The Princes Visit
? Ivy ?
Nora wakes me just before the sun has fully decided to rise.
She knocks once before using the healer’s key. Yesterday, after the nosebleed, I told her she could come in at dawn for three mornings while the mark is still acting strange. It seemed sensible at the time.
It feels less sensible when cold gray light spills across the room, touches the floor, and climbs the edge of the bed like an accusation.
I pull the blanket over my head.
“No.”
“Yes,” Nora says.
“No is a complete sentence.”
“Not when spoken into a blanket by a woman who bled from the nose yesterday because she thinks rest is a moral failure.”
I lower the blanket enough to glare at her.
She stands near the windows with her sleeves rolled, hair pinned back, and no pity anywhere on her face. A tray waits on the small table by the hearth. Porridge. Bread. Tea. Another bitter tonic in a little brown cup.
My stomach turns on principle. “I’m not hungry.”
“Tragic. Eat anyway.”
“Nora.”
“Ivy.”
We stare at each other. She wins because she has medicine and no mercy.
I sit up slowly. The room doesn’t tilt, which feels like progress. My wrist burns faintly beneath the sleeve of my nightdress, but it isn’t the deep pull from yesterday or the bright pulse from Roman’s touch.
My fingers lift before I can stop them, brushing the place near my cheek where his knuckles barely grazed skin.
Nora notices. Of course she notices. Her expression sharpens, but she only picks up the tonic and holds it out.
“Drink.”
I take it. “You’re pretending not to comment.”
“I’m choosing my moment.”
“That’s worse.”
“Usually.”
The tonic is bitter enough to make my eyes water.
Nora looks satisfied. “Good. Food next.”
I obey because arguing with her takes more strength than eating.
The fortress wakes around us while I force down porridge and half the bread. Boots sound in the corridor. A horn calls from somewhere near the lower yard. Men answer in short, practical voices. The north doesn’t wake gently. It wakes like it expects the day to attack first.
“How do you feel?” Nora asks.
“Like I’m being supervised by a tyrant.”
“Medically.”
“Tired.”
“Dizzy?”
“No.”
“Mark?”
“Quiet.”
Her brows lift.
“Quieter,” I correct.
“Better.” She checks my pulse anyway. “Hands.”
I hold them out. A faint tremor moves through my fingers.
Nora sighs like I’ve personally disappointed her ancestors. “No ledgers until afternoon.”
“But the western pass dispatch…”
“Left under Alpha seal before dawn. Dane sent two riders with the relief escort and a third behind them in case Brooks toll clerks decide to grow ambitious.”
I sit straighter. “It left?”
“It did.”
The tightness in my chest eases. Medicine is moving through the pass instead of sitting in a ledger while wolves wait for someone important to approve their survival.
It should matter more than the way Roman looked at me outside my door last night.
Nora gives me a look that says she knows the mostly.
I reach for my tea to avoid her face.
A knock comes at the outer door before she can say whatever terrible thing she’s thinking. The guard speaks through the wood.
“Luna. Alpha Roman requests that you be informed before the hall hears it.”
My pulse changes. Nora sees that too.
“What’s it?” I ask.
“The prince’s party has been sighted on the lower road.”
The cup grows hot against my fingers.
Jace is here, and for a moment I forget to breathe.
Nora’s mouth tightens. “Of course he arrives before breakfast has the decency to settle.”
The guard continues, careful. “Alpha says there’s no need for you to attend the first receiving unless you choose to.”
The words should steady me. They do, a little. They also make the choice heavier.
Nora looks at me. “You can skip the receiving.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No. You don’t.”
I set the cup down. My hand doesn’t shake as much as I expect. “If I stay hidden, he’ll think the north tucked me away.”
“Let him think whatever his little princely skull can hold.”
Despite myself, a breath escapes me, almost a laugh. Then the old cold returns. Jace in the Moon Chamber. Sloane’s lashes lowering to hide a smile. White lilies. A public no.
I look toward the wardrobe where northern gowns hang. Black. Silver. Moon-blue. Nothing soft enough to disappear inside.
“I won’t wear Brooks colors.”
Nora’s face doesn’t soften, but approval moves through it. “No,” she says. “You won’t.”
The gown I choose is black wool with silver embroidery, plain by court standards and almost severe by Brooks ones. It fits close through the bodice and falls in clean lines to my ankles. No pastel silk. No white ribbon. No pearls dug into my scalp until I feel like a decorated sacrifice.
Nora helps fasten the back because my palm still pulls when I lift my arm too high. Her fingers are brisk, but not careless.
“You look like you slept,” she says.
“I didn’t.”
“I said look. Let’s not get ambitious.”
I turn toward the mirror. The mirror shows a pale face, a low braid, and black wool that fits without trying to turn me into a decoration. I still look tired. I also look like myself.
The guard escorts us through the corridor.
The fortress has changed, though not loudly.
The north is too disciplined for that. Still, the air is sharper.
Guards stand straighter. Wolves who normally speak in blunt, practical voices lower them as we pass.
A serving girl carrying folded linens sees me, dips her head, and says, “Luna,” without hesitation.
The title catches me off guard. It feels less like power than recognition, quiet and unfamiliar.
Nora walks beside me, close enough to catch me if I stumble and far enough not to make me feel like a patient on display.
“Breathe,” she says under her breath.
“I am.”
“With less murder in your shoulders.”
“That seems like your phrase, not mine.”
“I’m a healer. I know murder shoulders when I see them.”
We reach the upper receiving hall as the outer doors open.
Cold air rolls in first, followed by the scent of court. Perfume. Polished leather. Snow shaken from expensive cloaks. The faint sweet smoke of travel braziers. None of it belongs with the fortress smell of iron, pine, wool, and banked fires.
Jace enters like he still believes rooms are made to receive him.
The royal clasp at his shoulder carries a smaller black wolf beneath the crown.
Every Maddox heir receives the Northern reserve commission at eighteen.
It gives Jace no place in Roman’s daily command, but it qualifies him under the old challenge law if he ever chooses to question the War Alpha before witnesses. Until now, I thought it was ceremonial.
He wears dark blue trimmed in silver, royal enough to remind everyone who he’s without looking overdressed for the north. His golden hair is neat despite the journey. His face holds the same polished calm he wore before the altar split my life open.
Sloane steps beside him in pale gray and blue, soft as winter glass. Her hair is arranged in shining waves beneath a fur-lined hood. She looks delicate against the black stone, and she always knew how to look like something worth protecting.
Behind them come royal guards, court observers, two attendants, and a thin council clerk whose eyes are already counting everything.
Roman stands at the center of the hall in a black coat, dark hair brushed back, scar visible, and no decoration beyond the northern wolf clasp at his throat. He wears no crown, but he doesn’t need one. He doesn’t look welcoming.
Dane stands to his right. Holt Varrin waits near the far table with a dispatch folder in hand. Northern guards line the walls, quiet and armed. Jace’s gaze finds Roman first.
The falter is small, a pause between one breath and the next. I see it anyway.
He expected the woman he left beneath the arch. Instead, Holt is waiting beside a northern dispatch table for my answer.
Sloane sees his pause. Then she looks at me. Her eyes move over the gown, the braid, Nora at my side, Dane’s position near Roman, and the guards who lowered their heads when I entered.
Her smile warms by half an inch.
It’s the most dangerous expression she owns.
“Lady Ivy,” Jace says.
Roman doesn’t move. The mark at my wrist gives one cold pulse, warning or irritation. Maybe both.
I incline my head. “Prince Jace.”
Sloane’s lashes lower. “Ivy. You look well.”
“I’m recovering.”
Nora makes a soft sound beside me. I ignore it.
Jace steps farther into the hall. “The crown wished to ensure proper courtesy was being extended after the difficult circumstances of the vow ceremony.”
“Difficult circumstances” is easier for him than saying rejection.
Roman stays silent. I fold my hands in front of me. “The north has been very clear about courtesy.”
Jace’s smile holds. “I’m glad to hear it.”
Sloane looks around the hall. “It must be quite an adjustment. The north has such… honest edges.”
Her voice is sweet enough to make the insult deniable.
I think of her letter tucked beside Marissa’s, kept rather than hidden.
“The north is honest about its hardness,” I say. “That makes it easier to respect than places that hide cruelty under flowers.”
Dane looks down at the dispatch folder in Holt’s hand like it has suddenly become fascinating. Nora’s mouth moves as if she’s fighting a smile and losing with dignity.
Roman says nothing, though I feel his attention settle on me.
Jace’s eyes sharpen. Sloane’s smile doesn’t change, but the warmth leaves it.
“How poetic,” she says. “You always did have a gift for making pain sound useful.”
“Pain often is useful,” Nora says before I can answer. “If people stop pretending it’s decoration.”
Sloane’s attention shifts to Nora. She takes in the healer’s rolled sleeves, practical boots, and complete lack of court polish.
“How reassuring,” Sloane says.
“It usually is,” Nora answers.
Roman finally speaks. “The inspection party will be housed in the eastern guest wing. Your guards remain beyond the inner stairs unless escorted. Court observers may attend formal reviews, not infirmary rounds, supply audits, or private northern council.”
Jace’s mouth tightens almost invisibly. “Of course. We’re not here to disrupt your command.”
“No,” Roman says. “You’re not.”
That lands like a door closing.
A servant approaches Holt and murmurs something. Holt scans the dispatch, then steps forward. His eyes flick once toward Roman, then to me.
“Luna,” he says, catching himself only after the title is already out. “The western pass relief shipment cleared first watch. Your wording held at the toll point.”
Jace looks at me. Sloane does too.
Holt’s face goes red beneath his beard, but he doesn’t retract it.
I make myself answer. “Good. Send a copy to Nora so she knows what reached the post.”
“Yes, Luna.”
He bows his head and steps back.
No one told him to ask me. No one told him to answer me in front of Jace.
Jace’s gaze lingers on my face. “You’re assisting with northern dispatch now?”
“Medical relief,” I say. “The eastern post was short.”
Sloane lets out a soft laugh. “How impressive. I suppose every household teaches some useful skills.”
My hands cool. Roman’s attention shifts, but he lets me answer.
I breathe through it. “Some households teach girls to make themselves useful in silence. The north seems more interested in whether the work keeps people alive.”
Sloane’s smile fades by a thread.
Jace watches me with a look I don’t recognize. It isn’t desire, apology, or anger. Something has unsettled him, perhaps his wolf sensing the truth before his pride can name it.
None of them know what I am. Sloane, Jace, and the court clerk scribbling notes by the door still think I’m uncertain blood and Brooks charity, a low-value mistake made awkward by a vow gone wrong.
But Jace keeps looking, as if the room has shifted and he can’t find the old version of me where he left her. A royal guard coughs softly.
Jace recovers. “I’m pleased to see the north has found a place for you.”
Roman speaks at last. “She didn’t need the North to make her useful.”
“She needed people to stop calling it nothing.”
My throat tightens so sharply I almost lose the breath I’ve been holding.
Sloane’s eyes flick to Roman, then to me. For the first time, I see it.
She doesn’t know what I am, but she knows I’m no longer where she left me.
Jace inclines his head to Roman. “Then perhaps this inspection will reassure the crown that all parties have adjusted.” Roman’s face doesn’t change. “Perhaps.”
A court observer writes that down.
I wonder which version will reach the capital. The crown’s concern. Roman’s coldness. My black gown.
It won’t include the way Holt called me Luna without being ordered. It won’t include Jace’s pause when he first saw me, or the small shift in Sloane’s smile when she understood I wasn’t being treated like a discarded mistake.
The formal greetings continue. Rooms are assigned. Guards are placed. The court party is guided toward the eastern guest wing under Dane’s hard-eyed supervision. Jace pauses before he follows.
His gaze returns to me. It rests on my gown. My wrist. My face. I hold his gaze.
Jace looks at me as though the room has changed its answer without consulting him.
He follows the others toward the guest wing, still trying to understand what he missed.