Never After

I was a little deflated at that. “What don’t you like about it?” I said.

“I’m not very good at staying in one place,” he explained. “Even after a couple of nights, I’m itching to move on. The wagon broke down once just as I was leaving a small town, and it took a week to get it fixed. By that third day, I felt like I’d been shackled in a dungeon for a year. No sunlight, no fresh air. It was an awful time.”

“But Darius,” I said. “Once I’m queen, I’ll need to stay at the palace, conferring with councilors and—well—ruling the kingdom.”

“Yes, but not all the time,” he said eagerly. “Wouldn’t your subjects like it if you traveled around the country, meeting them in the towns and villages where they live?” He fluttered a hand over his shoulder. “We’d travel in something much finer than this, of course. We’d have a carriage like your stepmother’s, and we could travel for weeks.”

I thought it sounded both exhausting and impractical, but I didn’t like to say so outright. Surely once we were married, Darius would see that he would have to give up parts of his old life. He would see how many responsibilities he must assume once he was king. “Well—that does sound delightful. I’m sure I would enjoy getting to know my subjects that way,” I said, and was rewarded with Darius’s blinding smile. “Perhaps we can take a honeymoon trip all around the kingdom,” I added. “People will line up in every small town to greet us—”

But he was shaking his head. “No, no, for our honeymoon we should go to Liston and tour the diamond mines,” he said. “You can pick the very stone you want from the bones of the land itself, and I’ll chip it out for you and polish it by hand.”

I yielded to a moment’s worth of romance at the picture, but then—“Isn’t Liston very far away?” I asked.

“Two thousand miles,” he said with a nod. “Depending on the weather through Amlertay, the journey could take six months each way.”

“But I can’t be gone for a year!”

He looked surprised. “Why not?”

“I have to be ready to rule if something should happen to my father!”

“He looks pretty healthy to me.”

“Even so! He could fall off a horse—or be felled by an assassin—or devoured by wolves—”

“Wolves? At the palace? His fighting dogs, maybe, but not wolves.”

Perhaps I was too enamored of the idea of someone getting eaten by wild animals. “The point isn’t how he might die. The point is that if something happens to him, I must be available. We must stay within the kingdom for our honeymoon, I’m afraid.”

He was silent for a moment, something so rare for Darius that I feared he was angry. I was relieved when, finally speaking, he sounded disappointed instead. “Maybe I should go to Liston by myself one last time before we get married.”

Now I was bewildered. “But that would mean we wouldn’t be able to marry for at least a year. And I wouldn’t see you that whole time.”

He nodded. “I know. But I can’t bear the thought that I’ll never see Liston again.”

“Surely you will,” I said, having no real idea how to answer that. “Surely we will work it all out.”

At that I, too, lapsed into silence. We watched the road ahead of us, lost in our own thoughts, and I imagined we were thinking about two very different futures.

By noon, the autumn sun was warm enough to make us forget we’d ever been chilly, all of us were hungry, some of us were cranky, and one of Darius’s horses had thrown a shoe. Fortunately, we had arrived at a good-sized town with a central square that offered everything we needed at that exact moment: a blacksmith, a butcher shop, and a chance to switch passengers around. There was even a modest fountain in the center of town where Da

“How very common,” Gisele said with a laugh.

Da

We had left Darius, the coachman, and all the vehicles at the blacksmith’s shop. Harwin was eyeing the butcher’s storefront, where a sign promised fresh meat, smoked meat, and meat pies. “I will undertake to purchase our luncheon if you ladies would like to stay here,” he said, glancing down at Da

I had spotted lengths of fabric and ribbon in another storefront. “Ooh, let’s go look at pretty things,” I said to Gisele, tugging her in that direction. “I don’t have any money, so you’ll have to buy me anything I like.”

She followed willingly enough, her maid at her heels, but said, “I thought you were worried about my finances?”

“Oh. That’s right. Well, we’ll just look at things and feel sad that we can’t purchase them.”

The shop was small and crowded, with bolts of fabric piled up in no discernible fashion and knots of ribbon covering the walls like the most chaotic and jubilant pattern of wallpaper. Women that I assumed to be the shopkeeper and her daughters darted among the seven or eight customers who were probably the high-ranking gentry of this county. Gisele and I looked bedraggled enough that I was glad we were both plainly dressed; I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to recognize me at this juncture. But, aside from giving us speculative glances because we were clearly strangers, no one seemed to notice us.

I strolled between aisles, rubbing the velvet between my fingers and letting the silk pour through my hands like falling water. “Look at this blue,” I said to Gisele as I unwrapped a few inches of a cobalt-colored wool. “Wouldn’t I like a cape made of this!”

She had been right behind me up till this point, but somehow I had lost her attention. “Olivia,” she said, staring out the window. “Someone’s approached Da

That brought me right across the shop so I, too, could peer outside and see that two men had accosted Da

“Where’s her brother?” I demanded as I charged for the door.

Gisele grabbed my arm. “You can’t endanger yourself—Olivia, you are too valuable to go brawling—”

I gave her one incredulous look, broke free, and raced outside. Behind me I heard the rising murmur of women’s excited voices, and the sound of Gisele’s footsteps as she followed. “Get Darius!” I called over my shoulder.

But that wasn’t necessary.

I didn’t see where he came from, but suddenly Harwin was on the scene, crashing into the interlopers and sending one cartwheeling to the ground. Gisele caught me from behind and held me in place, while her maid grabbed one of my arms. Nonetheless, we were close enough to hear the other man’s oath as he whirled around to confront his assailant. Harwin already had a sword drawn and a look of menace on his face. He appeared to have shoved Da

“Step away! Leave this young woman in peace!” Harwin thundered.

“You wouldn’t be defending her if you knew what kind of soiled goods she was!” shouted the man who had been knocked to the ground. Unfortunately, he was now on his feet.

“I would defend any woman, no matter how debased, from someone as contemptible as you,” Harwin snarled in reply.

I had to admit, that surprised me a little. That he would say such a thing, and about a woman he scarcely knew—and that his size, posture, and attitude indicated he would be able to make good his boast.

“Would you?” sneered the other man, and then he leaned in to hiss some kind of accusation in Harwin’s ear. I noticed that Da