I stayed until the morning, in case you're wondering. At dawn, Cory alerted us, and I dressed, a man reborn, excited to be alive.

I slipped back into the barracks with the sole intention of changing clothes. I had a rising desire to hurry back into the castle, to my Queen, to start our day.

I heard the King's horses arrive and get checked into their stalls by the ostler; Willem's father, and just as I was unpacking my trunk, er; luggage that I was living out of, Linen dropped off the side of the bunk, upside down and far too curious.

"Where have you been?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Training."

"Uh huh," he climbed down, plopping onto my sheets. "Where have you been really?"

"No where; mind your manners."

Linen smiled. "With a lady, then?"

"What is it to you?" I spat.

"Steady on, no reason to get upset. I was only jesting. I thought maybe you'd found yourself a friend."

"I don't think it's funny," I said. "If I had been with a lady, I'd tell you to be more chivalrous."

"Ah. She must be quite pretty," he remarked. "Or she pissed you off?"

"Beg your pardon?" I hissed.

Linen grumbled. "It's too early to be so sour. So either you had a good time, or you had a bad time..." When I didn't answer him. He shrugged. "I'm sorry, mate. You know I meant no harm. I don't think anyone cares where you were."

"No," I swapped shirts. "You're fine, I'm sorry. I didn't get much sleep."

"Yeah, Candy!" He hooted, cycling his fist through the air.

I watched him dumbly.

"Sorry," he straightened. Linen saw my eyes dart to the window as my uncle approached the house. "Ah, I see." He winked, pretending to lock his mouth. "I won't say a word. Far as I'm concerned you were miserable here all night. Maybe we played cards?"

The want for intimacy between Eliza and I grew like a wildfire, and by the end of Autumn, I had used my winnings from the Knights' Games to purchase one of the cottages I have now. The one I rented to Willoughby and Josie their first year.

I don't think Linen would've ever had the heart to hurt me, at least on purpose, but he wasn't exactly the sharpest Blade. I did realize after the third or fourth time of spending the night somewhere else, that he had become a little more careless with his mouth. He made a few comments about my sweetheart, but they never gained any traction. I think, at the time, I had a reputation that left others to assume it was more than just the one.

If I had remained in the barracks for another year, that may have changed. The move in scenery allowed for my Eliza and I to duck away a few times a week, and I made sure that nobody really knew where I lived besides Ser Dalton.

She never stayed with me, but she would leave something behind sometimes, beyond her scent in my sheets. A book she was in the middle of reading; her way of promising she would return.

I could not escape the idea of her.

She was everything I dreamed of. Every idea that sprouted into my mind to bring to the Kingsguard, every breath I took of every day. I'd fallen in love with her... Perhaps from the very moment I saw her in the church, but by now it was irrevocably set in the stone and ice of these walls.

Yet, whispers of War in the West became threats. The King grew suspicious of everyone, and would spend hours locked away in his study, strategizing. His social affairs dwindled off the calendar, and soon our trips to the Capitol had been ordered to stop. Eliza was not to leave the castle grounds until an agreement could be found between King Azarii III in Chalke, and His Majesty, here.

Your father was sure something would happen to her. On more than one occurrence, he spoke specifically to me and instructed that I watch every corner, inspect every package, ask every question.

I should've thought more about it at the time. Noticed the signs. The touching, the order of protection, the... affection. But I was in my own fantasy.

For me, my life was a novel, and the only other character; your mother. Her eyes; only for me.

In the dead of winter, I was one of five of us that got shipped off to the lowest states of Chalke. Our mission, of course, was to individually dress, very plainly, and lurk around a few of the smaller cities, listening. Never as a group. Never for too long. And eventually, in cannon, we would make our way to Rothingham.

While I was devastated to be apart from Her Majesty, it was only a month and a half long trip, round. I was not angry about the warmer climate in the foriegn land's January. I took the opportunity to enjoy every thriving rose bush I came across. I even saved a few of their flowers, pressing them within the pages of the journal I kept. I remember thinking, at least I wasn't still in Oreia, expected to be sleeping in the wilderness and snow between Inn stays. No, I was... sang to sleep by warmer winds, and stirred awake by Chalke's cool morning glow.

I was no pensmith, but Eliza had requested that I write her of my adventure. When we spoke of it before I left, she suggested that I address our correspondences to Miss Cory, not Her Majesty... in case the letter should be intercepted with the new standards of communication the King had put into place. But once I was out on my own, it sat ill with me, to declare my feelings for someone else's name. I never wanted to sign 'Ser Gregory Elías' for anyone but your mother. Never wanted to be confused for wanting Coraline. Or worse, for leading her on should the letter be unearthed one day. So I refrained from sending any.

...But not from writing them.

Every chance I got, I wrote the Queen a letter.

E,

I saw a winter's bird today. She was nearly hidden in the tree she sat. Her lover arrived next to her, fluttering his bright crimson wings for her, and all I could think of was how wonderful you look in red. You asked me once, rather, you advised me once, that you did not know my color preference. Well there you have it. It's red.

There are eleven days until I can see your face.

Yours.

I penned her another few, but that was the best of them.

There was a snag in my travel home. While I was passing through the Áire Channel, I had to stop and intervene with a local dispute another Knight was handling. That left me the last one to return, but when the day had finally come that I had landed back in Ísfjall, I had barely enough time to set my bag down before I was summoned to His Majesty's office.

Things had changed since I had been gone. Instead of land deeds and paperwork stacked upon his desk, there was a large map, and he kept four guards posted at his door, not two.

I gave him, and my uncle, the reports I had taken. Updated them on the daily life of Chalke citizens, and shared the very rare talk I had heard of war. Though, to this day, I'm not sure if any of it was helpful. It was meaningless intel to me.

As I was pointing to the places I had stationed, over the King's shoulder and in the hall, I saw Her Majesty. She stalled but a moment to meet my eyes... Eliza gave me the smallest of smiles, and I, her, and then, very swiftly, I wrapped my briefing up to seek her out.

I strolled the halls, casually, as if it was any other day, but I was on a hunt, and I gladly found my prey. She was waiting for me in the Library, a strange look on her face.

"You're looking well, Knight," she sang.

I shut the door and stepped from it, my boots clicking across the floor as I came to her, capturing her into an impassioned kiss. Very quickly did that moment evolve into more. I hiked her skirt, wrapping her legs around my body and working to enter her as we traveled behind another case. As I did, she moaned, shutting her eyes tight and breathing heavily.

"I should be angry you did not write me," she hissed.

I kissed her throat, leading her head back on against the shelf, and there, in the cavern of books before I had properly even greeted her, we made feverish love.

"I did," I said between thrusts. "Many times. Your letters are in my bunk."

"What?" she whined. "Why? I asked you to–"

"—Call me pathetic, call me romantic, but call me yours. I could not send a letter to another woman," I sang into her ear. "Even if it was just a ruse. I only have words for you."

It was the best way to reunite.

I'd like to say that most of our time was spent doing things like... picking apples in their harvest, or visiting town. Sneaking in dances during the social season, but at this point in Oreian history, there were no balls. No casual dances, or even dinner parties to exploit. There was only an eerie quietness on this mountain. Only ice, iron, and stone. Only fear when the sun would fall.

As Knights, our shifts varied in length in the coming months. In the original arrangement; I would be by Eliza's side for, at most, twelve hours at a time. After nightfall, I would hand the torch onto the wandering boot outside her door. He'd pass through, listen by her room, and all would be well. But in the War's approaching shadow, by the middle of every week, I was instructed to stay for entire days. Sometimes two or three in a row as a necessary 'precaution.'

When my frustration came to a head, and I longed for the definition of that word, 'precaution,' I asked Ser Dalton if there had been explicit threats to His and Her Majesties. He reminded me often of the importance of a strong union under God. That, as any soldier would do, he and the King expected Chalke to strike the heart. The change in routine was their defense and I was sick of riddles.

One morning, while the Queen was still strung across my chest, Miss Cory told Her Majesty that she was scared to visit her family back home. She would remain in the castle, due to the atmosphere that the King had painted of a terrible fate. Worries of thieves and wrong-doers; ideas that Chalke informants and assassins might spring out from anywhere– be it the Stables or His Majesty's Wardrobe– Nowhere, and no one was safe.

That left us confined inside the castle walls. For months.

We pushed against the bars of our cage in other ways. Like sharing baths.

Eliza splashed me, kicking soapy water my direction from her end of the basin. "Don't tempt me to have you punished," she teased.

"You don't like my sonnet?" I set the notepad down on the floor beside the tub. "A shame. I stayed up late into the night to write it for you," I sang.

"Of course you did," she mused. "And from where did you draw such inspiration to compose such lines for the likes of me? You should be a poet. Or a peddler. Or as I have always maintained, an actor."

"Which line do you oppose of most, my love?"

She pouted, considering it with thought, and finally she recited my favorite as well. "...'She is Winter's Rose, its Moon, and its Sun...'"

"Oh, is that the culprit?" I grinned, finishing the thought. "You don't think; '...The stars above me, a beauty of none,'... is fitting for you?"

"No," she croaked. "...But I am happy you do."

"Aye, I do," I said. "But I should like to hear you praise my work. Lest I decide to stop providing it."

"You shall never," she declared.

I nodded. "Oh Heavens, no. Lord strike me down should I consider it. For it's not every Knight who merits his Queen's attention such as I have earned."

"It's not every Knight who writes his Queen poetry." She sank lower towards the water line impishly as I climbed over her. "Are you too spent from this morning?" she begged.

"If you are asking if I can be convinced to find myself inside you once more, all I can say is end me, should I ever decline."

This was a particularly important milestone in our relationship and I'll tell you why. I'd collected her from the bath and carried to the bed. Call me a sap, if you like, but being with Eliza, I always sought to enjoy the comforts of a pillow over anywhere else with her. It allowed me the ability to take my time, and while we were twisting in her sheets, she caught me by the back of my neck and held her attention to my eyes.

Eliza swallowed.

"What is it? Are you alright?" I asked.

She nodded, blinked a few times and then nothing more. The moment was gone and we pressed on. I think she wanted to confess something to me, but I never sought to rush it. I might have, had I known what was to come.

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