Chapter 9
NATALIE
Cold darkness swallowed me the moment the deadbolt clicked into place.
I stood in the small entryway of my father’s cottage, my back pressed against the massive oak planks, chest heaving as the cold adrenaline slowly began to recede.
Outside, the storm shrieked, throwing waves of rain against the stone walls, but inside, the wind could not reach me.
I was safe behind the thick stone and the iron locks.
Water dripped from my hair, soaking the collar of my work shirt, pooling around my bare feet on the worn wooden planks.
The cottage was freezing, devoid of the ambient warmth of the palace.
It smelled of dried rosemary hanging from the rafters, of cold fireplace ash, of aged beeswax polish, and the sharp, briny tang of the sea salt blown in through the cracks in the window frames.
It was a physical, grounding smell. It smelled like my father.
It smelled like the life I had abandoned.
I let my duffel bag slide from my shoulder, the canvas hitting the floor with a muted thud.
I walked slowly into the main living space, my feet guiding me through the darkness.
I did not need a light; I knew every inch of this room.
The oversized armchair sat by the hearth.
The small wooden dining table held a single ceramic mug and a stack of dog-eared agricultural journals.
My teeth chattered, a sudden, uncontrollable reaction to the chill of my soaked clothes.
I knelt before the hearth, my hands shaking as I gathered the kindling and stacked the split oak logs.
My fingers were so numb I could barely grasp the matchbox.
I struck a match, the sudden flare of sulfur burning my nostrils, and held it to the dry moss.
The flames caught, crawling up the wood, casting erratic, warm shadows across the stone walls.
I watched the fire grow, remembering the winters of my childhood.
When the coastal frost threatened to kill the young vine shoots, my father would wake me in the dark.
We would carry small smudge pots into the terraced rows, lighting tiny fires to keep the freezing air from settling on the delicate buds.
He had taught me that a fire was not just for comfort; it was a tool for survival, a shield against the cold that sought to destroy life.
The memories felt warm, a contrast to the memory of Elden Hall’s grand fireplaces, which were built for show, burning clean birch logs that radiated little actual heat into the cavernous, drafty staterooms.
I stripped off the remnants of the palace, peeling the wet cotton shirt and thick denim trousers from my skin, leaving them in a crumpled pile on the wooden floor.
I walked to the large wooden trunk at the foot of the narrow bed in the alcove.
I lifted the massive lid, the hinges groaning, and pulled out my father’s thick, oversized wool sweater.
The material was coarse and scratchy, smelling faintly of pipe tobacco and cedar.
I pulled the sweater over my head, the thick wool engulfing me, falling past my thighs.
The fabric swallowed me, offering a rough, uncompromising protection.
Unlike the stiff silk gowns I had been forced to wear in the capital—dresses with tight, restrictive corsetry that forced my breath to remain shallow and polite—this sweater allowed me to breathe deeply.
I wrapped my arms around my waist, pulling the wool tight against my chest, and sat in the oversized armchair.
I stared into the flames, listening to the roaring wind.
He was at the palace. He was likely sitting in his study, staring at the ruined cork, processing the finality of my actions.
He would be angry, perhaps even bewildered.
He would view my departure as an emotional outburst, a temporary lapse in compliance.
He would not understand that I had not left out of anger, but out of a desperate need to preserve whatever was left of my soul.
I closed my eyes, the memory of his voice in the study ringing in my mind.
We leave in two days. He had agreed to leave me behind, to let Beatrice play the role of his consort on the world stage.
He had treated our marriage as a transaction, a political agreement that could be altered to protect the optics of the crown.
I had spent three years trying to fit into his world, trying to bend my spine to the rigid demands of his protocol, and I had nearly broken in the process.
Exhaustion finally overtook the anxiety, pulling me down into a deep, dreamless sleep.
I woke to the pale, gray light of dawn filtering through the cracks in the storm shutters.
The fire had burned down to a pile of glowing embers, radiating a faint, residual heat.
The cottage was freezing. I sat up, my muscles stiff, aching from the cold.
I stretched my arms, feeling the exhaustion deep in my bones.
I remembered waking up in the massive bed at Elden Hall, the silk sheets cold and smooth.
Henrik would often rise in the early hours of the morning, slipping out of bed to review briefing papers in his adjoining office.
I would wake to the cold space beside me, staring at the ceiling, wondering when the crown would finish consuming the man I had married.
Here, the cold was different. It was clean, honest, and filled with the promise of physical labor.
I stood up, walking to the front window. I pushed the massive wooden shutter open.
The view was wild, raw, and beautiful.
The cottage sat on the very edge of the cliffs, overlooking the vast, churning expanse of the northern sea.
The water was a dark, angry slate gray, capped with white foam, crashing forcefully against the jagged rocks below.
The sky was a bruised canopy of clouds, rushing inland with terrifying speed.
I turned my gaze away from the ocean and looked at the land.
My father’s vineyard stretched out along the sloping cliffs, a series of terraced plots carved into the unforgiving stone.
Unlike the clay-heavy, sheltered valley of the Palace Vineyards at Elden Hall, where the soil was fertile but choked by years of royal neglect, this cliffside vineyard was built on a different kind of struggle.
These vines were rooted in granite and salt, forced to fight the brutal coastal winds and spray.
My father had spent his entire life tending them, producing a robust, resilient, and deeply complex vintage that tasted of the sea and the stone.
I opened the front door and stepped out onto the damp grass, the cold air immediately biting through the thick wool of the sweater. I walked into the terraced rows, my bare feet sinking into the cold, sandy soil.
The vineyard was completely overgrown. The neat, terraced rows had vanished under a tangle of invasive weeds and wild brambles.
The vines themselves were choked with deadwood, their branches chaotic and untamed.
The dry-stone retaining walls, built to prevent erosion, were crumbling, the massive rocks shifting under the weight of the neglect.
I walked down the steep, narrow path leading to the lower terrace.
The dry-stone walls that supported the slope were in disrepair.
I stopped, running my fingers over the cold, rough granite of a shifting boulder.
These walls had been built by my father and grandfather, constructed without a single ounce of mortar.
They relied entirely on gravity, friction, and the precise placement of each stone to hold the massive weight of the earth behind them.
If even one foundational stone shifted, the entire structure would slowly begin to sag and crumble.
It was a lesson I had forgotten. I had allowed the artificial mortar of royal titles, wealth, and public appearances to mask the fact that the foundation of my marriage had shifted.
We had built a structure on shifting sand, relying on the pressure of external expectations to keep us together rather than the raw, honest weight of a shared life.
I moved along the terrace, stopping beside an ancient, knotted vine.
Its trunk was thick, scarred by years of winter storms. I reached out, touching the rough bark, feeling the cold texture of the wood.
This was a hardy local clone, a variety my father had spent decades selecting and propagating to resist the salt spray and the constant wind.
I scraped a tiny piece of bark away with my fingernail, searching for the bright green cambium layer beneath.
A sliver of vibrant green emerged. The vine was still alive.
It was struggling, choked by the wild ivy and the deadwood, but the root system remained strong, anchored deep within the granite cliff.
I felt a sudden, profound connection to this plant.
It had been neglected, abandoned to the elements, yet it refused to die.
It simply waited for someone to clear the clutter, to cut away the dead weight, so it could grow again.
I moved to the next vine in the row. This one was different.
Its branches were dry, brittle, and gray.
I bent down, inspecting the graft union near the base of the trunk.
It was swollen and cracked, choked by a thick vine of wild ivy that had wrapped around it like a strangler.
I gripped the branch and bent it back. It snapped with a dry, lifeless crack, revealing only dead, white wood inside.
This vine was dead, choked to death by the invasive weeds I had failed to prune. The sight of it sent a cold, sharp pain through my chest. It was the physical proof of my neglect, a reminder of what happens when you abandon the things you are supposed to tend.