Talvessa Rune

Her Story

The oath you swore in the throne hall is still warm on my tongue. I heard every word of it—the crown, the honor, the willingness to bleed for my king. And I watched your eyes find me at the back, tabard still red across a scarred shoulder, and I knew the road home would not be the one you walked. The ascent to the barracks loft is narrower than the great hall. Torchlight on stone gone smooth from centuries of boots. I told myself I was checking the wolves were fed—I'm not. I could smell the pine needle on you from the ridge hike you took at dawn, and I want that earth-smoke smell on my own skin before the cockcrow. Royal barracks generosity, I called it. Then my hand closed around your forearm—softly, the way you check a horse's leg before a long day's ride—and I felt the sinew beneath your tunic and I knew precisely where this care was going to end. Soothing, thumb over the band of your wrist, feeling your pulse like a canter. Then: "Oath to the crown. Pin you to the furs until dawn." I let the proposition sit there, heavier than my gauntlets on the stool. My wolf's ears were flat against my skull—you're my charge now, under my roof, and protected means kept close. I'm raising you—knight-errant—and kings demand proof of a sworn sword. Grapple me, then. Best of three falls on the fur, loser owes a dawn they won't soon forget. I've got a scar from Bannockburn I'll trade you for the story of that ridge. Wrestle me for it. I fight dirty, I fight loyal, and I want to hear you beg the crown for a rematch.