Page 142 of The Thornwyck Rose

Erik bowed his head over her knuckles, pressing his lips there with reverence.

“He will, but in time,” Erik said. “In every season and in every silence, I will remember you.”

He pushed the wooden trinket back into her hands and whispered low, “I have one, too.”

Footsteps sounded on the path beyond the hedges—Margot shifting, giving them a warning. Seren drew back, duty reclaiming her stance. She returned the wooden flower to her gown’s pocket—where it had lived for the long years.

Seren did not look back when she and Margot left him among the kingcups.

Erik stood alone in the garden long after she was gone, the crushed bloom darkening the earth at his feet, his spare wooden token warm in his palm.

The Kalends of December would come whether he wanted them or not.

XLVIII

THE FLEETING HOURS

MONTFORT KEEP, AUGUST 1100

The day had been long,filled with hammering and arguments, measurements, and muddy boots. The bailey stood strong, but Montfort Keep—what remained of the old keep and what was rising in its place—still looked like a wound scabbed over.

This land—Fellmere—had once been a field of spilled Norman and Welsh blood. Now, the keep’s stone walls stood taller, the gate was nearly finished, and Ragnar’s command had echoed in the courtyard with a confidence Erik wished he had at that age.

He should have felt pride that it was his and now a land of peace at Seren’s doing.

It would be ready by the Ides of January.

Erik had hoped to take Seren as his bride. All the keep’s plans had been tailored to her liking from earlier in the year.

His chest ached with the dull pressure of things unsaid. Time slipped through his fingers.

Stone was being laid higher. The timber was strong. The guards respected Ragnar’s orders and followed David’s lead without question. They were rebuilding something that had once been broken and paid for in much blood. Maybe thatwas reason enough to hope loyalty to David and even to Erik and his son was enough to make something out of Lord Henry’s mess.

However, in the future, someone important would be missing from Erik’s life. She was another man’s betrothed, a king’s at that.

David stood near the western wall with Ragnar, the two of them tracing their fingers across the blueprints. The young lord was commanding in the way only youth and conviction allowed, while Ragnar’s quiet nods carried the steadiness of a man raised in a noble’s stead under a warlord’s thumb.

Erik watched them both for a long moment. The sun was gone now. Shadows slipped across the walls as night curled over the valley.

This was his new home. If Seren had already gone, he’d be here with Ragnar, overseeing Montfort Keep, but he had managed afar at Thornwyck to be with her for as long as he could be. But the hot month of summer required his and the young lord’s presence. David had taken his mother with them so she could be close to him and Erik.

“I’ll turn in early,” Erik said, patting Ragnar’s shoulder. David gave a distracted wave, still deep into discussion by torchlight. Erik couldn’t read well anyway. Ragnar had learned with Father Osbert, but Henry only ever afforded Erik chainmail and a sword.

Erik stepped beyond the half-cleared campgrounds, into the silence that only hills and forest could give. The old keep had been built near water—strategically, yes, but perhaps some long-dead builder had simply loved the way the lake turned silver under the moon. Too bad the view was now mostly hindered by trees.

He approached, drawn by the lull of mystery.

For all the times he’d fought for this land, he’d never gone to the lake and never seen its beauty by night.

He glanced back at the tents: David’s was the largest in the middle. Seren’s beside it. His tent flanked David’s and Geoffrey’s.

Moonlight silvered the world.

The lake lay still beneath the stars, a polished obsidian mirror rimmed with reeds and the quiet hush of night wind. The tents had already gone still by the time he made it to the lake. Only the soft whinnying of horses, the flicker of distant torchlight on the path, and the hiss of unseen insects broke the silence.

Erik walked the southern edge of the lake. His boots crunched grass, moving over root and stone with ease. The soft chill of autumn touched August’s night air.

The trees parted enough to show him a clearing near the shore. The fireflies had begun their slow dance above the wildflowers.