Chapter 16
Evelyne sat on a carved stone bench beneath the wide, dappled shade of the magnolia tree. Her fan lay idle in her lap, half-forgotten. A few paces off, Isildeth’s eyes stayed fixed on the path ahead. Vesena, by contrast, kept sneaking glances at Evelyne.
She exhaled through her nose. She was too anxious for another performance and didn’t want to be pleasant or anything else she was expected to be.
She just wanted to retreat to her chambers, sit down, and go through her thoughts.
Even though she knew she wouldn’t find anything new. It was still doing something.
Alaric emerged through the archway, grinning, his servant at his side. He wore forest green, unbuttoned coat, brown shirt opened at the collar, and a pair of leather gloves.
He dipped into a deep, fluid bow. “Your Highness,” he greeted. “You are a vision among the roses.”
“Prince Alaric,” she inclined her head.
He approached with the same unhurried confidence that had already begun to grate on her nerves. But he did not reach for her hand this time. No kiss. No impropriety. Just the bow.
“I do believe I’m improving. You didn’t wince this time.”
“Because you gave me no reason.”
His smirk widened. “I merely pick my battles.”
“Wise of you.”
Alaric extended an arm to her. “Shall we?”
Evelyne eyed him for a fraction of a second before pointedly ignoring the offered arm. She stepped forward, tucking her fan neatly against her wrist. “Do try to keep up, Prince.”
Alaric let out a low huff of laughter and followed. Their servants trailed a few paces behind.
“I hear you spent the morning hunting with my father,” Evelyne remarked. “I hope the experience was… enlightening.”
Alaric’s lips curved into a knowing smile. “Ah, yes. The king and I shared a rather enlightening expedition in pursuit of wild boar,” he began, his tone warm. “His Majesty was most generous in imparting his knowledge of tracking and crossbow technique.”
Evelyne arched a brow. “My father does not believe in wasting words. I imagine his instructions were succinct.”
“Oh, indeed,” he intoned. “If memory serves me right, His Majesty’s precise words were—how shall I phrase this delicately? — ‘If you miss, don’t bother coming back.’”
Evelyne huffed a laugh. “And yet, you returned. Which means you either did not miss… or you ignored his warning.”
His mouth tugged sideways. “A gentleman never boasts, Princess.”
“And my brother? I assume he did not leave your side.”
Alaric’s expression faltered for a heartbeat, but the flash of something like horror was unmistakable. Evelyne felt a rush of satisfaction, wild and immediate. Oh, she knew that look.
“Well…” Alaric began, clearing his throat, “His Highness was quite… involved. Very committed to ensuring I held the crossbow properly. At one point, he attempted to adjust my stance. With a stick.”
Evelyne didn’t bother hiding her smile. “A hands-on approach.”
Alaric gave a pained sigh and shook his head. “The heir is… spirited. A fierce advocate for battlefield etiquette and enthusiastic about boar-related commentary. I suspect he’ll be leading the next expedition. He is like salt in still water.”
Evelyne’s brow lifted. “Pardon?”
His eyes brightened. “Varantian saying. It means he’s sharper than he looks. Leaves a taste behind. Most people don’t expect it until they swallow.”
She blinked once, then let out the smallest huff of reluctant amusement.
“And,” he added with mock gravity, “I’m fairly certain he threatened me. So, I may be saying it out of strategic self-preservation.”
Evelyne angled her head, just enough to study him from the corner of her eye. “I know you have a sister. What is she like?”
Alaric’s mouth twitched. “Fierce,” he answered, the word landing with unexpected weight. “Untamed. She has opinions about everything, most of them shouted from a rooftop. She’s only a few years younger than me, but she makes me feel about eighty on a good day.”
“And on a bad day?”
“She reminds me that she could probably win my right to the throne on cards.” He shrugged, but the fondness was unmistakable. “She’s a pain. But a necessary one. I think we need those, in families. People who scrape against the shape we’re told to be.”
Evelyne’s fingers idly smothered the embroidery on her glove.
“I know that feeling well.”
Alaric met her gaze—steadier this time, less teasing. “I think she will like you. Or at the very least,” he added, smile returning, “she’d enjoy watching you make my life difficult.”
“Well,” Evelyne quipped with a smirk, “I’d hate to disappoint.”
They walked side by side along the winding paths.
The gardens surrounded nearly the entire castle, filling the space between the main building and the nearest defensive wall.
Only the entrance, stables, and barracks broke the ring of green.
Everything else was order and beauty, with hedges trimmed to precision, gravel paths laid in mirrored patterns, and clusters of varied blooms arranged so carefully that even their diversity felt deliberate.
She caught the way Alaric’s gaze flicked to her. She pretended to study the roses instead.
“Forgive me for indulging my curiosity, but I find myself wondering,” he began, “beyond the reluctant obligation of guiding your soon-to-be husband through the castle grounds, what personal joys do you derive from these gardens?”
Evelyne cast him a sidelong glance. “I wasn’t aware you were keeping count of my reluctance, Your Highness.”
He grinned, unfazed. “I have a keen sense for these things.”
She sighed, but it was more habit than annoyance. “If you must know, I enjoy the quiet.”
Alaric hummed thoughtfully. “And yet,” he mused, “you have deemed me worthy of witnessing this cherished haven of yours.”
She arched her brow. “You invited yourself, if I recall correctly.”
He chuckled softly, letting the moment breathe. Then, without warning, he asked, “What memories do you hold dearest here?”
She hesitated.
It was a simple question. Gentle, even. But it brushed too close to something unarmored. Her first instinct was to deflect—to mention anything else.
Her thumb ran the fan’s edge. “Dearest?” she echoed, arching a brow. “That feels like a rather sentimental inquiry for someone who just yesterday implied my kingdom's traditions are archaic.”
Alaric didn’t rise to the bait. He only smiled, gaze forward, hands loose behind his back. “Even archaic places have corners that feel more like home.”
After a breath, her gaze drifted toward the oldest part of the garden, past the marble fountain, to where the path bent out of sight into a shaded grove.
“Over there,” she breathed, pointing past the fountain, “beyond that hedge. My mother used to take me when I was young. We’d sit beneath the trees. Flowers from Lysitha were planted there just for her. She said they smelled like home.”
“Lysitha,” he murmured. “Beautiful place. Layers of history. More ruins than standing walls.” A pause, then: “She must’ve had stories worth remembering.”
Evelyne gave a faint smile, too polished. “I don’t recall any,” she lied. “My mother wasn’t one for telling stories.”
Alaric studied her for a beat longer than was polite. “No?” he asked mildly. “Strange. Myths carry more truth than most ledgers and Lysitha has no shortage of them. You’d be surprised how often we bury fact in metaphor simply to keep it safe.”
She turned her head slightly. “I don’t believe in magic stories being real, if that’s where this is going.”
“Did I say the word?” he asked, smiling faintly.
“You didn’t have to.”
“I only meant—she sounds like someone I’d have liked to meet,” he explained. “She must have been quite extraordinary.”
Evelyne didn’t answer right away. She focused on the line of the path, letting the image settle over her. It was distant and sweet and unbearably intact. And somehow, that was worse.
“She was,” she admitted, after a beat. “But she wasn’t made for this place.”
And neither, sometimes, was Evelyne. But that was a truth she didn’t say aloud.
They continued walking, their steps quiet against the stone path. The silence that stretched between them felt like a mutual stillness. Alaric slowed slightly, his gaze drifting across the rows of dormant hedges and blossoms.
“This is fascinating,” he murmured, more to himself than to her. “How easy it is, within the walls of every castle—including mine—to believe the world is well.”
Evelyne glanced at him, the question clear in her expression. He caught it and gestured around.
“You pass from garden to corridor, from marble to silk, and there’s no hunger there.
No sickness. No frostbite, fever or fields that never yielded enough grain.
” He paused, rubbing his thumb against a leather glove.
“But the further from Solmara we traveled, the clearer it became. The roads are worn thin. The villages are smaller than the maps claim. And the people…”
He shook his head, jaw tightening slightly. “They are surviving. Barely.”
Evelyne looked down at the path. She didn’t need convincing.
It pained her, too. Quietly. Constantly. And yet, she still dined from silver plates, wore imported silks while ration laws were debated behind closed doors. She did not pretend otherwise. She would not be a hypocrite.
“We do what we can.”
“And yet it never seems enough.” His voice wasn’t accusatory—just tired. “I thought I understood that before. I didn’t. Not really.”
“Understanding doesn’t come from books,” she observed softly. “Or numbers on reports. It comes from standing where they stand.”
His eyes traced the edge of her profile.
“You’ve stood there?”
Evelyne didn’t answer right away.
Her focus remained on the path ahead, but her mind drifted to a nivalen long ago, when she was small enough that the palace corridors still felt like a maze.
“The first time I went to Calveran, I was nine,” she said quietly. “It was during a famine year. The grain stores had spoiled in the northern provinces, and the southern merchants were hoarding what was left.”