Southbound
? Ivy ?
By the time Mairen finishes, the fortress is moving around departure orders. Carr takes the eastern patrols, Holt packs the relief ledgers, and Nora leaves written instructions for Eastmere’s healer about Tobin before she agrees to ride.
Wheels grind over packed snow in the courtyard. Horses stamp and snort in the cold. Men call short instructions through the open lower doors, and the answering voices carry up the stairwells. No one sounds pleased about the capital; no one sounds afraid of it either.
Mairen steps behind me and checks the fall of the black gown one final time. She smooths the waist, adjusts the silver cuff at my wrist, then gives the skirt a practiced shake so the wool settles cleanly around my legs.
“There,” she says. “Walk once more.”
I cross the rug to the window and back. The gown moves with me instead of against me; it doesn’t drag, pinch, or force my shoulders into a shape someone else chose. The fabric has weight, but none like the one from the ceremony.
I stop in front of the glass.
The woman reflected there looks tired, but not breakable. Her hair is pinned low with dark combs. Black wool sharpens the line of her shoulders and pales her skin. The mark is hidden beneath the cuff, and I know exactly where it rests.
The girl in white is still somewhere inside me, but she isn’t standing alone anymore.
Nora studies me from beside the hearth, where she has taken ownership of my tea as if it offended her by existing unattended.
A knock sounds at the open door.
One of the younger seamstresses looks in from the corridor. “Alpha Roman is outside.”
My body reacts before my pride can stop it.
The mark warms. My pulse lifts. My fingers move once against the skirt, then still.
I draw a slow breath. “He can come in.”
Roman appears in the doorway and stops on the threshold.
For one moment, he forgets to hide.
His gaze moves over the gown, the cuffs, my hair, my face. By the time his eyes meet mine, the air between us has changed.
It makes me aware of myself in a way I’m still learning how to hold.
Mairen bows her head. “Alpha.”
Roman blinks once, as if remembering we aren’t alone. “Mairen.”
“We’re finished unless the Luna wants anything changed.”
His eyes don’t leave me. “Does she?”
I answer before anyone can make the question softer. “No.”
Nora finishes my tea and sets the cup down. “Good. I would’ve objected to doing this twice.”
“You did very little of it,” Mairen says.
“I supervised with medical authority.”
“You drank tea.”
“I supervised the tea as well.”
Mairen gives me a faint smile as she gathers her pins and measuring cord. The seamstresses collect the last of their things and leave with her.
Nora follows more slowly. At the door, she looks back at me, not at Roman.
“You ate, you’re steady, and the gown doesn’t appear to be murdering you,” she says. “If any of that changes, you tell me before you make it dramatic.”
“I will.”
Nora’s eyes narrow, testing whether I mean it. Then she nods and steps into the corridor, leaving the door open behind her.
Roman remains near the threshold until I look at him.
“You can come in,” I say.
He enters, but he doesn’t come close at once. His restraint is still there, though it feels different after last night.
His gaze drops once more to the gown. “Wear it only if it’s what you want.”
“I chose this one.”
His jaw tightens. “Because you wanted it?”
“Because when I put my hand on the fabric, I could imagine walking into the Moon Chamber instead of being returned to it.”
Roman goes still.
I face him. “They wanted the altar back. You gave me another dress. I chose this one.”
“I wanted to take the white gown from the room before you ever saw it.”
“I know.”
His eyes darken.
“I needed to see the trap.”
Roman studies my face before he nods once. “All right.”
The simplicity of his acceptance nearly undoes me. He wanted to spare me pain; I chose to face it. He lets both things be true.
I breathe easier.
His gaze moves over the gown again, and this time he lets me see a little more of what the sight does to him.
“You look like a Luna,” he says.
The words land low in my chest.
The title feels different now. I’m a Luna, not something returned or rescued, but someone standing on her own.
“I don’t know how to be one yet.”
“Yes, you do.”
I almost argue, but the certainty in his voice stops me.
Roman takes one step closer, slow enough that I can refuse the nearness before it arrives.
I don’t.
“You steadied Ansel without breaking him,” he says. “You understood the court faster than they wanted you to. You chose your own ground this morning.”
My eyes burn, and I hate that they do because Mairen has just made my face presentable.
“That isn’t training.”
“No,” Roman says. “That’s you.”
For a second, I look down at the silver cuff so he won’t see too much of my face. Then I make myself look back up.
“I was afraid to let you see me in this,” I admit.
His expression softens at the edges. “Why?”
“Because I wanted you to look.”
The confession comes out quietly, but it doesn’t shake.
Roman’s chest rises once. “I did.”
“I know.”
“I’m still looking.”
Heat moves through me, warm and immediate. I don’t turn away.
Before, desire always arrived with danger attached. Jace’s attention was a measurement. His withdrawal was a verdict.
Roman’s desire is dangerous in a different way. It makes me want more of my own life, not less.
I step close enough that the hem of my gown brushes his boots.
Roman’s hand shifts once at his side, then stills.
Waiting.
“I’m not asking you to kiss me before we leave,” I say.
His control wavers for one visible second. I’m proud of that.
His mouth almost curves. “That’s merciful.”
“I didn’t say I don’t want to.”
The look he gives me sends heat through my entire body.
It’d be easier if he looked away.
Things are different after the kiss. Want is no longer hiding inside near touches and accidents.
Roman exhales slowly. “The capital will try to use this.”
“The gown?”
“The gown. The way we look at each other. Last night.” His voice hardens. “They’ll call all of it influence.”
“Then we let them be wrong.”
“I don’t want their wrongness to cost you.”
“It already has.”
He stops.
I keep my voice calm because I need him to hear the truth, not only the hurt beneath it.
“It cost me before you touched me. Before you kissed me. They were always going to make a story out of me. I won’t make myself smaller just to give them fewer details.”
Roman’s eyes close for half a breath.
When he opens them, something in his face has settled.
“You’re right.”
“I know.”
The answer surprises a quiet laugh from him, rough and brief.
I look at his face, at the lines grief and discipline have carved there, and I think of every whisper that made him into a monster because it was easier than admitting the court had used him.
“Does the age difference still trouble you?” I ask.
He doesn’t pretend not to understand.
“Yes.”
The honesty lands cleanly. It isn’t the answer I want; it’s the answer I trust.
“Because of what Jace said?”
His voice stays low. “You’re twenty-two. They trained you to obey, then threw you at me. I won’t pretend that doesn’t matter.”
The words hurt because they’re careful. They also don’t insult me, and that’s why I can answer them.
“I’m not asking you to make it simple.”
His gaze holds mine.
I draw in a breath, feeling the weight of the silver cuff against my wrist.
“I’m asking you not to make me smaller so you can feel honorable.”
Silence settles between us.
Roman looks at me as if I’ve placed a blade in his hand and asked him not to cut either of us with it.
“I’ve done that,” he says quietly.
“You’ve tried not to.”
“That isn’t the same.”
“No,” I say, softer now. “It isn’t.”
He accepts it without flinching, and that matters more than an apology made too quickly.
“I won’t always know the difference,” he says.
“I know.”
His eyes search mine, not for permission exactly, but for the truth of whether I can survive his honesty.
“But I’ll listen when you tell me,” he says.
I believe him because he’s already done it in smaller ways.
I reach for his hand.
Roman looks down as my fingers slide into his. The movement is small, but the bond warms as if the room has spoken aloud. His hand closes around mine with care, not possession. His thumb rests against the edge of the silver cuff, close to the mark without covering it.
“At the altar,” I say.
His gaze returns to mine.
I keep my fingers threaded through his because it makes the question easier to ask.
“When Jace rejected me. Before you knew about the mark, before Eastmere, before any of this. What did you see?”
Roman is quiet long enough that I know he isn’t choosing something pretty.
“I saw a woman no one had the right to throw away,” he says.
The words strike harder than I expect.
He doesn’t say he saw power. He doesn’t say he knew I’d matter.
I squeeze his hand once.
Then a knock comes at the open door, and Dane appears in the corridor already dressed for travel. His expression is carefully blank until he takes in my gown. Then something like approval crosses his face.
“Well,” he says. “The capital is going to be unbearable about this.”
Nora appears behind him with a roll in one hand. “The capital is unbearable about weather.”
Dane glances at her breakfast. “Is that yours?”
“It’s now.”
Roman doesn’t release my hand.
I don’t either.
Dane notices. Nora notices. Neither comments, and I appreciate them both for it.
Dane clears his throat, stepping just far enough into the doorway to make himself part of the room without crowding it.
“Carriages are ready. Holt packed the records and enough copies to bury three clerks. The lower pass is ugly, but open.”
Roman’s attention sharpens. “Escort?”
“Set.”
“Scouts?”
“Already ahead.”
“Messenger?”
“Sulking,” Dane says, his mouth barely shifting. “Which I’m told isn’t fatal.”
The exchange gives the morning a shape again.
The morning narrows back to orders, roads, weather, and people accounted for.
Ordinary details. Roman looks back at me.
“Ready?” I’m not ready for the Moon Chamber, Sloane’s smile, Jace’s careful regret, King Grant’s polished danger, or moon-silver light on my wrist.
I’m not ready to hear strangers discuss whether my yes was clean enough to keep.
But I’m ready to stop being absent from my own life.
I lift my chin. “Yes.”
Roman hears the difference. His expression softens, though his face remains controlled. He releases my hand because the corridor is waiting, then offers his arm.
A week ago, I’d have taken what was offered because refusing felt rude or ungrateful.
Today, I understand the offer differently.
It’s a place beside him, left open.
So I take it, and we walk into the corridor together.
The fortress shifts as we pass. Guards straighten, servants look up, and a young soldier lowers his head.
This time, Luna doesn’t make me flinch.
The black gown moves steadily around my legs. Roman’s arm is warm beneath my hand, the mark quiet under its silver cuff. I’m carrying the girl in white with me, but she no longer drags behind.
At the outer stairs, the cold hits clean and bright. The storm has left the world white, and the carriage waits below.
Roman turns his hand beneath mine. “May I?”
I take it before he finishes asking, and we descend with the white gown, its note, and the palace-laundry tag sealed inside Holt’s evidence trunk behind us.