19. Ryewood
Ryewood
Icouldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her under the willow tree, in my arms, saying my name like it mattered.
And then the way she ran from me.
I went to her room later, after I paced in my chambers, trying to convince myself to let it go, but I couldn’t. I had to know if it meant as much to her as it did to me.
She wasn’t there, and I knew, without wanting to, exactly who she’d gone with. It carved something out of me, and I’ve been walking the grounds ever since.
The castle is quiet in the way that it only gets in the hour before dawn. Cold has settled into the stone. I’ve been out here long enough to stop feeling it, my breath fogging faintly in front of me.
I round the corner near the eastern wall, and my feet stop.
Gemma is sitting on a stone bench, where the training yards meet the castle grounds, alone and still, staring at the stone wall like it holds the answers to questions I don’t know to ask.
My heart slams against my ribs. I shouldn’t go to her, not after last night, not after she disappeared. But I’ve never been able to walk away from her.
She doesn’t hear me approach, or if she does, she doesn’t react.
Something’s wrong. She’s hollow, like someone reached inside her and scraped out what usually burns brightest.
“You’re up early,” I say, stopping a few feet away.
She turns, and my chest tightens. Her eyes are red-rimmed and empty.
“Rye.” My name sounds wrong in her mouth, like it costs her something just to say it.
Rye, she’s never called me that. It’s always Ryewood, said with that teasing lilt and sharpness, like she’s reminding me exactly who I am, the spare, the prince. Something is deeply wrong.
“What happened?” I ask, searching her face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she says, looking away. “Just tired.”
I sit beside her, close enough that our shoulders nearly touch, but she doesn’t move toward me.
“I came to your room last night.” I keep my voice quiet. “You weren’t there.”
She pauses and then, “I needed to clear my head,” she says
Jealousy flares hot and sharp, but it dies just as fast. Looking at her now, it doesn’t matter. Whatever happened broke something in her.
“Gemma.” I lean closer. “Talk to me.”
She shakes her head.
“I’m fine, Rye.”
There it is again. Rye, not Ryewood. All of this is wrong.
“You’re not fine.” I shift closer to her. “Just…tell me what’s going on.”
Silence stretches long enough that I think she’s not going to answer.
Then, softly, she says, “I was with Grier last night.”
The words land like a punch to the gut. Deep down, I already knew, but hearing her say it is something else entirely. I swallow hard and force myself to ask the question.
“So that’s it.” The words scrape on the way out. “You’re choosing him.”
If he makes her happy. If letting her go…. The thought alone feels like it’s carving me open. But I’ll do it. I’ll let her go, even if it takes something from me that I’ll never get back.
She turns to me, and pain flickers in her eyes, deep and raw.
“I’m not choosing him,” she says.
Hope, stupid, reckless hope sparks in my chest.
“You were right,” she continues. “There was something between us. But it ended last night.”
A breath releases from my chest. She ended it; she’s not choosing him. But then I look at her again, really look, and see the devastation written across her face. The way she’s holding herself like she might shatter at any moment.
“Then why–”
“You should focus on the trials. Not me.” Her voice is flat and distant.
“Gemma, you’re all I’ve been able to focus on since you walked into my life in a fox mask.” I meet her eyes. “I don’t know how to walk away from you.”
She flinches like my words hurt her somehow.
“I can’t be with you either, Rye.”
The words knock the air out of me completely. All that hope, extinguished in an instant.
“Why?” My chest feels like it’s caving in; I feel like I can’t breathe.
“Your father.”
I almost laugh. “That’s what this is about?”
“He’ll never accept it.”
“I can talk to him—”
“No.” Her voice sharpens. “The King is dangerous.”
Her eyes meet mine, and there’s something in them, fear edged with urgency.
I open my mouth to argue, but the words die on my tongue.
I think about the twins he sent me to kill, about the orders I learned to disobey quietly.
I think about the trees in the throne room, the sap that sometimes runs dark red. I know what it is.
Stones, she’s right.
“Then we leave…” The words tumble out. “We run, build a life somewhere far from here, we go north.”
She doesn’t pull away when I reach for her hand. Her face crumples, raw pain bleeding through.
“I tried that,” she whispers. “There’s no running in this kingdom.”
She’s not just afraid. She’s speaking from experience.
“What do you mean?” I squeeze her hand tighter. “Gemma, what happened—”
Movement draws my eye. Grier is crossing toward the stone wall, posture rigid, jaw tight. He doesn’t look our way, but I know he sees us.
Footsteps echo along the eastern wall, and two patrol guards round the corner earlier than they should be. Their gazes slide to us without surprise. One of them opens a narrow leather-bound book and writes something down. They aren’t protecting anything, they’re recording.
Grier feels it too. He shifts, just enough to place himself between us and the guards, and Gemma stiffens beside me. She pulls her hand free and stands.
“I have to go.”
“Gemma—”
She’s already walking away, and the guards fall in behind her, not close, just enough to confirm what I already suspected. They’re not on patrol; they’re on her.
Cold washes over me. I take a step after her and feel the weight of the choice I should have made sooner. If I follow her, they follow her harder. If I reach for her, the cost is hers to pay.
I stop, and the distance between us—the one I swore I didn’t know how to hold—snaps into place.
I look to Grier and find the same dread on his face, and underneath it, loss, worn raw. His head shifts once, barely there. Don’t.
It’s not a command, it’s a warning, and for the first time, my jealousy has nowhere to land. We’ve both been standing in the same fire, and I just refused to see it.
Gemma disappears around the corner, guards with her, and I don’t follow.
Pain hits sharp and immediate, then my certainty settles deeper, somewhere it can’t be shaken loose. My distance is what keeps her safe, and I have to hold it.