Page 9

“Tomorrow,” he murmured against my skin.

“Tomorrow.”

He turned his stallion toward the western road, setting a steady pace. He did not look back as the distance grew between us.

I remained at the fork, watching him until his dark form vanished around the bend. Touch resting on the warm silver pendant at my throat, I finally turned my mare toward home, trusting the promise he had left behind.

Chapter 4

The mare carried me east toward the village.

I let her set the pace, her hooves rhythmic against the hardening dirt. She was tired from the morning’s gallop and from waiting at the lower clearing through the long afternoon. Our journey home required no speed. Drystan was riding west toward the glistening white-tiled pagodas and the sprawling imperial palace, at least two hours away. Night was still hours off for both of us. The world was patient with me, a humble village girl, but it was never patient with Drystan, who carried the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders. His extended absence from his duties had surely been noticed by now.

I rode slowly, taking comfort in the knowledge that tomorrow would ease his burden. He would no longer need to keep our love hidden, nor take long, covert rides into the countryside. Yet a part of me knew I would miss the secrecy, the quiet intimacy that had grown precisely because no one was there to interrupt us. That freedom would inevitably change once I entered the palace.

The grove fell away behind us, the cherry blossoms thinning at the edge of the grove’s reach as the road opened into a wide landscape of farms and low hills. The light had turned fully gold. The shadows of the willows along the creek stretched across the road in long stripes, which the mare stepped through one by one.

I considered everything I would need to learn to integrate into the court. I was not naive. Even as a child, I possessed an insatiable desire to read everything I could touch. By my early youth, I had read every book in our house, the village school, and the extended library of the village temple, which held a surprising number of scriptures on various subjects. That temple library had provided my understanding of the Aurelian court, its history, and its political framework. The subject fascinated me, and I had surprised Drystan more than once when I offered insight into a problem he was wrestling with as a ruler. His delight at my grasp of imperial matters had been one of the quietest gifts of our weeks together.

I had ridden this road a hundred times, but never while carrying the weight of what I held now.

I tried to count the memories I was bringing home from the grove.

The lingering memory of his lips on my shoulder. The firm press of his hands at my hips. The moment my body crossed the threshold from adolescence into womanhood, a transition that had waited inside me for the right man to awaken it. The memory of his voice speaking my name after he retrieved my pendant from the water. He had noticed it missing while I was trying to impress him, and his concern had been immediate, entirely devoid of judgment. The feel of the warm grass beneath my shoulders and his weight above me. His dark eyes searching mine. The quiet authority of his “I love you.”

My fingers rose to touch the faint, invisible mark between my breasts, the one I had not seen since I was sixteen. It tingled slightly, as if charged by the energy of a storm. The silver pendant at my throat tingled in response, emitting a steady, unfamiliar warmth that had not faded since we left the pool. It felt somehow alive. My body had changed in ways far deeper than the slight ache in my hips. These shifts would reveal themselves over time, a truth I knew deep within my heart.

For now, a winding road through lush fields and pastures led back to the quiet village, a home that would cease to be mine after tomorrow. Waiting for me was a small cottage, my mother’s altar, and a thin mattress, all of which would soon give way to a life so vastly different it brought a mix of nervousness and excitement.

I had tomorrow ahead of me.

The thought rose within me, lifting my chest as the warm wind off the rice fields lifts linens hung out to dry. I had carried tomorrow inside me from the moment he spoke the words at the fork in the road. Tomorrow you ride for the capital. Tomorrow you will be received at the gates. Tomorrow you will arrive as my chosen. The words had carried a heavy weight when he spoke them, a heaviness I could barely process with the pain of parting so close. Now, with the empty road ahead and the mare’s hooves marking a steady pace, those words found room to breathe.

I let them take hold.

I pictured the household he had arranged for me, the dresses waiting in my chambers, the gates thrown open for me, and the court that would know my name by evening. I imagined the private rooms I had yet to see in a palace I had never entered, set within a city I knew only through stories. I would arrive alone on horseback, fulfilling the ancient tradition governing the entry of a common girl into a royal lineage. The custom demanded the love remain hidden until the final moment, allowing the bond to form without court interference so fresh blood could enter the ancient line.

And the dress.

I did not know what it would look like, having never owned a dress made by anyone outside my village. The fine cotton I wore into the grove that morning had been the softest fabric I knew until my fingers touched the velvet of Drystan’s shirt. The dress he prepared would be crafted from a material I lacked the words to name. The colours would follow the tradition of the bonding rite, signalling to the court that political alliances were off the table. It would declare that what lay between us was that rare thing recognized by imperial ritual, a love proven through magic rather than negotiated by council.

Perhaps it would be a soft cream, the colour of the skim the dairy women set out in clay bowls at the well before thinning it for market. Or the pale underside of a cherry blossom petal catching the light as it turned in the air. My guess might be wrong, but the imagining was a gift in itself. Tomorrow would bring the reality.

A bird called from the high branches of a willow to my right, a clear, mesmerizing song I had never heard before. I turned in the saddle, but the leaves hid the singer. The call did not repeat, and I rode on.

The mare’s hooves settled into a cadence that matched the steady beating of my heart.

I lifted my hand to the pendant, a habit whenever my thoughts ran deep. The silver disc remained warm, warmer than my skin, warmer even than the late sun could have made it. The sensation was unusual, for the pendant typically matched my exact body temperature. It was the piece of my mother I carried against my skin, feeling like her because it felt like me.

This new heat felt like a sign, perhaps a blessing sent from the land of the elders for what was to come.

I held the disc between my fingers. The warmth remained constant, resting in my palm like a gentle ember that warmed without burning, a quiet reminder of real fire.

I lowered my hand as the mare rounded a bend, bringing the village into view across the low rise of the eastern fields. This was likely the last time I would approach it from this direction, for tomorrow I would be riding away. I held the sight close, pushing back the faint touch of melancholy at leaving my old life behind. It had been a simple, independent existence, and it remained to be seen how much freedom I could retain within the rigid expectations of the royal court. Yet it would all be worth it if it meant sharing Drystan’s life.

The village remained unchanged.

The thatched roofs sat in their familiar rows while thin streams of wood smoke rose from the chimneys, signalling the women were preparing evening meals. The village dogs had not yet begun their dusk barking to ward off backcountry wolves, though they would soon. A child ran along the path between the cottages, a bright figure against the golden light. It was the smith’s youngest son, a six-year-old boy who ran everywhere with a broad smile. I had held him as a heavy infant before his mother recovered from the birth, but now he was quick and light.