King’s Offer

(Paige’s POV)

A chill holds the northern lands in place now. Inside Blackstone Keep though, heat hums low and steady from embers not meant for war. The mountain roared eight weeks back. Snow soaked up blood after Greymont reached too far. That clash shifted everything - our lives folded inward yet stretched outward the very same breath. All because a small face arrived, shaped just right.

Lysander shifts by the hour. Those light brown eyes - so focused, just like Noah’s - scan everything quietly. A furrowed brow appears whenever he watches lines on paper, mirroring his dad without trying. My messy black hair sprouts from his head, never staying down no matter what. Draped across me while sleeping, he melts into warmth, breathing slow and deep. Wide eyed and alert, his tiny hands rise up suddenly, moving fast like they’re leading something unseen, already certain about how things should go.

From deep inside this quiet heat we carry on. Solar energy now holds what once was held by others. Next to cloth used for babies lie the maps we study. While Lysander eats, voices weigh words brought in by elders from scattered villages. Sometimes it's just the quiet things. Noah sits among Gareth and the northern chiefs, hushed voices weaving around plans for harvests. Our child rests below him, tucked into woven reeds near his boots. One moment he’s talking rations, the next his foot sways the basket - slow, almost without thought. That contrast catches me every time: strength softened by something small. A duke weighed down by duty, yet lightened somehow by sleep-heavy breaths from a tiny face.

This life, shaped by frozen hands. More than staying alive - built a place to belong.

Over by the window, Lysander sleeps tucked against me while I look through a note asking for help building a shared smokehouse in some far-off village. Flames leap up in the hearth, filling the air with pine resin and something sweet like warmed milk. Suddenly, everything seems quiet, close, almost too gentle to last.

Out of nowhere, the door swings open - sudden chill spills across the floor.

A cold breath slips in from down the hall. What stops me isn’t that. It’s Alex’s expression. Gone is his steady gaze, swapped now for something tight, sharp - like back then, when walls shook and time stalled.

“Your Grace. My Lady,” he says, his voice formal. “A royal envoy. From the capital. He’s in the main hall. He bears the King’s personal seal.”

A hush breaks apart. Cold slips through the glow of flames like a draft under the door. From where he lies, Lysander moves slightly, half-dreaming the change in air.

Down goes the quill, slow on purpose. Noah sits there, fingers loose beside the inkwell. His gaze finds mine. Nothing spoken - just seconds piling up between us like stones. This moment? Expected it forever. Just never saw the day arriving. Breathing doesn’t help. Ready we aren’t.

The King is dying,” Noah states, flat and sure. From the south, word creeps slow - yet Alex’s messengers move fast. Whispers reached us first. A sickness dragging on, near its end.

“So it is said, my lord,” Alex confirms. “The envoy is Lord Prestwick. A… traditionalist.”

A stickler for rules. The sort who might have named me cursed, demanded flames beneath my feet. Around Lysander, my grip hardens without thought.

A figure rises into view. Dressed for labor inside the stone walls, Noah wears dark pants and a plain shirt made of breathable fabric, its arms pushed up past the forearms. More forest ranger than noble title fits him at first glance. Still, when he pulls himself upright, strength shows without question. That quiet strength shows in how he holds himself. A calm sureness lives behind his gaze. This man belongs right here, shaped by a world that allows no weakness.

Bending close, he reaches me, pressing a steady kiss into my forehead - warm lips linger. "Remain right here," he says, voice low. By his side."

“He’ll ask for me,” I whisper back, fear a cold snake in my stomach. “He’ll want to see the ‘witch-duchess’ and her ‘witch-child.’”

His gaze turns cold. Disappointment awaits him then. Southern nobles won’t gawk at you like some show. A single fingertip traces Lysander’s scalp - gentle, though his words stay edged. Protection is your task now, those quiet tones tell Alex. A quick nod answers back. The doorway claims his stance without delay.

My eyes follow Noah as he leaves, my pulse thudding through the weight of my child curled on me. Heat drains from the walls. A deep chill spreads - not just in the air - but stretching toward the city, pulling apart what we built here from that crumbling throne room far away, as if the ground beneath us splits without sound.

(Noah’s POV)

Winter grips the main hall, frost seeping through despite the fire's weak glow against such vastness. This empty drama unfolds just right here - cold air holding its breath.

Firelight clings to Lord Prestwick like an old habit. Polished boots catch the glow, metal gleaming where leather meets flame. His beard, clipped close, holds streaks of iron gray. The king's colors drape his frame, layered beneath a cloak fringed with fur - more show than warmth. Behind him, four guards hold still. Armor meant for milder courts now feels thin, memory whispering how harsh these stones can be.

“Lord Wingknight,” says Prestwick, tone smooth but laced with something sharp beneath, words shaped like kindness yet landing cold. No dip of the head follows. The north agrees with you, he offers, pauses just long enough to sting - it strips things down, makes them bare.

Stuck at the door, I stay. Cold air fills the space between us. Silence grows longer on purpose. He should notice how out of place he feels here. This place does not belong to him. From far away you traveled, Prestwick. Urgent work for the king likely brought you

“It is a matter of legacy. And mercy.” He draws a scroll from within his cloak, the royal seal a lump of blood-red wax. “His Majesty, in his final days, is moved to clemency. He wishes to heal the rifts in his kingdom.”

“Clemency,” I repeat, the word tasting like ash. “For what crime? Defending our home? Destroying a traitor’s army?”

Prestwick’s smile is thin. “For the… irregular circumstances of your union. For the destabilizing influence of the seer. For harboring a child of such… uncertain provenance.” He says the words delicately, each one a needle. “The King offers a path to redemption. A way to spare the North further suffering.”

There’s a hum rising through me now, sharp and low. Say what you’re offering

He unrolls the scroll. The parchment crackles in the silent hall. “His Majesty commands that the union between Noah Wingknight and the woman known as Paige Rimestone be dissolved. She will enter the cloistered sisterhood of Saint Valeria, in perpetuity. You, Lord Wingknight, will take holy orders at the Monastery of the Silent Brothers. The child… the boy… will be placed in the care of the royal abbey, to be raised in piety and obscurity, a burden on his soul lifted.”

The cold holds the words like ice. Worse than anything I could have dreamed. Not banishment - disappearance. Stealing her away. Taking my boy too. Shutting each of us into quiet rooms where memories fade: who we were, how we touched, that little laugh echoing once in time.

A dull red glow begins at the edge of what I see. Not thinking, just feeling - the pull to move across the space, to grab him by the throat, crush bone - tightens in my fingers. His scroll, crisp and neat, could burn; flames would take it easily.

“In return,” Prestwick continues, oblivious to the murder vibrating in the air around me, “the North is pardoned for its role in the Greymont affair. Its taxes are waived for five years. Its people may live in peace.” He looks up, his eyes meeting mine, confident in the logic of his cruelty. “A generous offer. For the greater good of the realm. You save your people by sacrificing your… personal attachments.”

Fairness? That idea used to matter. Now he imagines we’re haggling like traders at a market stall. What he forgets - I once measured every word by how much control it gave me.

He is wrong.

Something solid presses behind me - stone, cold and sure. My boy’s pulse thrums fresh and sharp against my ribs. Her strength runs deep, steady like roots under snow. Titles mean nothing now; that old name doesn’t fit. The land lives in my bones, breathes through my hands. Love here isn’t traded, weighed, or split.

Quietly, I speak the word. It hangs there. Done. No room left for anything else.

Prestwick blinked. A pause. Then, soft: "What is it you need?"

“The answer is no. We refuse.”

He actually laughs, a short, disbelieving sound. “You refuse the King’s mercy? You would choose your… your ill-advised passion over the safety of thousands? Over peace?”

“You call it passion.” I take a step forward, and he finally sees the wolf beneath the duke’s skin. His guards shift nervously. “It is not. It is a vow. Written in something deeper than your parchment. You ask me to cut out my own heart and call it diplomacy. I will not.”

Now his eyes turn cold, that fake smile gone. If you say no, then it is war. Come spring, the southern troops move forward. Not under some selfish lord such as Greymont. Under the king’s name they come. Turned to dust, this heap of stone - no trace left beneath a barren ground. Scattered now, your kin fade across distant winds. The pyre takes her, flames rising without warning. Forgotten, he vanishes like smoke into old silence. Still wish for this?

Fear grips me because this danger exists. Something could actually happen. Yet that scares me less than what lies on the other side. Without a doubt, walking away feels out of reach.

“There is another way,” I say, the idea forming as I speak, born of desperation and a new, hard-won wisdom. “You speak for a dying king. I speak for a living North. The realm is on the brink of something - either a war that will cripple it for generations, or a new foundation.”

Prestwick stares, suspicious. “What are you proposing?”

“A summit. At Highvale, on the border. Neutral ground. Let the lords of the realm, the voices of the people, hear our case. Not as criminals begging for pardon, but as rulers offering a vision. A Great Charter, for a united kingdom that honors both north and south.”

He scoffs. “You are in no position to make demands.”

“I am in the only position that matters,” I fire back. “I hold the North. You want it pacified without spending the blood and gold of a spring campaign? Give us this chance. Let the King, in his final act, be a peacemaker, not a destroyer. Let him hear our proposal.”

There's math behind his stare. Planning a war in spring feels heavy, too much. He knows the king lacks strength - fixing things fast could define him. Yet wonder pulls hard, that itch to witness the notorious pair, to stand near the prophet and the lord from the north... strange how that draws him in.

A peak," he says, turning it over in his mind. Unusual - that’s what it feels like

“So are we,” I say flatly. “Take the counter-offer to your king. A summit at Highvale. Or prepare your armies for a war that will bleed the south white in our snows. The choice is his.”

Out the door I go, leaving no chance for reply. My conditions are set. What happens now unfolds on its own.

(Paige’s POV)

Back in the solar now. Not a word comes from him. Over to the window he moves, facing away, gaze locked on snow-covered summits, fingers tight behind his spine. Heavy stillness fills the room - what came before lingers in every breath.

He just stares. What could he possibly need? My words come out soft, nearly silent.

“Everything,” Noah says, his voice low and rough with contained fury. “You. Lysander. Our lives. Our memories. He offered to lock us in separate stone boxes until we forgot our own names, in exchange for the North’s ‘pardon.’”

A lump rises in my throat. My cheek meets the top of Lysander’s head - warm, soft, smelling like milk and sleep. Not if they think it’ll be easy. Separating us wasn’t part of any plan.

“What did you say?”

Then he turns. His expression shows something harder than loss. Not giving in, like rock holding back wind. I said no to him

My chest loosens - then tightens again, harder. What did he say back?

“War. In the spring.” He says it calmly, but I see the shadow it casts in his eyes. “So I gave him another option. A summit. At Highvale. For the future of the kingdom.”

Across the floor he moves fast, drops down by my seat. Not once does he go for Lysander. Instead, my unheld hand finds his - heat and grit pressed into it. Fire lives behind his stare.

Not hiding you, Paige. No apologies - for you or for him - meet my eyes as they shift toward our boy. Want a glimpse of the witch? Then look at the one who held a realm together. Scared of our kid? Maybe they’ll understand what lies ahead for the North. To Highvale we move. Standing side by side. Then comes the telling - our past, our path

Water runs down my face. Not only because I’m afraid, yet also from something fierce and loud inside. He does not want me to step back. Instead, he wants us shoulder-to-shoulder where danger waits. Facing it while holding on to what we know is real.

My fingers press into his, soft words falling between us like rain. Quiet fills the space where louder sounds might have been. A moment stretches out, thin and bright.

Leaning in close, my forehead touches his. "Forever," he says. His gaze shifts - Lysander lies there, asleep, tucked between us, the quiet reason behind everything. Not because of promises. Because of what we carry. Because this place holds our breath.

Huge risk ahead. Danger isn’t pretend. Yet when my eyes meet my husband’s stubborn gaze, his jaw tight, our son breathing slow beside me, running feels impossible. Staying makes sense now.

Facing the dying king comes first. After that, the path leads upward - to the summit where his court waits.

We stand for tomorrow - no blades, just honesty about who we are now.