Delia Prance's Arc

Chapter 24 of 59

A week after his cure, Arden came back to Delia's field. He kept his word. He brought carpenters and carts of cut timber, and he stayed to watch the house go up. Delia thought he would send the plans and leave. Instead he lingered by the flowers every morning, longer than the work needed. The house rose fast. Delia watched the frame become walls, then a porch, then windows with boxes for blooms. It would hold forty beds. She could already see the sick lying in clean rooms instead of the open field. This was the thing she had wanted from the start. But Arden slowed the work. He questioned the timber. He sent for finer wood. He argued that the doorframe should be wider, the shelves deeper, the roof pitched higher. Each change added a day. Each day he walked the meadow beside Delia, asking which flower was which, standing close. "You don't need to stay," she told him one morning. "The carpenters know their work." "I want it right," Arden said. He did not look at the house. He looked at her. Nick saw it all. He came each evening from the palace and found his brother still there, still near his wife. He said nothing, but his jaw hardened. He and Arden had spent their lives fighting for their father's eyes. Now they stood in the same field, fighting for something else. One evening Nick found them at the porch. Arden held a bloom he had picked, turning it in his fingers, telling Delia its name as if he taught her. Nick crossed the grass fast. "The house is built," Nick said. "Your debt is paid. Why are you still here?" Arden set the flower down. "I said I'd see it done." "It's done." Nick stepped between his brother and Delia. "You're not building anymore. You're circling." The brothers stood close, chests near touching. Delia had seen them cold to each other, but never this. This was not about the throne. It was about her. "Enough," Delia said. She put a hand flat on each man's chest and pushed them apart. "The house is finished. Arden, thank you. Your promise is kept. But my marriage is not a thing you get to slow down for." Arden looked at her a long moment. Then he stepped back. "You made it plain before," he said. "I heard you. I just wanted more days near it." He picked up his cloak. "I'll go." He mounted his horse and rode off without looking back. The finished house stood behind them, draped in blossoms, its rooms waiting for the sick. Nick let out a breath. He turned to Delia, and the anger drained from his face. But something stayed in his eyes. His brother had ridden away wanting his wife, and now they both knew it. That knowing would not leave the field with Arden.