Sophia hightower

The sun had begun its slow descent by the time they left the training yard. The heat of the afternoon softened into something gentler, casting the Red Keep in warm shades of amber and gold. Long shadows stretched across the courtyards, and the cries of gulls drifted in from Blackwater Bay.

Alysanne walked beside Gwayne with her hands clasped behind her back, taking two quick steps for every one of his.

"You embarrassed me," he remarked after several moments.

She looked up innocently. "When?"

"In the yard."

"I did?"

"You applauded far too loudly."

"I was being encouraging."

"You were being conspicuous."

"There is a difference?"

"There is if one is trying not to become the subject of gossip."

She frowned thoughtfully. "I do not see why anyone would gossip."

He chuckled under his breath.

"That," he said, "is because you still possess the enviable ability to believe people spend their days occupied with worthwhile matters."

"They ought to."

"They ought to."

She smiled, pleased they agreed.

They passed beneath an archway draped in climbing ivy before entering the Queen's gardens. The bustle of the castle seemed to disappear behind them. Bees drifted lazily between roses, lavender scented the air, and somewhere beyond the hedges a fountain murmured quietly to itself.

Alysanne breathed deeply,"I think this is my favorite place."

"The gardens?"

"They never ask anything of me."

Gwayne glanced sideways, "Unlike princesses?"

She laughed.

"I was going to say unlike the Small Council."

"They ask things of you now?"

"They ask whether I have considered this lord or that prince."

His expression soured almost imperceptibly.

"And have you?"

She stooped to brush her fingertips over a blooming white rose before answering.

"I have considered that they are all terribly dull."

He barked a quiet laugh.

"There speaks the daughter of King Viserys."

"They only ever speak of themselves." She wrinkled her nose. "One spent an entire supper describing his hawks."

"And you survived?"

"Barely."

"My deepest sympathies."

She looked up with a grin.

"I knew you would understand."

There it was again.

That strange certainty she carried whenever she spoke to him—as though she had never doubted, even once, that he would understand her.

It was flattering.

Dangerously so.

They reached a broad oak overlooking a small pond where water lilies floated upon the surface. Gwayne leaned one shoulder against the trunk while Alysanne wandered toward the water's edge.

She crouched carefully.

"There are ducklings."

"I see them."

"They're following their mother."

"They tend to do that."

She watched the little family paddle through the reeds before speaking again.

"I used to follow you."

"You still do."

She looked over her shoulder, "I do not."

He folded his arms.

"No?"

"No."

"You ran halfway across the castle this afternoon."

"I walked."

"You most certainly did not."

"I walked... very quickly."

He smiled despite himself.

"There is a word for that."

"I know." he said

"What is it?"

She hesitated, "...determined."

He laughed outright.

"No, Princess."

She rose, smoothing her skirts.

"I suppose I did run."

"You suppose correctly."

"I did not wish someone else to greet you first."

The words came so simply that Gwayne almost missed them.

He looked at her.

She seemed entirely unaware that there was anything remarkable about what she had said.

"You are very fond of me," he observed.

She tilted her head.

"Of course I am."

"As one is fond of a faithful hound?"

She giggled, "You are far handsomer than a hound."

"I thank you for such generous praise."

"I was serious."

"I know."

She walked back toward him, stopping close enough that she had to look upward to meet his eyes.

"You always come back."

"I usually do."

"Even when you leave for months."

"My orders rarely permit permanent disappearance."

She smiled, "I still like knowing you'll return."

Something in her voice quieted the moment. Gwayne found himself studying the girl before him.

She had grown taller.

When had that happened?

He remembered lifting her onto a horse because she could not climb into the saddle herself.

He remembered her hiding behind his cloak during thunderstorms.

He remembered flower crowns and scraped knees and endless questions.

Now she stood before him with a book tucked beneath one arm, silver hair catching the evening light, speaking with the thoughtful confidence of a young lady rather than the little girl she had once been.

Time was a thief.

Fortunately, he thought, it had not stolen her kindness.

She reached into the pocket sewn discreetly into her gown.

"I nearly forgot." She withdrew a narrow ribbon of pale blue silk.

"I finished embroidering it yesterday."

The stitching was careful, though not perfect. Tiny white flowers wound along its length.

"I made it for you."

He accepted it carefully.

"You made this yourself?"

She nodded eagerly, "I thought... perhaps... if you rode in another tourney..."

He looked from the ribbon to her hopeful face.

"I could wear it."

Her smile brightened at once.

"You would?"

"I gave my word."

"You have not yet."

He sighed with theatrical resignation.

"Very well." He bowed his head slightly. "I give you my word, Princess Alysanne. The next time I ride in the lists, your ribbon shall be with me."

She looked absurdly pleased.

"I shall pray you win."

"I usually do."

"I know."

He tucked the ribbon carefully inside his belt.

To him, it was a harmless kindness.

The sort of promise one made to a girl who still believed every noble knight belonged in a song.

To Alysanne, however, it meant something entirely different.

As they began the walk back toward the castle, she glanced at him once, then toward the setting sun.

"I hope," she said quietly, "that one day I marry a knight."

"Oh?"

"One like you."

He smiled without looking at her.

"I should pity the poor fellow."

She frowned, "Why?"

"Because he'll spend the rest of his life answering questions."

"I do not ask that many."

"You asked seventeen before noon. I counted."

She laughed, "No."

"Twenty-three."

She nudged his arm with mock offense, "You are making that up."

"I am."

She shook her head, smiling to herself.

"I do not want a prince."

"No?"

"They seem terribly serious."

"They are."

"And rather proud."

"Undeniably."

"I think I'd much rather have a good knight."

Gwayne looked ahead, amused.

"Then I hope the gods send you one."

"They already have."

He assumed she meant the stories.

She assumed he knew she meant him.

Neither thought to explain.

---

The autumn sun hung low over the training fields beyond the Red Keep, gilding the grass in shades of amber. Alysanne sat proudly atop her mare, "I believe she likes me."

The stablemaster scratched thoughtfully at his beard.

"With respect, Your Grace... I believe she's deciding."

The princess frowned, "Deciding what?"

"Whether she'll behave."

Gwayne, tightening the strap on his own saddle nearby, snorted.

"Then I wish Her Grace the best of luck."

Alysanne turned sharply.

"You are meant to encourage me."

"I am."

"This does not feel encouraging."

"It is the most encouragement honesty allows."

She huffed, though the corners of her mouth betrayed her.

"You forget," she declared, lifting her chin, "that I ride a dragon."

"A dragon," Gwayne agreed.

She smiled triumphantly.

"...is not a horse."

Her smile vanished.

"They both have four legs."

"Dragons have considerably more opinions."

"I thought horses had opinions."

"They do."

"And dragons?"

"They simply set fire to the people who disagree."

Alysanne laughed despite herself, "You always ruin my arguments."

"I merely improve them."

Around them, a handful of knights mounted their own horses while stable boys bustled back and forth carrying tack. The morning ride had become something of a tradition whenever Gwayne found himself in King's Landing.

Or rather...whenever Alysanne discovered he intended to ride.

She nudged her mare forward until she drew level beside him, "You'll stay near me?"

"I had intended to."

"In case I forget something."

"You've never forgotten."

"No?"

"No."

She smiled, "I simply enjoy asking."

"I know."

He had known for years, she liked the reassurance more than the instruction.

The first part of the ride passed peacefully. They followed a winding path overlooking Blackwater Bay, the breeze carrying the scent of salt across the hills.

Alysanne spoke almost the entire way. About a history she'd been reading. About one of Joffrey's impossible questions. About whether dragons dreamed.

Gwayne answered each in turn, never rushing her.

"...and then Rhaenyra said dragons certainly dream because Syrax twitches in her sleep."

"I imagine dragons dream of sheep."

She looked horrified, "Surely not."

"They must dream of something."

"They dream of flying."

"They already fly."

"So?"

He considered, "I stand corrected."

She beamed, "I knew I was right."

"You usually believe you are."

"Because I usually am."

His laugh carried across the hillside.

---

It happened quickly.

One rabbit darted from the undergrowth.

The mare startled.

Her front legs lifted.

Alysanne gasped.

She held the reins too tightly.

Wrong instinct.

The horse twisted.

One heartbeat later...she hit the ground. The world seemed to stop.

"Princess!"

Several guards urged their horses forward immediately. The stablemaster was already running. Gwayne was moving before anyone else had dismounted.

He dropped to one knee beside her, "Princess."

She was sitting upright already. Wide-eyed. More surprised than hurt.

For one hopeful second he thought she'd escaped without even frightening herself.

Then he saw her lip tremble. "Oh..."

She quickly looked away, "I'm not crying."

"You are."

She squeezed her eyes shut, "...I know."

The admission came out so quietly it nearly disappeared into the breeze.

No one spoke.

One knight stepped forward. Gwayne lifted a hand without looking away from Alysanne.

The knight stopped.

The others understood.

Give her a moment.

Alysanne took one shaky breath.

Then another.

She scrubbed furiously at her eyes, "I am being terribly foolish."

"No."

"I am."

"No."

She laughed weakly through the tears.

"I rode Morning yesterday."

"I know."

"And I did not fall."

"I know."

"So this is dreadfully embarrassing."

"It is."

She looked at him in disbelief, "You agree?"

"You fell."

"I did."

"You are embarrassed."

"I am."

He nodded once.

"Both things are true."

She stared for a heartbeat. Then laughed. A real laugh this time.

Half tears. Half relief.

"I should not fall from horses."

"No?"

"I ride a dragon."

"You do."

"They are much larger."

"They are."

She pointed indignantly toward the mare, who now stood several yards away looking entirely innocent, "So explain that."

He glanced toward the horse.

"I suspect she wished to remind Your Grace that size is no substitute for manners."

Alysanne laughed again.

The last of her tears disappeared.

"There." Gwayne rose first before offering her his hand, "Shall we attempt to preserve what remains of your dignity?"

"I should like that very much."

She accepted his hand. His grip was warm. Firm.

She pushed herself upward. The moment she put weight on her right leg—

Her knee buckled.

"Oh!"

Before she could fall again, a strong arm caught her around the waist.

She froze.

Gwayne's hand rested securely against her side, keeping her upright as though she weighed nothing at all. His other hand still held hers.

She could hear her own heartbeat.

Gods.

He was holding her.

For one impossible, wonderful moment...Ser Gwayne Hightower was holding her.

"I've got you." His voice was calm.

Matter-of-fact, nothing had changed.

To him.

"I'm sorry," she blurted.

"What for?"

"I keep falling."

He looked almost puzzled.

"I should hope so."

She blinked.

"What?"

"Most people who lose their footing fall."

Despite her embarrasment, she laughed. He smiled faintly, "There she is."

Only then did he release her. He tested her weight carefully.

"Can you stand?"

She tried. Winced, "...Perhaps."

"Hm." He crouched again.

Without warning, one arm slipped behind her knees while the other settled behind her back.

Before she could protest he lifted her effortlessly.

Alysanne let out the smallest squeak, "Gwayne!"

"You cannot walk."

"I could have."

"You nearly introduced yourself to the ground a second time."

"I was managing."

"You were not."

She folded her arms with as much dignity as one could manage while being carried, "I dislike that you are right."

"So do most people."

The guards relaxed visibly now that the princess was smiling again.

As Gwayne began the walk back toward the castle, Alysanne glanced up at him.

The sunlight caught against the pale green of his cloak. Against the polished steel at his hip. Against the auburn strands escaping the tie at the nape of his neck.

He looked exactly—

Exactly—

"You know," she said softly.

"What?"

"You truly are my knight in shining armour."

He looked down at her with unmistakable amusement, "I should hope not."

"Why?"

"They're exhausting."

"I've read all the stories."

"So have I."

"They're wonderful."

"They're wildly inaccurate."

"I disagree."

"They always end with the knight rescuing someone."

"And?"

He adjusted his hold on her slightly.

"I've spent the better part of the morning carrying one stubborn princess back to the castle after she lost a duel with a horse."

She tried very hard not to smile, "You rescued me."

"I helped you."

"You carried me."

"I did."

"That is rescuing."

He chuckled, "If it pleases Your Grace."

"It does."

"Then I suppose I shall endure the title."

She rested her head lightly against his shoulder for the remainder of the walk.

He thought nothing of it.

She had done the very same thing when she was six after scraping her knee in the gardens.

To Gwayne, she was still the same little girl.

A little taller.

A little wiser.

But still his princess to protect.

Nothing more.

Alysanne closed her eyes.

She knew she'd remember this day forever. The warmth of his arms. The steady beat of his heart beneath polished leather. The easy certainty with which he had caught her before she could fall.

Years later, she would struggle to remember what horse had thrown her.

She would not, however, forget the feeling of being carried by Ser Gwayne Hightower.

Chapter one

The Red Keep had a way of keeping its own time.

Seasons changed beyond its walls, kings grew older, queens gave birth, boys became men, and men became ghosts, yet the castle itself remained the same: red stone warmed by the sun, corridors that smelled faintly of wax and smoke, tapestries stirred by drafts that seemed to come from nowhere at all. It held memory the way a priest held prayer—quietly, faithfully, and without ever letting go.

Gwayne Hightower had been gone long enough for the halls to feel almost unfamiliar when he returned.

Almost.

The stone still caught the light in the late afternoon with a copper glow. The guards still stood too straight by the doors. The servants still lowered their eyes as he passed, though not before one or two of them dared a glance at the handsome knight in the pale green cloak of Oldtown’s finest.

He heard the first whisper before he had even reached the inner passage.

“Ser Gwayne has returned.”

He hid a smirk behind a gloved hand and kept walking.

“Try not to sound so disappointed,” he muttered to the serving girl who had spoken, though she had already turned the color of ripe cherries.

That was Gwayne Hightower in essence: sharp at the edge, quick with a barb, and too aware of his own face in the polished surfaces of court to pretend otherwise. He knew he was handsome. He knew he was charming when he wished to be, and infuriating when he wished even more to be. He knew precisely how to make a lord bristle and a lady laugh, and he used that knowledge with the casual confidence of a man who had never once been forced to doubt himself.

Except, perhaps, in one very particular matter.

Alysanne.

He had not seen her yet, but the castle had a way of announcing her before she ever appeared. A burst of laughter from a distant gallery. A guard standing aside too quickly, as though some small silver-haired force of nature had charged past him. The faint exasperation of a septa in the next corridor, followed by the unmistakable sound of a princess who had chosen not to listen.

He was still smiling to himself when he turned a corner and nearly collided with a lady-in-waiting carrying folded linens.

“Careful,” he said mildly, catching the linens before they spilled. “If you meant to kill me, you ought to have chosen something heavier.”

The lady looked scandalized and then, seeing who stood before her, looked only more so. “Ser Gwayne—”

“Yes, yes,” he said, handing the linen back. “Tell everyone I survived the attack.”

He did not wait for a reply.

He had taken three more steps when the air changed.

Not in the grand, dramatic sense that songs liked to claim—no thunder, no wind, no heavenly choir of fate descending upon the castle. Just the subtle, undeniable shift that came when someone important entered a room.

“Ser Gwayne!”

His name rang out down the corridor with such bright certainty that he paused despite himself.

It was followed immediately by the patter of quick footsteps. Then more.

He turned.

Alysanne was halfway down the hall, skirts gathered in both hands, silver hair half-loosed from its braid and catching the sun as she came toward him. She was fifteen now—nearly grown, the ladies liked to say, as though saying it enough times might make it true sooner—but in motion she still carried something of the little girl she had once been. Her enthusiasm had not yet learned restraint. Her face lit with plain, open joy, and there was no deception in it at all.

Gwayne saw it and, for the briefest moment, felt that familiar and utterly inconvenient softening in his chest.

Then he remembered himself.

“Your Grace,” he said, bowing with precise grace as she reached him. “I begin to think you have taken a vow to ambush me every time I return.”

She stopped just short of him, cheeks flushed from running, and smiled as if she had been accused of something delightful. “You return too slowly.”

“That is one of the more insulting things anyone has ever said to me.”

She blinked. “It is?”

“No,” he said dryly. “But I thought I would reward your effort.”

That earned him a laugh, quick and bright. Alysanne laughed the way some people breathed, as naturally and without concern for who might hear. It was one of the things that made her so dangerous, Gwayne thought. Not dangerous in the way of dragons or knives or scheming courtiers, but in the way that made a man feel seen without warning.

She had the face of a princess, certainly—silver hair, pale skin, the unmistakable beauty of House Targaryen—but her expression was too open to seem cold, too earnest to seem distant. Even now, looking up at him, there was no practiced courtly mask in place. Just warm admiration so transparent it should have embarrassed her, and probably would have embarrassed any other girl in the realm.

Alysanne, however, had never possessed much shame in his presence.

“You are back,” she said, as though confirming a miracle. “For how long?”

“That depends on how unbearable the capital becomes.”

Her brow furrowed. “Then you may leave very soon.”

He snorted despite himself. “A tragic assessment. I shall be crushed.”

“You are always saying you are crushed,” she said with serious concern. “Last time you said you were crushed under the weight of foolish men at court.”

“I was.”

“I thought you meant it figuratively.”

“I did not.”

That, finally, made her smile widen. “You are impossible.”

“Yet you have chosen to know me since childhood.”

“I did not choose that,” she said, with all the gravity of someone delivering a profound injustice. “You were simply there.”

Gwayne looked down at her, one dark brow lifting. “And that is my fault?”

Alysanne considered him. She was clever enough to know when she was winning and innocent enough not to always realize it until after the fact. “Partly.”

“Only partly?”

“Well,” she said, “you do keep returning.”

He laughed under his breath, and several passing servants pretended not to notice.

There it was again—that odd, familiar ease. With everyone else in the Red Keep, Gwayne wore his sarcasm like a shield. With Alysanne, it simply became part of the rhythm between them. He did not mean to soften around her. He had only ever found it easier than resisting her entirely.

“How rude of me,” she said after a moment, sudden earnestness overtaking the teasing. “You have only just arrived, and I have not even asked whether your journey was difficult.”

“No.” He brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve. “Merely long and dull.”

“Then you should have brought me something.”

“I did.”

Her eyes widened with immediate delight. “What?”

He lifted one shoulder. “Patience. It is the only thing a man can return from travel with in abundance.”

Alysanne gasped, scandalized. “That is not a gift.”

“It is if you are fortunate.”

“You are insufferable.”

“You have said that already.”

“And I shall say it again if necessary.”

“Such devotion,” he said, and now he was smiling properly. “I am honored.”

She made a face at him—one she had likely been making since she could walk, and one he had probably been forcing himself not to laugh at for years. He had watched her grow up in pieces, as one watches a garden change without noticing the day the first bud opened. One afternoon she was all knobby knees and questions. The next she had a sharper jaw, longer limbs, and a way of standing that suggested she had begun to understand the power of being looked at.

He had noticed, of course.

He was not blind.

It would have been impossible not to see the change. Her voice had deepened a little. Her wit had sharpened with age, though it still tripped over itself sometimes in her eagerness to speak. She was no longer the tiny princess who had chased him down hallways with flower petals in her fists. Yet that child still lingered in the way she looked at him now—with the same bright certainty that had once made her believe him invincible.

Gods help him, she still seemed to think he was.

“Where are you going?” she asked suddenly as he moved to continue down the hall.

He did not even bother to hide his disbelief. “I am walking.”

“Yes, but where?”

“To escape this interrogation, if possible.”

Alysanne matched his stride at once, falling in beside him without a second thought. “Then I shall come with you.”

“Of course you shall.”

She looked pleased by the answer, though she ought not to have been. “You make it sound as though I am a burden.”

“You are a princess,” he said. “Of course you are a burden.”

She gasped again, outraged to the core. “Ser Gwayne!”

He let the corner of his mouth curve. “A beloved one.”

The outrage melted instantly into satisfaction, as if she had been waiting for exactly that correction. “Better.”

He glanced down at her and saw, as he often did, the unguarded foolishness of youth and the intelligence quietly tucked beneath it. Alysanne was not vain, not really, but she had the singular sort of innocence that made her believe kindness was the natural state of the world. It was one of the things that made her so unfit for court and so beloved by it all the same.

They crossed into a narrower corridor lined with portraits of dead kings. She did not speak for several steps, which alone was enough to tell him she was thinking.

That, too, was not unusual. She had always been quick to ask questions, but she was even quicker to listen. She remembered what people said to her, often when they least expected it. She remembered names, likes, dislikes, the tiniest details of a person’s life. She remembered, for example, that Ser Gwayne preferred lemon in his wine and that he hated portents, which was why she would later, no doubt, find some great delight in telling him about every ill-omened raven she ever saw.

“What?” he said at last, because her silence had become suspicious.

She looked up at him with all the innocence in the Seven Kingdoms. “What do you mean?”

“You are plotting.”

“I am not.”

“You are,” he said flatly. “You have that look.”

“What look?”

“The one you make when you have decided you may ask me something improper and wish to pretend you have not.”

Her mouth parted. “I do not look improper.”

“No,” he said, deadpan. “You look like a saint.”

The surprise on her face was so complete, and the indignation that followed so swift, that he nearly laughed aloud.

“I am not a saint,” she said.

“Thank the gods.”

She blinked. “Why?”

“Because saints are difficult company.”

Alysanne looked momentarily scandalized on behalf of the entire concept of sainthood, then pressed on in the way she always did when she knew she had not won yet. “I was going to ask whether you were tired.”

“You could have led with that.”

“I was going to.”

“After you accused me of being impossible.”

“You are impossible,” she repeated with certainty.

He inclined his head. “And yet still useful, apparently.”

That made her smile again. She tilted her face up toward him as they walked, and the light caught in the pale strands at her temples. “You are not impossible when you are with me.”

The words were simple. She had not meant them as anything clever. That was what made them dangerous.

Gwayne’s expression did not shift. He merely looked ahead and said, “That is because you are a tolerant soul.”

“No,” she said immediately. “It is because I know you.”

He nearly stopped walking.

Instead he kept moving, slower now, and gave her the briefest sideways glance. “Do you?”

“Yes.”

The certainty in her voice was almost childlike.

He should have dismissed it. He had dismissed it before. Alysanne’s fondness for him was no secret. She had followed him around the castle since she was old enough to walk on her own two feet and had looked at him as though he were the answer to every question she had ever asked the world. A lesser man might have found it amusing. A more vain man might have taken advantage of it. Gwayne, to his credit, had always understood it for what it was: a princess’s long-standing affection for a knight who had been kind to her.

There had always been girls who mistook gallantry for romance, especially at court.

Alysanne was simply more charming about it than most.

He glanced at her again and saw her watching him with open curiosity, as though he were still the most interesting thing in the Red Keep. The thought ought to have made him smug. Instead it unsettled him in some small, quiet place he had no desire to name.

“You look well,” she said, apparently deciding he had not answered fast enough.

“I know.”

She rolled her eyes. “That is not what I meant.”

“No,” he said, “it rarely is.”

She smiled at that, because of course she did. She had always liked it when he met her wit with something sharper than politeness. He had once heard her laugh at a visiting lord simply because the man had tried too hard to sound wise. Gwayne, by comparison, seemed to her something like a storybook knight—one who was rude enough to be interesting and kind enough to be admired.

He had no intention of disabusing her of the notion.

Not when she looked at him the way she did now.

Not when her face brightened at every dry remark.

Not when her trust in him was so complete that it had become one of the few things in the castle he considered entirely safe.

“Come,” he said after a moment, turning toward the inner yard. “If you are so determined to keep me company, you might as well do it properly.”

Alysanne’s face lit at once. “Where are we going?”

“Wherever you can irritate me most effectively.”

She considered that with delight. “The yard, then.”

He barked a laugh before he could stop himself.

For one small, foolish moment, as they walked side by side through the sunlit corridor, he had the absurd and inconvenient sense that he had been accompanied by her all his life—and might, in some other shape of the world, continue to be.

He told himself that was simply the habit of familiarity.

Nothing more.

And certainly nothing to worry about.

---

The training yard rang with steel.

Sparks leapt in brief bright bursts where blades met. Men shouted. Boots scraped packed earth. Somewhere near the edge of the yard, a groom cursed softly as a horse stamped and tossed its head. The afternoon sun struck the helms of the knights until they gleamed like little fires.

Gwayne stepped into the yard as if he belonged there, which he did. No one looked as though he had to prove it. That was another thing about him—his confidence arrived before he did. He carried himself like a man who expected the world to make room.

Alysanne followed him in with all the subtlety of a summer storm.

The yard noticed at once.

One of the younger knights nudged another and nearly lost his footing for it. A groom looked up, immediately looked away, and then looked back again when he thought no one saw. Gwayne caught every glance with the ease of long practice and smiled faintly to himself.

“Do not start,” he said under his breath as a knight near the practice posts opened his mouth in what was clearly the beginning of a jest.

The man closed it again.

Alysanne, apparently oblivious to the silent exchanges around her, looked up at the line of sparring men with bright interest. “Are you going to train?”

“I had intended to.”

“Good.”

He gave her a sideways look. “That sounded ominous.”

She shook her head with grave seriousness. “I am only hoping you win.”

“I always win.”

She looked at him as though this was the most natural and reasonable thing in the world. “Yes. I know.”

That, somehow, was worse than praise.

He pretended not to notice how pleased she looked at his certainty.

One of the knights—a broad-shouldered fool from the Stormlands with a voice too loud for the peace of God—caught sight of the princess and decided to be clever. “Ser Gwayne,” he called, “have you brought us an audience?”

Alysanne turned at once to look at the speaker, inquisitive as ever.

Gwayne lifted his brow. “If I had, I would have chosen one with better manners.”

The yard laughed.

The knight grinned despite himself. “Then I take it the princess is here to see you?”

Alysanne, before Gwayne could answer, said with complete sincerity, “No. I am here to see who loses.”

The laughter that followed nearly made the men in the yard break formation.

Gwayne stared at her for a beat, then tipped his head back and exhaled through his nose. “Seven save me.”

She looked confused. “Did I say something foolish?”

“Something unforgettable.”

She considered this and appeared to decide it was a compliment.

As if on cue, one of the guards near the edge of the yard called, “The princess has a sharp tongue.”

Alysanne looked toward the sound, then back at Gwayne. “Is that a bad thing?”

He drew his practice sword from the weapon rack with an elegance that made it look effortless. “Not when one is speaking to me.”

It took her a heartbeat to understand, and when she did, her face softened with pleased surprise.

He should not have been rewarded for saying such a thing. And yet he was, because Alysanne had the disarming habit of taking sincerity where others found only jest. Her smile turned shy around the edges—not because she was timid, but because she did not always know what to do with praise when it was given plainly.

That, too, was one of the things Gwayne had noticed about her over the years. She believed the best of people with a faith bordering on the imprudent.

The gods help the fool who ever tried to use that against her.

He moved to the center of the yard and faced the knight who had challenged him. “You look eager,” Gwayne observed.

“I am.”

“That is always unwise.”

The knight laughed and raised his blade.

Alysanne drifted toward the edge of the ring with every intention of observing properly. Her expression was intent, almost solemn, as though she were studying something very serious indeed. She had always loved to watch him train. When she was younger, she had stared at the movement of swords as though they were part of a great miracle. Now she watched with the same interest, but there was something else in it too—admiration sharpened by age, perhaps, though she was far too innocent to know it for what it was.

Gwayne took up his stance.

The other knight struck first.

Steel rang. They circled. Gwayne gave ground once, then twice, just enough to draw the man in before catching the blade and turning it aside with a motion so quick it drew another murmur from the onlookers. He disarmed his opponent a heartbeat later, the knight’s sword skidding into the dirt.

Alysanne clapped before anyone else had time to.

“Again,” she said, radiant with approval.

Gwayne lowered his blade and looked at her with long-suffering disbelief. “Again?”

She nodded. “That was too fast.”

“It was efficient.”

“It was rude.”

The men in the yard laughed again.

He shook his head. “You have no appreciation for discipline.”

“I appreciate it when you are doing it.”

That earned her a look from the other knights, each of whom seemed suddenly very interested in the dirt at their feet.

Gwayne had the good grace not to react, though his mouth twitched despite his best efforts. “A dangerous distinction, Princess.”

“I do not see why.”

“Because it suggests favoritism.”

Alysanne clasped her hands behind her back, quite pleased with herself. “I do favor you.”

The words landed cleanly and innocently, and yet the yard seemed to still around them for one odd little moment.

Gwayne looked at her.

Alysanne looked back, perfectly unbothered.

Then the spell broke and he scoffed lightly, because it was safer that way. “That is because your judgment is poor.”

She gasped. “Ser Gwayne, I am offended.”

“I know.”

The knight with the loose tongue nearly doubled over laughing.

Alysanne, not understanding why this was so amusing to everyone, folded her arms and tried very hard to appear stern. It made her look smaller and far less threatening than she meant to, which only added to the charm of it. Gwayne saw one of the grooms smiling openly and shot him a look sharp enough to cut stone. The groom wisely turned away.

Alysanne noticed none of this.

Or, if she did, she was too proud to say so.

When the next sparring bout began, she settled herself near the edge of the yard, still watching him as if he were the only thing in it. Gwayne fought two more men after the first, each more foolish than the last, and each laid down in the dirt with increasing embarrassment. By the time he sheathed his practice sword, the yard was in fine spirits and Alysanne looked as though she might burst with pride.

“You see?” she said when he finally came to stand near her.

“What am I seeing, exactly?”

“That you are the best.”

He gave her a flat look. “That is an opinion, not a fact.”

She smiled, entirely untroubled by his refusal to agree. “It is my opinion.”

“Yes, well. You are biased.”

She leaned slightly toward him, as if sharing a great secret. “Only toward you.”

It should have been nothing. A child’s affection. A princess’s absurd certainty. The sort of thing a seasoned knight ought to have taken in stride.

Instead he felt something irritatingly warm and entirely out of place in his chest.

He looked away first.

There was no reason to linger on it. No reason to let the moment become anything larger than it was. Alysanne adored him in the way of all young girls who grew up in the shadow of heroes and decided, foolishly, that one of them might be real. She liked his easy confidence, his sharp tongue, the fact that he never lied to her with the polished smoothness of courtiers. She liked that he let her speak, let her ask, let her follow. Perhaps that was all this was.

It had to be all this was.

Still, when he glanced back, she was looking at him with that same bright, unguarded faith, as if he were some knight carved from song and not merely a man in sweat-damp linen with dust on his boots.

“Will you walk with me?” she asked.

He took up his gloves. “You have just watched me fight half the yard. Must you also require my escort?”

“Yes.”

He arched a brow. “That sounded suspiciously like a command.”

She smiled sweetly. “It was.”

He laughed then, openly, because there was no use pretending otherwise. The sound startled a nearby squire into dropping a buckle. Gwayne ignored it.

“Very well,” he said, offering her his arm with theatrical resignation. “Come, Your Grace. Let us see how much trouble we can cause before supper.”

Alysanne took his arm at once, beaming as though he had granted her the moon.

And perhaps, Gwayne thought as they left the yard together, that was the trouble with her.

She looked at him as if he were something finer than he was.

He had no intention of becoming that sort of man.

And yet, as she chattered beside him about his sparring form, about the knights in the yard, about whether he had always been so arrogant or had grown into it later, he found himself answering every question with the same absent patience he had used since she was little.

It was easier that way.