The great portcullis and its towering wooden doors had been removed decades ago, sold off for a small fortune in iron during one of Willowvale’s “modernization periods.” The decision had been made by Duke Rowan’s father, a far more liberal and progressive man than his son. Duke Rowan had not inherited very much of that sentiment. Where his father saw the future, Rowan saw only a breach in the manor’s ancient dignity. Even now, the missing door and portcullis still irked him a bit, but since his wife Lady Alexandra was infatuated with all things modern, he never mentioned it. Unlike his father, Rowan had taken the more traditional martial route expected of old nobility and probably would have been happy to have lived 500 years in the past. He kept to the older ways in almost every respect and clung to them all the more fiercely as the empire's newly brought peace also brought strange new ideas and notions.

  Yet even he was not so wedded to ancient customs as appearances would first suggest. For all his pride in ancient customs, he had gladly handed off most of the ducal province’s administration to his eldest son; Maximinus; much to the young man’s dismay. Thus, Duke Rowan who preferred the Horse riding, the training yard, and the old stone corridors of his aged manor which still echoed with the footsteps of long dead knights, had managed to have his cake and eat it too, at the expense of his oldest son.

  In the absence of both the keep’s great doors and its once-formidable portcullis, the manor’s main gate felt far more welcoming. The wide archway built from rough hewn blocks; scarred by a dozen forgotten sieges; now allowed sunlight to stream through the exposed passage, dancing over the courtyard stones and gently warming the cool morning air beneath the vaulted arch. On this morning a gentle breeze drifted through the courtyard unhindered, carrying with it the resin-sweet scent of pine from the outer woods, the perfume of blooming rose vines, and the unmistakable earthy undertone of horses from the nearby stables. Inside the keep’s central courtyard, however, the old bones of the fortress remained unmistakably martial. Squat granite pillars, weather-worn and pitted, still supported the high galleries once used by long dead bowmen who had stood ready to darken the skies with their arrows. Overhead, the ceilings were dotted with a myriad of murder holes, which had been rounded smooth by centuries of rainwater trickling through them, leaving pale mineral stains like ghostly fingerprints. Arrow slits lined the battlements walls in neat, strategic rows, their narrow throats now choking with ivy as it curled tenderly around their frames, threading delicate green filigree across the ancient stone. But the most dramatic transformation lay in the courtyard itself.

  Lady Alexandra had waged a relentless, cheerful, and utterly unstoppable campaign against the austerity of Willowvale in the name of beauty and “proper modern sensibilities.” Under her direction, the old cobblestone paving had been ripped away and replaced with soft earth. Which was then shaped into a series of lush, carefully planned garden beds with young trees stretching upward toward the open sky, their branches whispering in the breeze. Beneath their branches, flowering shrubs clustered their base, with their blooms spilling out into a cacophony of color. At the courtyard’s heart rose Lady Alexandra’s proudest achievement, a magnificent fountain centered on a fescennine and very immodest elven archer. The sculptor had taken great artistic liberties, rendering the elf gloriously bare save for a very small loincloth that did absolutely nothing to preserve the elf's dignity. His lithe, athletic body was captured in a dramatic twist as he drew back his bowstring, every line of muscle carved with loving devotion for the craft by the sculptor. Water cascaded from the Elf's nocked arrow into a pool at his bare feet. Lady Alexandra had enthusiastically called it “a celebration of natural grace and modern artistic achievement". Duke Rowan on the other hand had privately and out of his wife's hearing referred to it as that Damn Naked Elf, and refused to look in its general direction unless absolutely necessary. Her final change ran along the old battlements in the form of a covered patio roofed in warm terracotta tiles, supported by graceful arches that brought a softness to the keep’s grim angles. Benches of smooth, pale stone rested beneath the covered patio, offering shaded places to sit and enjoy the peaceful garden.

  Duke Rowan sat with his wife in the keep’s courtyard patio, waiting for his daughter with as much dignity as he could muster. His eyes glistened suspiciously, and he kept clearing his throat in the way a man does when he absolutely refuses to admit he is on the verge of crying, all the while steadfastly refusing to look at that damned naked elf. The duke still possessed the imposing frame that had carried him through his military career, and though his middle had begun to “develop strategic reserves,” as he stubbornly put it, he remained a broad-shouldered bear of a man, standing a proud six foot one. His thick, impeccably groomed mustache framed his upper lip with an air of austere pompousness. That had remained unchanged through shifting fashions and had survived at least one near-fatal soup-straining incident. His hair, once a dark brown, had faded first to an iron-grey that was now starting to turn to a dignified white, lending to his already large gravitas. That morning the duke wore a richly dyed forest-green doublet trimmed with subtle silver embroidery which paired well with his simple unadorned trousers and finely crafted leather boots polished to a soft sheen. Draped diagonally across his chest was a ceremonial sash bearing the heraldic willow tree of House Duanna, its embroidered branches sweeping gracefully as though touched by an unseen breeze.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  But despite his usually boisterous and larger than life personality, he felt small today. Even though he; the famous Stomping Willow; had fought monsters and barbarians along the eastern frontier, delved into more than a dozen untamed dungeons, and engaged in a number of other dangerous activities; watching his only daughter ride out of the manor as an adult was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.

  His sons had all left by now, of course, but they were men; damn it; and men were supposed to be naturally prepared for such things. He told himself this repeatedly, as if repetition could turn it into truth, but it rang hollow. Eleonora, his troublesome, brilliant spark of a daughter. The one who had always had a way of cracking through the impenetrable shell of stoicism he wore even in his own home. Duke Rowan then cursed himself, once more, for allowing Eleonora to “play knight” as a child. For it was through that childish playing; which soon became genuine training; that he first saw his daughter’s natural talent for both swordsmanship and riding. It was then he should have put a stop to it, he told himself for what felt like the thousandth time. He should have been firmer and he should have said no to her. Instead, he had surrendered every time to those damnably persuasive puppy-dog eyes. Those enormous, pleading round eyes could sear through to a man's heart faster than a fire bolt to the chest. Even now, he remembered her as a little girl swinging a wooden sword half her size. The memory caused a lump to swell in his throat. “To hell with it,” he muttered under his breath, “I’ll curse the First Empress herself; Saint Theodora, may she rest in peace; for bringing about the foolish notion that women could fight.” He scowled up at the heavens, as if expecting the saint to strike him down for his blasphemy. When no divine lightning came crashing through the patio roof, he grunted in bitter resignation. Of course, he was conveniently ignoring the fact; which was well known to him; that lady knights were a tradition far older than the Empire’s mere hundred and seventy-five years of existence. The histories were full of them. The old epics too. But tradition mattered less to Rowan in this one instance, than the fierce knot twisting inside him. In truth, his turmoil had nothing to do with saints or the dusty pages of history. It had everything to do with fear. A fear he hated, a fear he had no name for when it came to his sons but one that swelled to a suffocating size when it came to his daughter. He just wanted to protect her. Every instinct in him screamed for it. To keep her close, safe beneath his roof, where no blade could touch her and no battlefield could stain her hands with blood. She was his child, his only daughter. His little girl who once braided flowers into the mane of his warhorse and declared she’d marry a dragon “because princes were too boring.” But he also loved her something damnably fierce and because of that damn stupid feeling of love he felt for his daughter, it meant he wanted nothing more than for her to be happy. And Eleonora was only ever truly happy when she was moving. Whether it was running, sparring, or riding at a reckless gallop with her hair flying behind her. He had seen that spark in her eyes the first time she held a real sword. He had seen the way her energetic tendencies seemed to calm whenever a knight visited the manor. He would never admit it but of all his children she reminded him the most of himself. He knew, deep down, that to deny her this path would be to break something inside her. So, he sat there waiting; his fists beginning to clench at his sides; to see his daughter off. Every part of his soul warring with each other; his conservative sensibilities against his pride in her talent and his fear for her safety against his love for her. And it felt as if his heart were being pulled in opposite directions. Duke Rowan breathed deeply. Yes, he would always worry, and he would always fear for her safety. But he loved her more than all that and he knew that, however much it hurt, he had to let her ride away.