I was going there on purpose.”

  Jayce turned his head toward him fully now. “Then tell me,” he said. “Because I’ve been hearing about this meadow for six years like it’s a myth in a chapel. And I’ve watched Kairi look at you like you’ve been hers longer than any of us knew how to name.”

  Kylar’s hands tightened on the reins again. “It started when I was… younger,” he said, and the words came slow. “I fell asleep and woke up in a meadow. There was a willow. A pond. And her.”

  Jayce’s chest tightened at the simplicity of it. “And you weren’t alarmed,” he prompted gently, because that sounded like Kylar: alarm first, questions second.

  Kylar let out a humorless breath. “I thought I’d died. Or that it was a trap. Or that I’d finally lost my mind.” His gaze stayed on the road, but Jayce could hear the memory behind his eyes. “She didn’t trust me. Not even a little. First year…” Kylar’s mouth twisted. “She called me stalker. Told me she’d been alone there for decades and she was curious about me. Told me to leave a couple times.”

  Jayce swallowed. Decades. He’d heard pieces of it, always secondhand. Hearing it in Kylar’s voice made it real in a way that sat heavy. “What did you do,” Jayce asked, “when she told you to leave?”

  Kylar’s answer was immediate. “I stayed far away.”

  Jayce arched a brow. “That’s your version of leaving.”

  Kylar’s mouth tugged, faint. “I sat on the other side of the pond,” he admitted. “Like a punished child.” Then, softer: “Because it was her place. And I could tell… she wasn’t lying. She was angry because she was afraid.”

  Jayce nodded. That tracked. That sounded like Kairi, too. Fire to protect the parts that were still soft.

  Kylar continued, voice steadier now that he’d started. “We couldn’t choose it. It only happened when we slept. Sometimes we didn’t meet. Sometimes one of us wasn’t asleep yet.” He hesitated. “When I was posted north and night shift, we went weeks barely seeing each other. She… tried to catch the end of my sleep. Went to bed early.” There was something warm and rueful in his tone. “Like she," He huffed a small laugh. " Like she was waiting at a dock for a ship that might not come in.”

  Jayce felt something twist in his ribs at that. “She never told me that part,” he said quietly.

  Kylar’s voice went quieter too. “I'm sure she was scared I would just stop coming” he admitted. “I was scared I wouldn't be able to keep coming” He swallowed. “We made rules.”

  Jayce nodded slowly. “So you did have control,” he said.

  Kylar’s eyes flicked to him, sharp with respect. “No. Sometimes I slept and nothing.”

  Jayce took a breath. “Ky. You said you weren’t going there on purpose. That changed?”

  Kylar’s hands flexed on the reins. “I wasn’t,” he said, and there was a strain in it that made Jayce believe him. “But after a while… I started hoping. Which is its own kind of choosing, isn’t it.”

  Jayce didn’t answer that, because it landed too close to his own chest. He kept his eyes on the road and his voice steady.

  “And Rush,” Jayce asked, “he can hear what you think about in there.”

  Kylar’s shoulders tensed. “He can hear me in the waking world,” he corrected. “I don’t know if he can hear the meadow.” Then a beat, and his voice went flatter. “But he doesn’t need to. He might not be able to see in her head, but he has no problems checking in mine."

  Jayce paused at that. " He can't see in her head?"

  Kylar nodded. " Told me there is a wall that blocks him out, been there since her name day. He has no idea of her thoughts, and I think that scares him more with the dreams."

  They let that sit for a while till Kylar spoke again. "But, he found me, and learned a lot..."

  Jayce let that sit, then asked the question he’d been circling since Ryder’s solar.

  “Tell me something I can do,” Jayce said. “Not for politics. Not for strategy. For you.”

  Kylar didn’t answer right away. They rode past a stand of trees, shadows striping their horses. Wind brushed through leaves like whispered warnings.

  Finally, Kylar spoke, measured. “If Rush ever talks in your head,” he said, “don’t flinch.”

  Jayce gave a startled laugh. “That’s your advice.”

  “It’s practical,” Kylar said, entirely serious. “He watches reaction. He tests boundaries. If you flinch, he knows he can push.”

  Jayce stared at him. “How do you know that.”

  Kylar’s mouth pressed thin. “Because he did it to me the first night,” he said. “Not in words. In pressure. In… attention.” He exhaled slowly. “Like standing too close behind someone and waiting to see if they step away.”

  Jayce’s skin crawled in understanding. “Saints,” he muttered.

  Kylar’s gaze shifted briefly toward the carriage, where Kairi and Damon’s silhouettes moved behind the curtained window. “He’s protective,” Kylar said, as if he needed Jayce to understand that truth too. “It’s just… loud.”

  Jayce’s mouth twisted. “And you’re the man standing between his sister and the world.”

  Kylar’s answer was simple. “Yes.”

  Jayce felt his throat tighten. “Ky,” he said, voice lower, “I’m going to ask you something and you can tell me to shut up.”

  Kylar huffed. “Unlikely.”

  Jayce glanced at him. “Do you want this,” he asked, “even with Rush in your head and the whole kingdom ready to chew you up and spit you out?”

  Kylar didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  No grandeur. No poetry. Just yes.

  Jayce nodded once, like a soldier receiving an order. “Then I’m going to help,” he said. “Not by getting in your way. Not by pretending I’m not… complicated.” He exhaled. “But by being what I’ve always been. Your left flank. Her right. Ryder’s blunt instrument when he needs one.”

  Kylar finally looked at him fully, and there was something in his eyes that made Jayce’s chest ache. Gratitude, maybe. Or just recognition.

  “Thank you,” Kylar said quietly.

  Jayce cleared his throat. “Now,” he said, forcing lightness back into his voice because they both needed it, “I have one more question.”

  Kylar’s eyes narrowed. “Of course you do.”

  Jayce grinned. “Did you dance because you were afraid for your life.”

  Kylar’s lips twitched. “No.”

  Jayce waited.

  Kylar sighed. “I sparred three days in a row and had my ass handed to me several times to earn the right,” he admitted. “Rush made it clear… I must earn everything.”

  Jayce laughed, loud enough that Slate's ears flicked back in complaint. “That’s the most Rush thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Kylar’s eyes went briefly distant, then he added, quieter, “And… I want to. To earn everything.”

  Jayce’s laughter softened into something warmer. “Yeah,” he said. “I figured.”

  They rode on, the road stretching ahead like a ribbon into the country. Somewhere up front, a guard signaled the first likely rest point. The carriage would stop soon, horses watered, wheels checked. Another day of travel stacked on top of the last.

  Jayce glanced at Kylar again. “Tell me,” he said, voice careful, “a couple things. About the meadow. About what you need me to know so I don’t accidentally make your life worse.”

  Kylar’s mouth pressed thin, thinking. Then he nodded once, like a man accepting a pact.

  “Our emotions effect the place, so...we have seen the ugly of each other. I know what she is afraid of. She knows I have my bad days." Kylar provided.

  Jayce swallowed. “Alright.”

  “Second,” Kylar continued, “She can heal there... It doesn't always come out of the dream the same way. Pain is eased almost always, the wound itself not always."

  Jayce nodded slowly, filing it away.

  Kylar hesitated, then added, voice rougher: “Third… if Rush ever looks at me like he’s deciding whether I’m worth keeping alive, and you’re there… remind him I shoved you out of the blast. And that his sister still thinks I'm important.”

  Jayce blinked, startled. “Ky…”

  Kylar’s gaze stayed on the road. “It’s not noble,” he said. “It’s practical. He respects action. He also respects her choices.”

  Jayce felt something twist in his chest. “Alright,” he said quietly. “I can do that.”

  They crested a small rise, and the countryside opened up. Ahead, the road dipped toward a cluster of trees and a stream that would make a sensible stopping place. The carriage rolled on, steady as a heartbeat.

  Jayce looked at Kylar again, and this time his voice was softer. “And the name,” he said. “Stalker.”

  Kylar’s jaw tightened.

  Jayce shook his head. “You weren’t hunting her,” he said. “You were… found.” He swallowed. “And if anyone ever says it in front of me like it’s a joke, I’ll correct them.”

  Kylar’s eyes flicked to him, startled in a way that had nothing to do with combat.

  Jayce offered a crooked smile. “What,” he said. “I’m allowed to be protective too.”

  Kylar’s mouth twitched. “Just don’t get yourself killed.”

  Jayce snorted. “That’s rich coming from the man who thinks he is going to be murder for a thought crime.”

  Kylar’s quiet laugh returned, and for a moment the road felt almost simple.

  Then the carriage slowed as the lead guard signaled a stop, and the day’s next stretch began to take shape around them, practical and unavoidable.

  Jayce swung down from his saddle to help with the perimeter check, but as he did he glanced back at Kylar, who remained mounted, eyes on the carriage, on the trees, on the world.

  Jayce understood then, in a way he hadn’t fully before.

  Kylar wasn’t only enduring for her.

  He was choosing her, over and over, even when the choice meant fear living in his bones.

  And that, Jayce decided, was its own kind of brave.