Ch11.往南走的你

The rain had stopped sometime during the night.

The stone-paved ground was still wet that morning, carrying the coolness of something freshly washed. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the clouds and fell across the eastern corridor of the castle, leaving half of it in light and half in shadow.

Anna walked along the corridor she had crossed countless times before. Her steps were so light that even she was not entirely certain what she was doing.

She knew he had gone.

It was the natural course of things. He had stayed for one night, the rain had stopped, and the tailor’s commission had come to an end. The castle gates had opened for him, then closed behind him. No one thought anything was amiss. No one saw any reason to spare the matter a second glance.

She knew that.

And yet her feet still carried her to the door of the empty room.

She stood there for a while without reaching for the handle. She simply looked at the ordinary wooden door and at the unremarkable light spilling through the narrow gap beneath it.

Then she placed her hand on the handle and pushed the door open.

The room was immaculate.

The bed had been made, the windowsill wiped clean, and even the chair had been returned to its original place. The servants had tidied everything with such precision that it seemed no one had ever stayed there, as though everything that had happened the night before had been nothing more than a dream born of rain and darkness.

Anna remained in the doorway.

She did not enter.

She only looked.

Then she caught it.

The scent was so faint that she almost believed she had imagined it, yet she was certain it belonged to him—the scent of the chest against which she had buried her face and cried for so long the previous night.

It still lingered thinly in the air, like the last trace of a person’s body heat left behind after they had already walked far away.

Her hand tightened quietly against the doorframe.

Something inside her sank.

The eastern corridor of the castle remained silent after Jeffrey Grant had gone.

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He had left early.

So early that the servants lighting the fires in the main hall were not yet fully awake. So early that the morning mist still pressed against the stone road, a thin layer of white wrapping the path before the castle and making it difficult to tell whether one was walking along a road or the edge of a dream.

He reached the castle gate and stopped.

Only for a moment.

It was not hesitation, he told himself. He was merely adjusting the position of the scabbard across his back. The leather strap had loosened, and the cold metal pressed through his clothes against the ridge of his shoulder blade, making him frown faintly.

He tightened the buckle between two fingers and secured it with a practised, mechanical motion.

The movement of a man accustomed to leaving.

But the toe of his boot did not move.

He stood at the gate, a strand of dark brown hair lifted by the morning wind and laid across the faint scar at his temple.

His amber eyes looked ahead.

At the gravel road stretching south.

At the blades of grass on either side, still flattened by the rain from the previous night, each holding tiny drops of water that caught the rising light and scattered it carelessly.

He drew in a breath.

The air was damp, carrying the raw scent of earth and stone, as well as the green, distant smell of some nameless plant growing at the base of the castle wall.

His throat tightened slightly.

The breath he had meant to release seemed to hang inside his chest for an instant before he finally let it go.

Unlike the night before, he did not allow himself to follow the thought any further.

His amber eyes narrowed slightly, settling on the mist ahead, on a point that did not exist.

The line of his jaw tightened, then eased again until it looked as though nothing had happened.

Only the hand resting against the hilt of his sword betrayed him.

Five knuckles tightened slowly.

Slowly.

He began to walk.

His boots struck the wet stone with a deep, even rhythm.

One step after another.

Steady and controlled.

It was the gait of a man who had travelled too many roads and learned to grind every emotion beneath the soles of his boots.

After a dozen or so steps, he did not look back.

He never looked back.

It was a silent rule he had set for himself over seven years of wandering.

Every village that had given him shelter.

Every door that had opened for him.

Every hearth lit on his behalf.

He had always left them the same way.

Without looking back.

Without lingering.

Because once a wanderer allowed himself to become attached, his legs would weaken.

But today, when the shadow of the castle gate finally slipped entirely from his back, his stride slowed by half a beat.

Only half a beat.

So slight that even a newly awakened bird at the roadside would not have noticed.

But he noticed.

Within that half-beat, something like a thread pulled backwards from somewhere not very deep in his chest.

He did not turn around.

But he closed his eyes.

Like a man pressing something down inside himself.

Deeper.

Then deeper still.

When he opened his eyes again, he continued walking.

The morning mist parted before him and closed again behind him, swallowing his tall figure little by little.

The outline of the castle faded in the fog.

The tops of its stone towers still held the last warmth of the lamps from the night before.

He did not stop.

But the thread remained.

________________________________________________________________

In the end, Anna stepped into the room that had already been restored to order.

In her mind, she tried to imagine what Jeffrey had done there the night before.

Had he sat in this chair?

Had he leaned against that window?

On which side of the bed had he slept—the left or the right?

She stood there blankly for a long time.

Only when she could no longer smell him did she finally return to herself.

Why had someone she had known for only a few days left such a deep impression?

She kept turning the question over in her mind until Atti found her there.

Atti stood outside the room, watching Anna in silence.

She did not speak.

She had already been standing there for some time—long enough that she could no longer remember exactly when she had arrived, long enough for a passing maid at the far end of the corridor to cast her a puzzled glance before quietly withdrawing without asking anything.

Atti only watched.

She watched the woman she had served for so many years standing in the centre of the empty room like a piece of porcelain resting delicately in the air.

Not broken.

But anyone could see that the stillness of her posture came from holding her breath.

Atti’s brows drew together slightly.

She had seen Anna in many different forms.

She had seen her composed and proper before being summoned to council by the king.

She had seen her smile with distant courtesy at banquets.

She had seen her stand at the top of the tower in the cold wind, eyes open as she stared into the night sky.

But this—

Atti searched through her memories again and again and could find nothing resembling it.

This was not grief.

Atti knew grief.

Grief was reddened eyes behind closed lips.

It was a jaw held too tightly.

It was the look of someone forcing something down with all their strength.

This was not that.

This was more like someone discovering for the first time that there was a place inside her body she had never known existed.

And now that place was empty.

So empty that she did not yet know what to do with it.

Atti’s gaze fell upon the hand Anna had braced against the doorframe.

She said nothing.

She had always known when to speak and when merely to remain present.

At that moment, she stayed outside the room.

She did not enter.

She did not call Anna’s name.

She simply allowed her presence to be like the beam of light reaching in from the end of the corridor—a quiet reminder that someone was there.

Yet in her eyes rested something subtle, something that might have been tenderness or pity, or something she could not quite name.

It had only been a few days.

Atti wondered silently what that wandering knight had done to leave such a mark upon someone who had always kept herself so tightly contained.

The sunlight outside the window shifted another inch, quietly stretching the half-light and half-shadow of the room in opposite directions.

At last, Atti spoke.

Her voice was so low it was nearly only breath, as though she could not bear to disturb whatever was happening there.

“…Anna.”

Only her name.

No question followed it.

No urging.

She did not say, “It is time to go,” or, “His Majesty is looking for you.”

She only called her name.

Like a hand extended quietly beside her, waiting to see whether Anna would choose to take it.

________________________________________________________________

At the same time, on the stone road south of the city.

Most of the morning mist had already cleared.

Sunlight fell upon Jeffrey’s shoulders, stretching his shadow across the wet stones of the road.

He was not walking quickly, but he had not stopped.

His right hand, however, had not left the hilt of his sword since he passed through the gate.

It was not his usual vigilance.

The road was quiet, and even the sound of passing carts was sparse.

It was some movement he had not fully recognised in himself, like a man searching for something to brace against, something on which to rest his hand so it would not wander towards thoughts of somewhere else.

His amber eyes looked forward.

At the road.

At the shape of the next town emerging as the mist dispersed.

At the direction in which he was supposed to go.

Inside his mind, he traced that direction again and again.

As though, if he drew it clearly enough, his feet would not take the wrong path.

________________________________________________________________

When Anna heard Atti’s voice—“Anna,” rather than “my lady”—Atti became, for that moment, like a mother standing quietly in place and waiting for her child to reach out.

“Atti…”

Anna turned.

She saw the hand Atti had extended and took it without thinking.

Atti’s hand felt different from her own delicate skin.

There was a solid, reassuring roughness to it.

Different, too, from the heavy calluses on Jeffrey’s hands.

Not the same at all.

She had only learned the difference the night before.

“He only left this place…” Anna said. “So why do I feel…”

She paused.

“…so sad?”

Atti did not answer at once.

She wrapped Anna’s hand securely in both of hers, palm against palm, fingers interlaced.

Anna’s hand was slightly cold.

Not the chill of the weather, but the kind that seeped from beneath the skin after standing too long in a draughty corridor.

Atti lowered her gaze to their joined hands and said nothing.

After Anna finished the words so sad, Atti remained quiet for a moment, as though allowing the pause enough space to settle fully.

Then she sighed softly.

Not because Anna was foolish.

Not because she believed Anna was thinking too much.

It was the sigh of someone who had seen many things and recognised the weight of a sentence the moment she heard it, and could not help breathing out alongside it.

“Because he made you feel that you were allowed to be yourself.”

Her voice was level, without any special emphasis.

She said it as though she were speaking of something ordinary.

The weather.

That morning’s breakfast.

The simplicity of her delivery only made the weight of the words clearer.

“Someone like that…”

She paused and pressed her thumb lightly against the back of Anna’s hand.

“No matter how few days you spend with them, you remember them for a very long time.”

Atti did not continue.

She did not say, “But he has gone, and that is the end of it.”

She did not say, “You are a princess, and you have your own path.”

She knew all of those things.

She also knew that Anna knew them.

But that morning, at the door of that empty room, it was not the time to say them.

She merely remained there, allowing Anna to keep holding her hand while the light from the corridor continued to fall across them both.

Outside the window, an unknown bird called twice from beneath the eaves, then fell silent.

On the southern road, Jeffrey reached the first inhabited village.

The scent of cooking smoke entered his nose.

Someone was burning firewood.

Someone was lighting a stove.

Children ran through mud that had not yet fully dried, sending up small splashes of water.

His steps paused beneath the stone arch at the village entrance.

A habitual pause.

He always did this when arriving somewhere new.

First, he stood and surveyed the road.

Where was the general store?

Where was the blacksmith?

Where might he find someone who could give directions?

It was an instinct shaped by seven years of wandering, more natural to him than breathing.

His gaze moved across the village entrance, then settled on a low wall to the left.

An old man sat upon it, head bowed as he peeled something with his hands.

His movements were slow and steady, like an action repeated for an entire lifetime until thought was no longer required and the hands simply knew what to do.

Jeffrey watched those hands for a while.

He did not know what he was looking for.

He only remembered, suddenly, another pair of hands.

The night before, in the darkness, they had quietly grasped the sleeve of his clothing.

The hold had not been strong.

It was so light that perhaps even she had not realised she had done it.

But he had felt it.

He had felt it clearly.

His throat moved faintly.

His amber eyes turned towards the depths of the village.

His expression remained calm, like the surface of a very deep pool.

Nothing moved above.

But beneath the surface, something kept sinking.

Deeper.

Deeper still.

He removed his right hand from the hilt of his sword, drew his cloak closer around himself, and continued forward.

His steps remained steady.

________________________________________________________________

Anna’s hand tightened, as though she were trying to feel something.

But what she felt in Atti was different.

She understood that difference.

It was something no one else could give her.

She loved Atti.

She trusted Atti.

She regarded Atti as one of the most important people in her life.

But it was different.

Entirely different.

The answer came too quickly, so quickly that she had no time even to hesitate.

By the time she recognised it, it had already been there.

“I’ve fallen in love with him…”

She said it quietly.

Softly.

Yet the words settled upon her with great weight.

Some people see certain things and can never truly leave afterwards.

She remembered Atti’s words.

Now she understood.

One night filled with the sound of rain had been enough to make her understand.

Atti’s hand paused faintly.

Only for an instant.

Like a stone falling into still water in the moment before the ripples spread.

Then her hand tightened again, holding Anna’s more firmly.

Not in alarm.

Not with regret.

Simply more firmly.

She did not say, “I know.”

She did not say, “I could already tell.”

She offered no words that sounded like consolation.

She only lowered her head slightly and allowed the confession to settle properly into the room.

Into the quiet morning.

She allowed it to occupy the space it deserved, without interruption and without rushing to put it away.

The light outside the window shifted another inch.

A long time passed.

Long enough for the water clock somewhere down the corridor to drip several times.

Only then did Atti speak, her voice lowered as though she were addressing the room itself rather than any person within it.

“I know.”

She did not continue with, “But you are a princess.”

She said nothing about reality.

Not because she did not know those words existed.

But because love, on the first morning after it had finally been spoken aloud, did not need anyone to measure its weight against reality.

It was already heavy enough.

Atti lifted her head and looked at Anna’s profile.

Her face was calm now.

Not the strained calm of someone forcing herself to endure.

It was the calm that came after finally recognising something.

The release of a person who had carried a stone for a very long distance and at last stopped to admit that the stone was, in fact, heavy.

Once admitted, she could finally breathe.

Something rose faintly in Atti’s eyes.

She lowered her lashes before it could escape.

Some people see certain things and can never truly leave afterwards.

She had said those words.

When she did, she had never imagined someone would receive them so quickly, so precisely, until they became the sight before her now.

With the side of her thumb, she pressed gently against the knuckles on the back of Anna’s hand.

It was not an attempt to wipe away tears.

It was more like a silent response.

I heard you.

I will remember what you said.

The two of them remained standing there in the room from which every trace of its guest had been carefully removed, in air where the last of his scent was almost entirely gone.

________________________________________________________________

South of the city, beneath the village arch.

Jeffrey left the general store with half a piece of dried food in his hand.

He slipped it into the leather pouch at his left side, lowered his head, and secured the strap in one swift, practised motion.

Then he raised his face and looked at the sky.

The clouds had thinned.

The sunlight fell more directly now, drying the last traces of moisture from the stone road little by little.

He stood within that warmth but did not immediately move.

He simply looked at the sky.

At that boundless direction that could not be held.

Over seven years of wandering, he had learned not to ask himself why.

Why he kept walking.

Why he always left before dawn after being given shelter.

Why he could never see the face of the person in his dreams clearly, and yet had still walked for seven years, like a compass needle drawn by a magnet, moving without asking where it was being led.

But that morning, when he should already have been far away, a voice surfaced suddenly in his mind.

Not the voice from his dreams.

He could never hear that one clearly.

This voice was real.

It belonged to the night before.

It held a little choking grief and a little stubbornness, and had been so soft it had nearly disappeared beneath the rain.

He blinked hard once.

His amber eyes returned to the road ahead.

The straight road leading south.

His hand moved unconsciously towards the hilt of his sword again.

This time, he noticed.

He looked down at his hand.

At his knuckles.

Only for a brief second.

Then his brow furrowed ever so slightly into a shape whose meaning even he could not explain.

He drew his hand back, closed it into a fist at his side, and continued walking.

________________________________________________________________

After leaving the empty room, Anna sat motionless in her own chambers.

She considered a question.

A question concerning her future and her fate.

It was not simply:

I am going to be married to Prince Gilan.

Nor was it merely:

I am a princess, and he is only a wanderer.

The question was:

How can I let him know that I love him?

Nothing else mattered to her.

Obstacles could be overcome.

Tears could be swallowed.

But she had to find a way to tell him she loved him and then allow him to decide what he would do.

If he accepted her love, she was willing to overcome every difficulty.

If he recoiled from it, then she was already accustomed to being abandoned.

Someone covered in wounds no longer feared another scar.

There was still plenty of time before the three-month deadline.

Anything could happen.

________________________________________________________________

Jeffrey sat beside the old well at the village entrance and drank from his waterskin.

He was in no hurry.

He never hurried.

A wanderer had no reason to rush, because there was nowhere he absolutely had to be and no appointed time he absolutely had to keep.

After seven years, he had learned to keep his pace even.

He had learned to let his body carry him forward.

He had learned not to make too many plans for tomorrow.

But as he sat upon the rim of the well that day, there was a strange silence around him.

Not peaceful quiet.

Too much quiet.

Like a place that had always contained a sound, only for the sound to vanish suddenly, leaving behind its outline.

An outline louder than the sound itself.

He lowered his head and looked at the waterskin in his hands.

The leather had grown old.

There was a split at one corner that he had repaired himself six months earlier.

The stitches were not beautiful, but they were strong.

He stared at that seam longer than he should have.

Then he realised he was not looking at it at all.

He did not say what he was thinking.

But his amber eyes slowly lifted from the leather and turned north.

Only once.

He looked away almost immediately, sharp and controlled, like a man accustomed to disciplining himself cutting something away from the edge of his vision before it could continue growing.

He sealed the waterskin again, stood, and brushed imaginary dust from his knees.

Three months.

He did not know where the thought had come from.

He frowned, as though displeased by its intrusion.

He knew nothing of the deadline.

He did not know that the person he had left behind was sitting in her chambers at that very moment, quietly and almost stubbornly forcing open a narrow space for something between them that had not yet begun.

He only knew that he was still walking.

South.

Towards the next town.

Towards another place he never quite knew why he had to reach.

But that day, the road felt faintly wrong beneath his feet.

Like a grain of sand inside his boot.

Small enough to ignore.

Yet present in every step.

He had walked perhaps half a mile when he stopped beneath an old tree leaning over the road.

He gave himself no reason.

He simply stopped.

He rested his back against the bark and raised his face, allowing the sunlight to fall directly upon him.

It struck his closed eyelids and turned the darkness behind them a deep red.

He stood like someone who needed to be left in the sun for a while.

Like someone hoping the warmth might dry something inside him.

The wind came from the north, carrying scents from the direction of the castle.

Fields.

Wet stone.

Grass roots.

Ordinary smells that could have belonged to any place.

Nothing special.

So he told himself.

He drew in a deep breath of the wind from that direction and slowly exhaled through his nose.

Then he opened his eyes.

His lashes trembled faintly in the sunlight.

Something within his amber gaze had deepened since he had left that morning.

He lowered his head and looked south once more.

Then, very quietly, he asked himself a question.

He did not answer it immediately.

He pressed it against his chest instead, like pushing a seed down into the earth.

Deeply.

Heavily.

Then he continued walking.

But this time, his right hand did not seek the hilt of his sword.

It hung open at his side, moving lightly with each step.

As though waiting for something to take hold of it.

________________________________________________________________

Anna had been sitting beside the window in a daze for some time.

Then she suddenly spoke to Atti.

She did not turn towards her, but she had known all along that Atti remained beside her.

“You said… he took a room at the inn in the eastern district, didn’t you?”

She waited for Atti’s answer.

An idea seemed to be forming in her mind.

Atti was silent for one beat.

That single beat revealed more than words could have.

She stood behind Anna and looked at her back.

At the hands resting lightly upon the windowsill.

At the thin line of sunlight tracing the side of Anna’s face.

She knew what lay beneath the question.

She also knew in which direction her next words would push the thought that had only just begun to grow.

Atti released a quiet breath.

“He did not stay at the inn in the eastern district.”

Her voice was steady and unhurried, as though she were setting something important upon a level surface and allowing it to stand on its own.

“The gatekeeper said that before dawn…”

She paused.

“He left. Through the south gate. Alone, before the sun had fully risen.”

She added no emphasis.

She did not say therefore.

She did not say you see.

She offered no words attempting to draw a conclusion from the fact.

She merely allowed it to fall gently into the silence beside Anna’s window.

Then she stepped forward and stopped behind her, her gaze moving towards the southern road outside.

The road was clear beneath the sunlight.

The cracks between the stones still held the dark colour of the previous night’s rain, some patches deep and others pale, like traces left by someone that the sun had not yet dried away.

Atti said nothing more.

But a small light had quietly appeared in her eyes.

The light of someone waiting to see what Anna would do.

Not pressure.

Not encouragement.

It was the look of a person who had seen many things and, at the right moment, pushed a door open by a narrow space before stepping aside to wait.

She waited for Anna to decide whether she would pass through.

When Anna heard that he had not remained in the eastern district, her heart tightened.

At last she turned, her movement sudden and heavy.

“He didn’t stay? Then where is he going?”

Was he leaving?

The question cut across Anna’s heart like a blade.

The day before, she had indeed believed that once she thanked him properly and allowed him to leave, everything would return to normal.

But now that she knew he might truly be gone, why did it hurt so much?

It hurt enough that she turned faster than she ever had before.

Atti did not retreat from the speed of that movement.

She simply met Anna’s eyes.

She received the urgency within them.

She received everything hidden beneath the unspoken question.

She stood firmly, like a wall—not to block Anna, but to give her something steady to collide with.

She returned Anna’s gaze calmly.

After one breath of silence, she spoke clearly, though not loudly.

“He is a wandering knight, my lady.”

“He does not go anywhere. He goes everywhere.”

There was no cruelty in the words.

But they were still a knife.

A knife Atti knew was sharp.

She used it not to wound, but to cut the shape of the truth cleanly, allowing it to stand before Anna without blur or ambiguity.

Then she stepped closer and lowered her voice.

“But…”

She paused slightly, as though measuring how much weight the word required.

“There is only one road leading south from the city.”

She said nothing more.

She placed the words gently into Anna’s hands, then stepped back half a pace and lowered her gaze towards the sunlit road outside.

South of the city, beneath the old tree, Jeffrey had still not moved.

He did not know how long he had been standing there.

The angle of the sunlight had shifted.

His shadow had moved from the left until it lay directly before him, long and narrow across the dirt road, reaching beyond the toes of his boots.

He lowered his head and looked at it for a long time.

Then he straightened away from the trunk, brushed something nonexistent from his shoulder, drew a deep breath, and adjusted the strap of his pack.

He took three steps south.

Then stopped.

His amber eyes stared directly down the road.

His expression was entirely still, like deep water.

Like the expression he had worn before every departure over the past seven years.

But his feet did not move again.

He remained where he was, brows faintly drawn together, as though two directions were struggling silently inside his chest, the conflict making even his breathing shallower than usual.

He raised a hand and pressed his thumb firmly against the knuckle of his forefinger.

It was something he did only when thinking.

The movement of a man turning the same matter over and over inside his mind.

He was thinking of something.

Something he had buried the moment he left the castle gate.

He had believed he had buried it deeply enough.

He had believed that if he walked far enough, its weight would thin with every step.

But it had not.

It had become more solid.

Heavier.

It pressed against the centre of his chest like a stone he could no longer pretend did not exist.

He tilted his face towards the sky.

It was blue.

Washed clean.

The rain had carried away every trace of grey, leaving behind a colour so clear it seemed almost unfamiliar.

He stood with his face raised, allowing the sun to illuminate every part of it.

His closed lashes.

The faint scar at his temple.

Then he slowly lowered his head.

He turned towards the north.

Towards the castle.

Towards the outline from which he had walked away step by step that morning.

In the morning light, it stood upon the horizon like a silent question, waiting for him to give an answer.

He remained still.

The hands hanging at his sides slowly closed into fists.

________________________________________________________________

There was only one road leading south.

She would not take the wrong one.

And even if she did, she would question everyone she met until she found the right path.

“Atti… help me.”

Her tone was calm, but beneath it lay a determination that could not be moved.

“I need to leave for a while. Do not let anyone know I am gone.”

She raised her eyes.

She had no plan beyond the immediate moment, but at least she knew she had to catch him and demand an answer.

“I’ll come back after I ask him.”

Her voice was quiet.

“There is only one road. I won’t get lost.”

Atti remained silent for three full seconds.

For her, three seconds was a long time.

She had always acted cleanly and efficiently.

She thought quickly.

Decided quickly.

Rarely did she allow hesitation to show upon her face for longer than a single breath.

But during those three seconds, she made herself study Anna’s face.

There was none of the flush of impulse.

No moisture in her eyes.

No trace of any emotion that might inspire concern.

There was only a quiet certainty that seemed to rise from between her bones, the expression of someone who had already consumed all her fear and had nothing left but direction.

Atti knew that expression.

She had seen it in the mirror on the nights when she had made a decision on Anna’s behalf and then borne the consequences alone.

She lowered her gaze and breathed out softly.

Then she turned towards the clothing rack.

Her movements were calm and familiar as she removed a dark cloak made of ordinary cloth in an ordinary cut.

It did not resemble the clothing of a princess.

It could have belonged to the young daughter of a wealthy household leaving the house on some errand.

Atti returned and settled the cloak around Anna’s shoulders.

Her fingers smoothed the collar with careful precision, just as they had countless times before.

But this time, her hand paused upon Anna’s shoulder and pressed lightly.

Not hard.

But with unmistakable weight.

“I will say that you are resting. That you have a headache and will receive no visitors.”

Her voice was calm, each word clear.

Then she raised her eyes and looked directly at Anna.

Something in them ran deeper than anything she said aloud.

“Get your answer.”

Only those three words.

No but.

No remember to return.

Nothing that weakened them.

She stepped back half a pace and turned aside, leaving the direction of the door open.

Then she guided Anna along a narrow passage known only to a handful of servants, one that bypassed the guards stationed throughout the castle and was normally used for discreet errands on behalf of their masters.

Her disguise was flawless.

No one would notice that the hands beneath the plain cloak were so pale and delicate.

With Atti’s help, Anna obtained a horse.

She knew how to ride.

She rode extremely well, as well as any knight of the royal household.

Riding meant freedom.

Countless times on horseback, she had imagined leaving the palace far behind, escaping everything that had ever hurt her.

But Atti—

Atti was the person she could least bear to leave.

The second was Captain Klopp.

He had taught her to ride, and for that reason alone, Anna had given him a small place in her heart.

“I’m leaving. I’ll come back as soon as I’ve asked him.”

Anna repeated the promise to Atti.

Then she drew the reins and turned the horse.

She could not hesitate.

If she hesitated, someone might discover her.

So she pressed her heels to the horse’s sides.

The animal broke into a run.

Atti stood at the side gate and watched her disappear around the bend.

She did not call out.

She did not follow.

She only watched as the horse carried Anna beyond the stone wall.

The sound of hooves faded through the morning light until the wind swallowed it.

She remained there for a moment.

Then she turned, straightened her apron, and gathered every expression from her face until she once again looked as she usually did.

She returned to the corridor.

She had things to do.

People to keep away.

A door to guard quietly on someone’s behalf.

________________________________________________________________

The road south of the city was only wide enough for two horses to pass one another.

Jeffrey walked along the right side.

His pace was faster than before, though he was not running.

It was simply the speed of a man whose chest had found a direction and whose feet had begun to follow it naturally.

The morning wind swept the grass at the roadside back and forth.

Rainwater still clung to the tips and was sometimes shaken loose, striking the leather of his boots and leaving small dark marks.

He did not look down.

His eyes were turned north.

The road ahead rose gradually towards a gentle slope.

The horizon at the top was clear, so perfectly blue that it seemed excessive, as though someone had washed it deliberately.

Then he heard hoofbeats.

It was not the sound of a horse merely passing by.

It was coming in his direction, from beyond the top of the slope.

Fast.

With an urgency that sounded less like travelling and more like pursuit.

Instinctively, he stepped half a pace towards the edge of the road and turned slightly aside.

His right hand moved by habit towards the hilt of his sword.

Then the horse crossed the ridge and entered his sight.

He looked at the animal.

At the figure on its back.

At the dark cloak pressed by the wind and streaming behind her.

At the edge of clothing visible beneath it.

At the two hands holding the reins.

His eyes narrowed faintly.

Not because he needed to identify her.

He did not.

He merely allowed his eyes to confirm once more what his heart had already recognised.

He stood still.

The hoofbeats grew louder and louder until they drowned out the rustling grass on either side of the road.

He remained on the right side of the road where the morning light stretched his shadow long across the ground.

His amber eyes stayed fixed upon the approaching figure.

He did not call out.

He did not wave.

He simply stood there as he had stood at countless crossroads before.

Waiting.

But this time, the corner of his mouth slowly lifted.

Only a little.

So faint and shallow that perhaps even he did not notice it.

As though something deep inside his chest had accidentally pushed the expression to the surface.

The horse ran so quickly that the surrounding scenery blurred into nothing.

Anna passed a man at the side of the road.

She could not see his face clearly, yet some voice inside her told her to stop.

She pulled hard upon the reins and forced the horse to turn.

The sudden force made the animal rear onto its hind legs with a sharp cry.

Was it him?

She did not turn the horse around.

Only her own head.

If it was not him, she intended to leave at once.

The instant the horse’s front hooves lifted from the ground, Jeffrey stepped forward by half a pace.

Instinct.

The kind of response in which the body moved before the mind when it saw someone pull a horse up too abruptly and pitch their weight forward.

His hand had already begun to rise.

Ready to catch her.

Ready to rush forward if her body tipped from the saddle.

Then the horse steadied.

He stopped where he was and lowered his hand.

A faint breath escaped him, so quiet that the wind erased it immediately.

He watched the figure with her back towards him.

She had not yet turned, but her spine was rigid.

The tension of someone trying to appear calm while the angle of her shoulders betrayed everything.

He could see it.

Then she turned her head.

With that single movement, her face came out of the side-light.

The morning sun revealed her clearly.

The urgency between her brows.

The uncertainty.

The thing she believed she had hidden but had not hidden at all.

Jeffrey stood without moving.

Their eyes met.

The moment they did, his throat shifted slightly, as though something had tried to emerge and he had held it back with the lightest pressure.

But his brows, which had carried a faint severity for years, eased.

Not dramatically.

Only slightly.

Like a string held taut for too long being loosened half a turn, releasing a sound too soft to hear.

He did not smile.

His mouth remained level.

But something warm appeared in his eyes.

Like amber illuminated from within, deeper and warmer beneath the surface.

He stood in the morning light, slightly ahead of her horse, upon the road he had just turned back north to follow.

When he spoke, his voice was steady, carrying something he was not certain he had concealed.

“Where are you going?”

He asked softly, as though he already knew the answer but wanted to hear it anyway.

The familiar voice and face finally allowed Anna to relax.

“Looking for someone.”

She answered lightly, almost imitating him.

Jeffrey was silent for a brief moment.

So brief the wind might have hidden it.

But something moved in his eyes during that pause.

Then he lowered his head and laughed softly.

Not loudly.

Not with open joy.

It was a small, shallow curve beginning slowly at the corner of his mouth, like the final ripple rising to the surface after a stone had sunk beneath the water.

He raised his head.

His amber eyes returned to her face.

This time, he did not look away.

“Did you find him?”

His voice was lower than before.

So low that it seemed meant for her alone.

There was an understated warmth in it, like body heat concealed beneath a sleeve.

Nothing showy.

But unmistakable once one came close enough.

He stood behind and slightly to the side of the horse.

In the morning light.

Upon the road he had turned around to follow.

He stood with the steadiness of a man who had thought something through and no longer intended to push it away.

He waited for her answer.

His eyes did not leave her.

His breathing remained calm, like the surface of deep water.

Nothing showed above.

But beneath it, something burned.

Quietly.

“I found him.”

Her eyes met his without wavering.

It was not the gaze of a hunter regarding prey.

It was the gaze one gave to something they would treasure deeply if it ever became theirs, no matter what that thing might be.

“I want to know where he is going.”

It was not truly a question.

It was a demand for an answer.

“And why he left.”

Jeffrey did not answer immediately.

He stood there and allowed her gaze to remain upon him.

He allowed the two statements to settle against him.

They were not questions.

They demanded an answer.

He heard it clearly.

There was no room for hesitation in her tone.

It was like a very light knife, so light one might imagine it incapable of cutting anything, though it had already entered the flesh.

The line of his jaw moved slightly.

He took two steps to the side until he stood beside her horse.

He reached out and lowered the reins gently, calming the animal.

His hand was steady.

The horse recognised steadiness and settled beneath it.

Then he lifted his face and looked at her again.

From that angle, he had to tilt his head upwards.

She sat upon the horse, and he stood upon the ground.

But the angle did not diminish his gaze.

His amber eyes remained quiet and direct upon her face, upon the eyes that refused to turn away.

He was silent for a long time.

Long enough for the grass beside the road to bend beneath the wind and rise again.

Long enough for a bird in the distance to call once and fall silent.

Long enough for the silence itself to acquire weight.

Then he spoke.

“Where I am going…”

His voice was low, drawn from somewhere deep within his chest.

“I am not certain yet.”

He paused, as though finding a stable place for the next words.

“But until a short while ago, I was heading south.”

As he said it, his gaze did not shift.

His brows did not furrow.

There was no expression upon his face attempting to make the statement sound lighter than it was.

He allowed it to stand between them unadorned and exposed, leaving her to judge its weight for herself.

His hand still rested lightly upon the reins.

His long fingers did not tighten.

They merely remained there.

Like those of a man who had already pressed a decision into his bones and no longer needed to hold anything tightly in order to remain standing.

“Then why did you turn back?”

This time, it was a true question.

She wanted to know why, if he had intended to leave, he had changed his mind.

Her tone was not harsh, but she was direct by nature.

She did not speak in circles.

She was skilled at questions and negotiation.

They were abilities she had trained in herself so she could continue living through pain.

Jeffrey was silent for one beat.

He had known she would ask.

Or perhaps, from the moment he turned north, he had known that sooner or later he would have to answer.

Sooner or later, he would have to give the thing he had pressed beneath his chest all morning the shape of words.

He did not evade her.

His eyes did not move aside.

He did not look at the ground.

He used no small gesture to buy himself time.

He simply looked up at her and allowed the question to face him.

He made himself stand firmly beneath her gaze.

Then he answered.

“Because there was a grain of sand.”

He said it softly, as though speaking of something insignificant.

But something lay beneath his voice, pressing heavily upon it.

“Halfway down the road, I found a grain of sand in my boot.”

He paused.

“Small. But I felt it with every step.”

His thumb pressed lightly against the knuckle of his forefinger.

The gesture he made only when thinking.

But this time, he was not thinking.

He was confirming.

“Seven years,” he said. “I have never turned back.”

His voice slowed by half a beat.

“Today, walking away was difficult.”

He said nothing more.

No therefore.

No explanation of what it meant.

He did not complete the last step of the answer on her behalf.

He pushed it within her reach and allowed her to take it herself.

To weigh it.

His amber eyes watched her quietly.

Waiting.

She had heard him say that he had never turned back.

But this time, he had been unable to keep walking.

Anna pressed her heels lightly to the horse’s sides, guiding it until she was beside him.

She wanted to be closer.

She did not want so much distance between them.

“Then why did you want to leave in the first place?”

She asked softly, doing her best to keep her voice from trembling.

Jeffrey did not step away when the horse approached.

He remained where he was and allowed it to carry her nearer until she was beside his shoulder, close enough that he could have touched her knee merely by raising his hand.

He did not.

He only stood there, feeling the warmth and breath of the horse.

Feeling her nearness.

Something subtle in the air between them changed.

He heard her ask why he had left.

He heard how hard she was trying to keep her voice steady.

He noticed the faint tremor.

Seven years of wandering had sharpened his senses beyond those of most people.

He heard it clearly.

But he did not point it out.

He lowered his gaze to the ground.

To the fresh print the horse’s hoof had left beside the toe of his boot.

He remained silent for a while.

Then he raised his head and looked at her.

Not only at her eyes.

At her entire face.

As though, before making something clear, he needed to look properly at the person to whom he would say it.

“Because I am accustomed to leaving.”

His voice was level.

There was no attempt to excuse himself.

“When I stay somewhere too long, it means it is time to go. That is what I have told myself for seven years.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, as though looking at something very far away.

“If I keep walking, I do not have to think. I do not have to ask myself questions that have no answers.”

He paused.

“You belong inside the castle,” he said. “But I cannot belong there.”

The words were calm.

What they contained was not.

He did not say, You are a princess.

He did not say, I am a wanderer.

He compressed both truths into the shortest possible distance and allowed them to stand between them.

He allowed her to see the space he had tried to walk into that morning and had been unable to cross.

His hand hung motionless at his side.

“But…”

His voice softened there, drawing inward, like a man reaching a point where he realised he was being more honest than he had intended.

“Last night, when you cried…”

He did not finish.

But his gaze remained fixed upon her face.

Steady.

As though everything unsaid had been placed within his eyes.

The words you belong inside the castle, but I cannot belong there cut across Anna’s heart like a blade.

Yes.

That was one of the questions she had asked herself.

If Jeffrey remained outside the walls, then where was she supposed to be?

But she chose to ask about what he had left unfinished.

“What happened when I cried?”

Her gaze still did not avoid his.

Nor did she attempt to deny it out of pride.

She had accepted the fact that she could cry in front of him.

Jeffrey looked into her eyes.

He saw that she did not look away.

He saw that she accepted what had happened without argument and without pretending the previous night had meant nothing.

His throat moved faintly.

He stepped half a pace to the side.

Not backwards.

He only wanted to bring his gaze more level with hers.

He did not wish to tilt his head up while saying this.

He wanted to stand at nearly the same height and speak clearly.

“When you cried…”

His voice was so low it seemed meant only for the road.

“I thought that if I left now, then every time I remembered this place, all I would hear would be the sound of you crying.”

He spoke slowly.

Not because he was choosing his words, but because he wanted each one to settle before he released the next.

“I would remember someone crying herself to sleep, with no one there to tell her that it was all right.”

His brows drew faintly together.

The light scar shifted with the movement before his expression eased again.

“I have wandered for seven years,” he said. “I have slept in many places. Passed through many cities. There are few people I remember.”

He did not avoid her gaze.

Something rested deep in the amber of his eyes, like a stone kept buried for a very long time that had finally been turned over and exposed to the light.

“But you…”

His voice lowered.

“I do not think I could forget you.”

He did not move after saying it.

He added nothing.

The wind passed between them and lifted the edge of her cloak gently towards him.

He lowered his gaze to it for an instant, then raised his face and continued looking at her.

At his words, the tip of Anna’s nose and the rims of her eyes immediately reddened.

Something threatened to rise again within her violet eyes.

“Then don’t go.”

The words seemed like a response to what he had said, but they carried the faintest plea.

She had never begged anyone before.

Not even Atti.

When she asked things of Atti, it was through stubbornness or childish insistence, secure in the knowledge that Atti would give in.

This was different.

She feared his decision.

If he left, she knew it would take her a very long time to accept it.

Jeffrey froze.

Only for an instant.

So briefly it was nearly invisible.

The words had been spoken so lightly that for the first second, he almost mistook them for the wind.

But in the next, he knew.

He had heard them clearly.

The words themselves.

And the plea beneath them.

That small trace she might not even have realised had escaped.

Something within his chest opened by a narrow crack.

He looked at the redness around her eyes.

At the tip of her nose.

At whatever was rising inside those violet eyes.

She was holding it back.

He could see that.

She was so proud, and she was fighting not to let the tears fall.

Yet she had spoken those words.

He remained where he was.

He did not answer immediately.

He simply looked at her and allowed the sentence to settle fully against him.

He made himself receive its weight.

Then he raised his hand.

Slowly, he reached towards the hand she had resting near the saddle.

He did not hesitate, but neither did he hurry.

His fingers settled gently over the back of her hand.

His callused palm held hers firmly in place.

He did not grasp it.

He only rested his hand over hers, like someone telling another person through touch:

I am here.

He allowed the contact to speak before he did.

Then he said her name.

His voice was lower than it had ever been, almost sinking into itself, but every syllable landed with certainty.

“Anna.”

Not my lady.

Not any title that placed distance between them.

Only her name.

As he had called her the night before.

Like a man who had carried something back from very far away and finally placed it where it belonged.

“I’m not leaving.”

Only those words.

No but.

No condition.

Nothing that diminished them.

He allowed the promise to stand upright between them, steadier than every step he had taken south that morning.

His hand tightened slightly over hers.

Only slightly.

He was not leaving.

He was not leaving.

The words echoed again and again inside Anna’s mind, growing louder each time.

She released the reins and took Jeffrey’s hand instead.

Her fingers traced the centre of his palm.

The deep calluses reassured her.

“Not leaving…”

She repeated the words as though speaking them to herself.

As long as he remained in Losinitro, she could feel a trace of life within the place.

Her heart would have somewhere to rest.

There were still three months.

Anything could happen.

Jeffrey felt her fingers release the reins and close around his hand.

He did not move.

He allowed her fingertips to travel slowly across his palm, across the calluses embedded deep within his skin.

They had been left by seven years of roads.

By the hilt of his sword.

By wind and sun.

By countless mornings spent gripping the strap of his pack before another departure.

No one had ever traced them so gently.

As though reading something.

As though using her fingertips to understand years she had never witnessed.

His fingers slowly closed around hers in return.

Not tightly, as though he feared startling something away.

But firmly enough for her to feel the weight of warmth rising from deep within his palm.

She repeated his words again.

“Not leaving.”

The words sounded different when she said them.

They carried something he could not name.

Like someone who had walked through darkness for a very long time and finally found a lamp.

She did not dare say loudly that it was lit.

She only repeated the fact in a whisper to make certain it was real.

Jeffrey’s throat moved.

He lowered his head and looked at their joined hands.

At her pale, delicate fingers resting against his rough palm.

At the contrast between them.

The distance he had tried to walk away from that morning.

He had told himself it could not be crossed.

But she had ridden after him.

He lifted his face and looked towards Losinitro.

Towards the castle upon the horizon.

The morning light softened its sharp edges.

Something inside his chest settled quietly into place.

Not every problem had been resolved.

He knew that.

The things standing between them could not be solved in a single morning.

Not by three words.

Perhaps not even in a very long time.

But at that moment, his feet stood firmly upon the road.

He no longer wished to go south.

His thumb pressed lightly against the back of her hand.

A silent answer.

I am here.

“There are still three months,” he said quietly, almost to himself and almost to her. “There is time to speak of many things slowly.”

The wind blew from the direction of the castle and stirred the air between them.

It also caught Anna’s hood and pulled it from her head.

Her black hair shone with a faint blue-black hue beneath the sunlight.

Yes.

There was time to speak of many things slowly.

But there was one thing she wanted to say first.

To say I love you would sound too strange.

They had met only a few times.

It might make the words seem false.

But there was one truth she had already proven through her actions.

“Yes. There is still time… But the first thing I want to say is…”

She paused.

“I don’t want to lose you.”

She had discovered that truth that morning.

If she lost him, she would need a very long time to accept it.

When the hood fell, Jeffrey’s gaze lifted involuntarily.

He saw her hair.

Black, with a blue sheen in the morning light.

The colour of the deepest part of the night sky illuminated by the sun without losing its darkness.

The wind blew a few strands across the side of her face.

She did not move them aside.

Neither did he.

He simply allowed his gaze to rest there for a moment.

When the words I don’t want to lose you fell between them, Jeffrey did not react immediately.

He allowed the sentence to stand clearly in the air.

He measured its weight from beginning to end.

He measured more than the words themselves.

He measured the moment she had mounted the horse that morning.

The strength in her hands when she had pulled the reins.

The fact that her eyes had never once avoided his.

She had already said everything she could through action.

Only this final truth had remained to be spoken aloud.

His hand closed more firmly around hers.

Not with impulsive force.

It was the pressure of someone who had reached certainty and expressed its weight through his hand.

He looked at her.

At the redness still lingering around her eyes.

At the expression on her face after speaking—courage and vulnerability existing together, like two rivers flowing into the same place.

He saw them both.

Clearly.

“Anna.”

This time, her name left him more softly, almost embedded within the wind.

“However far I walked south this morning…”

He paused, allowing her to imagine the distance.

“…I walked back just as quickly.”

His eyes remained directly upon hers.

There was no avoidance in them.

Something rested deep in the amber colour.

Not impulse.

Not something temporary.

It was something solid, something that had settled to the bottom over the course of the entire morning.

“You are not going to lose me.”