Ayla Thorn's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

The morning after the prince chose her, a servant brought Ayla a folded note on a silver tray. The prince wanted a walk in the private garden before the court was awake. She dressed in her pink silk again. The debt on it still stood, and she had no other gown fine enough for a prince. She pinched color into her cheeks and went down. He was already there, in a plain shirt with no coat, no gold. He looked younger without the collar. He was pulling a small green fruit off a low tree and biting into it like a boy in an orchard. "You eat those?" she asked. "Cook says no. Cook is wrong." He held one out. "Try it." She took it. She did not eat it. She turned it in her fingers and watched him. He started walking and she matched his step. He talked without waiting for questions this time. He said he wanted the wedding in early summer, in the lower courtyard where his mother had married. He said he wanted three children. He said he had already picked names for two of them and would not tell her yet in case she laughed. He said he wanted to cook the first meal himself, in their own kitchen, the night after the ceremony. He said he had learned how, years ago, from the staff downstairs. Ayla listened the way she had listened in the hall. She did not interrupt. She filed each thing away. Summer wedding. Lower courtyard. Three children. Two names he was shy about. A kitchen of their own. He cooked. He had bribed his way into learning. She asked him what he was most afraid of. He stopped walking. He looked at the wall a moment, then at her. "Marrying someone I don't love," he said. "My father won't care. I care." Her chest went tight under the silk. She kept her face still. She turned the little fruit in her hand and made herself smile the small smile, not the wide one. "Then don't," she said. "That's the plan." He said it flat, the way he settled a thing. Then he looked at her longer than a prince should look at a girl he had known one day. "You didn't ask about the throne. Every other girl asked about the throne." "I'll ask tomorrow," she said. He laughed. It was a real one. He walked her back to the door of the keep and left her there. Ayla stood in the entry with the fruit still in her palm. She had what she had come for. She knew his wedding, his children, his kitchen, his fear. No rival in that hall could guess any of it by morning. Then the tight thing under her ribs did not loosen. He had said love. He had meant it. She had come to marry a crown. She was going to have to marry a man who wanted one back.