The Road North
? Ivy ?
The carriage starts moving before I’m ready. Maybe that’s for the best. If Roman waited for me to feel ready, we’d sit at the palace steps until sunrise.
The fortress is a long night from the capital in clear weather. Roman tells me the storm may push us past dawn, and before noon a mounted courier catches us with a northern dispatch about missing medical stores.
The wheels roll over stone with a low, steady grind. Harness leather creaks, one of the horses snorts, and northern riders fall into formation around us. Through the narrow window, the palace stays visible at first with its white walls, silver roofs, and tall windows glowing with gold.
Then the carriage turns, and the palace slides out of view.
My breath leaves me all at once.
Freedom doesn’t feel the way I thought it would. It feels like falling when no one has taught you how to catch yourself.
I sit with Roman’s coat wrapped around my shoulders and the bloodied cloth pressed to my palm.
The carriage smells like dark leather, cedar, iron, and wool.
Nothing here’s pretty just to be pretty.
The seats are firm, the blankets are thick, and even the door handle looks like it could survive a war.
Roman sits across from me instead of beside me.
The space between us isn’t large, but it’s deliberate.
His knees don’t crowd mine, and his hands rest loose on his thighs.
Without his coat, his plain dark shirt shows the breadth of him in a way court clothes try to hide in other men.
He looks less like a groom than he did beneath the arch, and somehow that makes the vow feel more real.
The scar along his cheek catches the lantern light whenever the carriage rocks. His dark hair falls loose near his jaw, roughened by the night and untouched by anyone’s attempt to make him suitable for court. Blood dries on his palm from the vow cut, and he still hasn’t wrapped it.
He noticed mine before his own.
I stare too long. Roman’s eyes shift to me, and I look down at my hand.
“Your palm is still bleeding,” he says.
“So is yours.”
The words escape before I can soften them, and I tense out of habit. Roman only looks at his hand, as if remembering the wound exists.
“It’ll stop,” he says.
“You should wrap it.”
His gaze lifts again. For one second, I think he might be annoyed. Instead, he reaches beneath the seat and pulls out a small leather case. Inside are folded cloths, a needle, thread, a vial of dark liquid, and a roll of bandage.
“It’s a soldier’s kit,” he says before I can ask.
He winds one strip around his palm with practiced efficiency, pulling the edge tight with a sharp tug.
When he finishes, he flexes his fingers once and closes the kit.
The carriage turns onto a rougher road. My shoulder bumps the wall, and Roman’s coat slips lower around me. I catch it with my uninjured hand and start to draw it off. Roman’s gaze sharpens. “Keep it.”
“I’m not cold anymore.”
“You’re shaking.”
I look at my hands. He’s right. The bloodied cloth trembles against my palm, and my fingers shake badly enough to flutter the edge of the linen. I close them into a fist, which only makes it worse.
“I’m fine.”
Roman leans back slightly, giving me more space. “Keep the coat until you decide otherwise.”
I have no defense against that word. Decide. Silence settles without turning sharp.
The vow mark burns beneath the moonflower paste. It’s no longer sharp like before. It feels like a cold thread under my skin, pulled toward him across the carriage. Roman flexes his bandaged hand.
At the same time, my cut palm stings.
I gasp before I can stop it.
His eyes lock on mine while the carriage keeps moving.
“Do vows always do that?” I ask.
“They don’t.”
The answer is too direct. I wish he’d offer some polished court lie, something smooth enough to rest on for one tired breath.
My mouth goes dry. “What does that mean?”
Roman looks down at his bandaged palm, then at my wrist, where the darkened moonflower mark disappears beneath the sleeve of his coat.
“It means we don’t guess in the dark,” he says. “We watch it.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“No,” he says, agreeing without apology.
A laugh almost escapes me, but it comes out as breath instead. The sound surprises both of us. Roman’s gaze holds on my face for a second longer than before, then lowers as if he’s decided to give me privacy with it.
The carriage passes through the outer gate. Stone streets become packed road. Hooves strike dirt and scattered gravel. The wheels jolt harder, and the city noise thins behind us until I can hear wind moving across open land.
The capital is truly behind me now, and my stomach turns with the knowledge.
Roman reaches beneath the seat again and pulls out a small wrapped bundle. He places it on the bench beside me, close enough to reach and not close enough to force. I stare at it.
“Bread, cheese, and dried apples,” he adds. “Nothing drugged, blessed, or ceremonial.”
This time, the sound that leaves me is almost a laugh. “I’m not hungry.”
“Eat something anyway.”
I pick up the bundle because my hands need something to do besides shake. The bread is dark and dense. The apples are sugared lightly, tart against my tongue when I finally force myself to take one. Roman doesn’t comment.
I’m grateful for that, though I don’t know him well enough to know whether it’s kindness or simply his nature. The thought lands hard.
I’m married to him, and I don’t know him.
I know the line of his scar, the weight of his coat, and the way he asks before touching me.
I know he stood between me and the room without taking my voice from me.
I know less about him than I know about the silver pattern on the Brooks dining plates. My stomach twists again.
Roman notices the change in my face. “The vow binds me to protect you. It doesn’t give me your body.”
The carriage seems to drop out from under me, not because the words frighten me, but because I understand exactly why he said them.
My wedding night. My husband. His territory waiting somewhere beyond the north road. Every expectation built into vows and alliances presses into the small space between us. My palm throbs. “I didn’t…”
“You did,” Roman says, not harshly. “You thought it.”
Heat climbs my throat, and I look down.
He continues before I can apologize. “Your room locks from inside. Your answer stays yours. If I forget that, leave.”
“If I don’t listen,” he says, “you leave.”
Leaving has never been simple, not for girls with uncertain blood and borrowed names, and not for wives carried north in black carriages after public shame.
“You’d let me?”
Roman’s eyes hold mine. “Yes.”
The answer is so plain I almost can’t hear it.
I press my lips together, but my eyes still sting.
Roman looks toward the window, giving me the side of his face, the scar, the hard line of his jaw, and the restraint of a man who understands that being watched can make tears worse.
One tear slips free anyway. I wipe it quickly with the back of my uninjured hand. Roman says nothing.
After a while, the road curves through open fields silvered by moonlight. Farther ahead, the land rises into darker shapes that might be trees, hills, or the beginning of somewhere I don’t know.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“The northern fortress.”
“That sounds welcoming.”
His gaze shifts back to me. For the first time, I think the corner of his mouth almost moves.
“The food is plain,” he says. “The wolves are blunt, and the wind is worse. They won’t know what to do with you.”
“That shouldn’t be reassuring.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
A small breath leaves me, almost a laugh. “Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Know what to do with me.”
“I don’t,” he says. “But no one in my fortress will call you Jace’s leftover.”
My throat tightens. I look down at the torn bread in my lap.
“And where you can’t hear it?” I ask.
Roman’s expression changes slightly. “I’ll make that clear.”
I should be afraid of the promise under that. Maybe I am. But fear feels different when it isn’t pointed at me.
The vow mark pulses. Roman’s bandaged hand flexes once, and the echo moves through my palm, gentler this time. It’s a strange awareness of him across the carriage, not thoughts or feelings, but a thread tight enough to notice and loose enough to breathe.
I press my thumb against the edge of the cloth on my palm. “Why did you do it?”
Roman looks at me. “Answer the vow?”
“Help me.” The word feels dangerous, but I keep going. “You could’ve let Jace carry what he did.”
For a long moment, he doesn’t answer. His face gives me nothing, but the thread under my skin tightens as if the vow has leaned toward the silence too.
At last, Roman says, “Jace wanted his debt gone. Your family wanted the shame gone. I was tired of watching them use you.”
He looks toward the dark window. “So I stopped it.”
I look down at my palm. The linen has gone red at the center.
“And now?” I ask.
“Now you’re my wife.”
The word sends a strange little shock through me.
He must see it, because his voice lowers.
“Whatever else this becomes, no one gets to use you again.”
My mind catches on the phrase before I can stop it. Anything more means a bed, a room, a touch, and a bond that already feels too clean and too cold under my skin.
It means wanting.