Chapter 6: A Public Declaration
I watched Alaric’s rigid back disappear into the gloom of the garden path, Theon’s predatory stride close behind. The music felt suddenly hollow, a tinny distraction from the silent confrontation I knew was unfolding among the roses and ghosts. My skin prickled with the memory of another feast, a lifetime ago, when the king’s same boozy joviality had sealed my doom with a single, careless question.
That had been the beginning of the end. Theon’s charming mask had slipped away, piece by piece, revealing the hateful ire beneath—first with cutting words, then with his hands. The phantom ache of a bruised wrist throbbed in time with the lute. Yet, another memory surfaced, stubborn and soft: Alaric, a shadow in a corridor years ago, wordlessly offering his own glove to stanch the blood from my torn palm after I’d fallen. He had said nothing, his grey eyes holding a quiet intensity that asked no questions, demanded no gratitude. Which man was the true risk? If I chose Alaric would he resent me as Theon had. It would be easier to break things off with Alaric though. He won’t feel the pressure the prince felt.
King Leon’s booming voice ripped me from the past. “Isolde! My dear, come here!” He swayed slightly, goblet sloshing. “These solemn faces need stirring. Tell us, who among our brave lords makes your heart flutter?” The hall hushed. This was the moment I had been dreading, the trap I had foreseen. I could not say Theon. To choose that path again was to willingly walk back into my own grave. But naming Alaric felt like grabbing a lightning bolt—a surge of terrifying, unknown power. Would he see it as a manipulation? Would his own restrained nature curdle into resentment under the pressure of an unwanted, public devotion?
I had to believe the man with the silent kindness was different. The alternative was unlivable. I pushed back my chair, the legs scraping like a bone against stone.
“My king,” I said, my voice clear and carrying. I lowered my gaze as a show of respect. “You honor me with your question.” I lifted my chin as I try to look like an innocent girl of only Nineteen. I said the words from my past with a few key differences, “I would be lying if I didn’t say that I have always thought Lord Alaric to be the most handsome.”
A frozen silence swallowed the hall. I saw my brother’s jaw go slack, my father’s goblet halting halfway to his lips. The queen’s embroidery slipped from her fingers. From the high table, King Leon blinked, his drunken grin faltering into genuine confusion. “Alaric?” he boomed, as if testing the sound of it. “My brother? You fancy the block of granite over your own prince? I’d have you clarify that statement. Does he know?”
“I speak only for myself, Your Majesty,” I said, keeping my knees from trembling through sheer force of will. “My regard for Prince Theon has ever been that of a loyal friend. A sisterly affection.” I could feel Theon’s absence like a gathering storm at my back. “And as his friend, I have observed where his true interests lie. His attentions have often settled upon Lady Elara, have they not? Their laughter at tournaments, his constant seeking of her counsel... it seems a foundation already laid.”
I turned slightly, meeting Elara’s wide, calculating eyes across the space. Suspicion flashed in them, sharp and immediate. But beneath it, a hungry avarice awoke. She saw the throne room door I’d just kicked open for her. “Your Majesty,” she said, rising with a graceful flutter, her voice a sweet chime. “Isolde speaks true. The prince has been... most kind to me. I would be honored to welcome his friendship, whatever form it takes.”
A low murmur rippled through the nobles, a wave of confirmation. “He did gift her that falcon at Midwinter,” someone muttered. “Always seats her at his right hand for hunts,” another added. The evidence, once named, became undeniable, building a narrative far more compelling than my sudden, shocking deflection.
King Leon slapped the table, making the plates jump. “By the gods, a solution! Two birds, one stone, as it were!” His laughter rolled out, absorbing the tension, rewriting the room’s reality with royal decree. “Very well! We shall have two joyous unions! A double blessing upon this court!”
The tent flaps fluttered open at that moment. Alaric and Theon returned, their entrance slicing through the king’s proclamation. The faint change to Theon’s gait indicated a potential injury, and Alaric’s knuckles were confirmation. The air they brought in was cold, charged with recent violence. They stood side-by-side, a portrait of mutual contempt, just as the king beamed at them.
“Perfect timing!” Leon cheered, oblivious. “I’ve just settled it. Two weddings! We’ll have the ceremonies by the summer’s end.”
Theon’s face, already dark, contorted with a fury so profound it seemed to still the very air in his lungs. His eyes, burning with betrayed rage, shot to me. Alaric went preternaturally still, his grey eyes turning to glacial flint. I saw his hand twitch toward where his sword would normally hang. Both men clearly believed the king was enforcing a cruel swap—condemning Elara to a cold life with Alaric, and gifting me, to Theon.
Theon found his voice first, a low, venomous snarl. “You cannot be serious.”
“Oh, but I am!” the king chuckled, waving a dismissive hand. “Your affection for Lady Elara is clearly known to all, and I would see my heir wed to a woman who stirs his passion. And Alaric,” he said, turning to his brother, whose expression was unreadable stone, “it seems you have inspired a rather powerful passion of your own. You will wed Lady Isolde. Let us have two love matches to strengthen the realm!”
The shock in the hall redistributed itself, settling squarely upon the two men in the doorway. Theon’s outrage morphed into pure, uncomprehending stupefaction, his gaze darting between my resolute face and Elara’s poorly concealed triumph. Alaric simply stared at the king, then his eyes found mine.
In their stormy depths, the ice fractured, not with warmth, but with a profound and total shock—the shock of a man who has braced for a killing blow only to have been out maneuvered. I could only hope he would not turn on me now.
A brittle silence gripped the hall. Alaric’s gaze remained locked on his brother, his voice dangerously low. “How did this come to be?” The words were measured, each one a stone dropped into a well.
King Leon spread his hands, the picture of vinous benevolence. “Your lady chose you, brother! Declared her heart before the entire court. Said she fancied my ‘block of granite.’” He chuckled at his own joke, completely missing the tectonic shift occurring before him.
“Chose me,” Alaric repeated, the phrase hollow. His eyes finally slid to me, a grey storm seeking landfall.
Theon found his voice then, a raw scrape of sound. He took a step toward me, his movements stiff from their earlier encounter. “Why?” he demanded, the single word loaded with a decade of assumed ownership. “Why would you say his name?”
I had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop the sharp sound of disbelief from escaping. Sweet? Elara’s sweetness was arsenic spun with sugar, a fact I had learned through bitter experience in another life.
Alaric’s eyes returned to mine, and in that suspended moment, something shifted. The shock in his gaze melted, replaced by a dawning, terrifying clarity. He saw the escape route I had forged, the impossible path I had laid at his feet. This arrangement, born from my defiance, was the very thing he had never allowed himself to want.
“You are certain of this path, Lady Isolde?” he asked, his voice now for me alone. It wasn’t a challenge, but a final, solemn query. He was offering me a last chance to recant, to spare us both.
“I am,” I said, and my voice did not waver. I poured every ounce of my resolved truth into those two words, willing him to see the lifetime of decisions behind them.
A subtle tension left his shoulders. He gave a single, almost imperceptible nod, then turned back to the king. “Then I accept your decree, brother,” Alaric stated, his formal tone belying the revolution it signified. “With thanks.”
As he bowed his head, he glanced at me one last time. And there, in the wintry grey of his eyes, I saw it—a fragile, burning ember of hope, newly kindled and sparking to life.
And there, in the wintry grey of his eyes, I saw it—a fragile, burning ember of hope, newly kindled and sparking to life.
It was snuffed out an instant later by Theon’s outraged sputter. “Smart? Kind?” He threw the words back at me like stones, his composure shattering. The hall held its breath. “You paint a portrait of a scholar-saint, Isolde. Since when do you value dusty books over a crown?”
He took another step closer, the space between us crackling. “What game is this? Tell me the true reason.”
“I have given it,” I said, refusing to flinch from his glare. The memory of his hands on me in another life made my voice steel. “He is smart, and kind, and brave, and handsome. What’s not to like?” I offered a shallow shrug, the picture of casual conviction. “Unless you find fault in those qualities, Your Highness.”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. He looked from my defiant face to Alaric’s impassive one, his frustration curdling into something uglier, more speculative. “This is a farce,” he muttered, but the force was leaving him, redirected by a new, cunning light in his eyes.
It was Alaric who spoke next, his voice a clean blade cutting through the thickening air. “You should be pleased, Theon.” He turned that steady, analytical gaze on his nephew. “Given your obvious and longstanding interest in Lady Elara, the king’s decision is… efficient. It grants you the companionship you clearly desire.”
He gestured toward where Elara stood, performing modesty with downcast eyes. “She is kind, and gentle, and soft. Qualities you’ve often praised, I believe.” Each word was precise, delivered without malice, which made the implication land with greater force. He was assembling Theon’s own scattered attentions into a damning case for affection, tying him to Elara with the prince’s own ignored actions.
Theon opened his mouth, but no rebuke came. He was trapped. To deny it now would be to publicly insult Elara and call the king a fool. Elara chose that moment to look up, her lashes fluttering, a blush artfully staining her cheeks. It was a masterpiece of silent affirmation.
King Leon boomed his approval. “There! See? Even Alaric has observed the pair of you! A settled matter.”
A sharp crack echoed off the stone walls. Elara’s wineglass lay in a jagged crimson splash at her feet, her fingers still curled in the air. “My apologies,” she whispered, her voice trembling with a perfect mimicry of overwhelmed joy. “The surprise… it quite stole my composure.” Servants scurried forward with rags.
I didn’t watch them. I was watching Alaric. His expression had closed again, the momentary spark gone, replaced by a strategist’s cold assessment. He had defended the match, yes, but he had done so by maneuvering Theon, not by affirming me. The hollow in my stomach deepened.
The king rose, signaling an end. “We’ll have the announcements drawn at dawn. The court is dismissed.”
The gathered nobility erupted into a wave of sound—congratulations, speculation, the greedy buzz of a scandal that had been neatly packaged into royal decree. People began to mill, some moving toward Theon and Elara, others casting curious, cautious glances at Alaric and me.
He was at my side before I could take a full breath. Not touching, but a presence so solid it felt like a wall against the chaos. “Walk,” he said, the word low, for me alone. It wasn’t a request.
We moved, a silent island parting the sea of silk and gossip. His hand hovered near the small of my back, not making contact, yet guiding me unerringly toward a side archway that led out to a lesser-used balcony. The cool night air hit my face, a relief after the suffocating heat of the hall.
Below us, the dark gardens breathed. He finally turned to me, his features carved by moonlight. The distant revelry was a muffled thing out here.
“Why?” he asked. The same word Theon had used, but here it held an entirely different weight—not outrage, but a profound, unsettling search for truth.
“I meant what I said,” I answered, my own voice quiet in the vast dark.
“You listed virtues as if from a chronicle.” He took a half-step closer, his grey eyes scanning my face. “You did not say you cared for me. You constructed an argument. A very good one.”
He had seen right through me. A chill that had nothing to do with the night crept down my spine. This was the man whose mind was legend, who noticed everything. I had fooled a drunken king and a vain prince, but I had not fooled him.
“Is an argument not enough?” I countered, clinging to my defiance. “It secured our position, did it not?”
For a long moment, he was silent. Then, softly, “Theon struck you in your last life, didn’t he?”
The world tilted. My breath stopped. He said it with such certainty, such calm horror, as if piecing together a brutal equation. The ghost of every hidden bruise seemed to flare across my skin.
Before I could form a denial, a lie, anything, his hand came up. He didn’t touch me. He simply held it there, between us, a barrier against the past he had somehow deduced. “You do not have to answer,” he said, his voice rough now. “But you must understand something, Isolde. You have stepped from one man’s shadow into another’s. Mine is longer, and far darker.”
He lowered his hand, his gaze burning into mine. “The game does not end tonight. It begins.”