William. Castle Randal It was high summer by the time William returned to court for the first time since his wedding. He had been avoiding it, mostly out of respect for the princess but partly because he did not want Lynelle to ask to accompany him. He hardly wished to see her, but spoke more softly in his letters to her. They were all sweet words and gentleness, telling her how proud he was that she was proving herself an adept Lady of Carrowood, and that it would please him greatly to have her manage their home in his absences. He knew he could not have that gentility for her in person. His blood was all war again, and for that he was oddly grateful to Aliana, for his orders to return to command the army. William was quite conscious of Aliana’s design in insisting he and his new wife have an extended honeymoon even once they’d returned from her estates, and begrudged her it. The alliance for which she had used him would only be true once an heir was born from it. But while he’d thus far failed to give Lynelle a child, the commanders who stood in for Derrick had more than proven their incompetency, and Aliana needed him to rectify it. She was losing the war her brother had fallen fighting, and both she and William knew that it was only he who could temporarily (gods willing) uphold Derrick’s mantle. Even away from the battlefield, even in Lynelle’s absence, William found little sanctuary at court when he arrived. It was the first time in his life he could recall the court not adjourning to the Summer Palace for the season. As Marrard told him before he departed camp for court, Aliana had been advised by the physicians not to move Derrick, and she would not be away from him. William found his own heart aching for her despite himself, and the thought of Derrick’s malady being the culprit for the court’s stationary nature made him ill. For no reason he could pinpoint beyond the deep, intense pull of boyhood brotherhood, William made his first act at court visiting the king’s bedside. When he arrived, Derrick was asleep; the physicians said his waking was unpredictable at best and still infrequent. William did not allow his stomach to roil as it wished to at the sight of Derrick still lying abed, hair longer but lank, face thin. They permitted him a brief moment alone, during which he prayed on his knees at the bedside, hands around Derrick’s wrist. Gods, wake him. Help Your son. Too soon it was over, and he was told to leave so they could bathe the king. As for the king’s sister, he’d been at court three days before he was called for an audience with the princess regent. William hardly wanted to see her like this, all formality and coldness, but the thought of seeing her privately was even worse. He dressed carefully for the audience, as if focusing on his attire would distract from the reality of the situation. He wore his best doublet of Ingraham indigo and red over a tunic of the finest white linen, his leather breeches worn but carefully oiled and softened by his squire. I come to her both a warden and a soldier. But he lost nearly all his resolve when called to enter. It was the first he had seen of Aliana since his own wedding many months earlier, and it was as if he’d never left. She was beautiful as ever she’d been, dark hair plaited and occasionally flashing auburn where it caught light, a thin silver circlet nestled atop her head. She still sat in an unimpressive throne placed on the floor in front of the ornate true throne on its raised platform. It hardly mattered where she sat or how plain her surroundings. The princess was unimaginably perfect to him, if in appearance only. He wanted her to offend him, to be difficult to look at rather than difficult from which to look away. She would be easier to hate that way. “Lord William Ingraham, Warden of Carrowood, Most Noble Commander of the Cavalry of the King of Selles,” his squire announced him, and William managed to bow low before Aliana without breaking eye contact. She was nearly expressionless, watching him intently yet somehow distantly, as if she were not so close. He addressed her, “Your grace,” bowing his head and thus no longer looking at her. He waited. Her voice finally cut the silence. “Lord Ingraham, we welcome you back to court,” the princess said, quietly but surely. “You are well met?” “Well as one can be fighting a war, your grace,” William said, standing. “And Lady Ingraham, is she well?” The question was so quick and even and sure that William knew she'd prepared it, rehearsed the asking of it so it would not seem that she'd practiced at all. But he knew. "My lady is well, your grace," he responded, then adding, "She is a most able protectress of my family's ward, whilst I do battle. The gods have blessed me." The words were bitter in his mouth, false and horrible and sour. Aliana did not respond at first, clearly knowing his falsehood as he had known her rehearsal of what prompted it. "You and I -- we are not meant to fight," William explained softly, not allowing himself to be angry. "We are meant to do the opposite of fight." He stepped closer to her, and took one of her hands without looking away from her eyes. "We are meant to protect each other, you and I, for gods' sake. You know..." "I know well how you protect me, William, and how I have protected you," Aliana interrupted him. Her words were true, of course, in the most straightforward way, but William could not help thinking how her love and her body had protected him, if only for a spare few hours of the night, from the awful truth of Derrick's condition. In her arms he had found safety. Swallowing, he asked, "Then why did you not protect me from this marriage?" Aliana looked offended. "What choice did I have? We needed Degarre's influence, and he has only daughters, whom I couldn't well marry myself. My brother is sick and in bed, and that is not how heirs are made. If I could not give myself and I could not give him, I had to come as close to us as family. I ask you again -- what choice did I have?" "Me." The word had left William's mouth before he could stop it, hanging in the air between them. "You could have chosen me," he repeated, deadly serious. "I did choose you, William, or is that not what we are arguing--" "That is not what I meant," William interjected, still angry but almost sad. "I might have meant that you could have chosen my honor and right to chose my own fortune now, with no father to dictate it for me. I might have meant that you could have respected my honor and explained your choice to me before declaring it legal." William had drawn closer to her, close enough to see her chin quiver with caged emotion, though he could not be sure the exact one. Both hands now tightened around one of hers. "But what I meant -- what I really meant -- is that you could have chosen me." The words hung between them like poison on the edge of a glass, the moment before it takes its deadly course. William knew from the look in her dark brown eyes that she knew what he meant this time. He hated her still, felt the rage inside him like a hot knife, angry as very little else ever had made him. But the look on her face, the shock and frailty born of unsureness, grabbed at his conscience. He closed the distance between them, reaching out and taking her face in his hands, fingers brushing against her neck, thumbs resting softly on either side of her mouth. "You still can choose me," William said, quietly, just more than a murmur. For a moment, the walls disappeared. William felt strangely whole with her warm skin beneath his fingers, even with the anger still boiling inside him. He wondered, looking into her eyes, if something between them had broken when he had left Tyron's Keep so long ago, somehow knowing they would each change before any hope of a reunion, too much change to be reconciled. Certainly something was irretrievably lost the night Derrick was hurt, the ability to pretend that she didn't mean as much to him as he knew she did. The passion was almost irrelevant, simply a manifestation of how deeply he wanted to protect her. William could not deny the way sharing her bed had brought forth an even deeper well of care and affection, but he could live without that. He could not, however, live without her. Finally, he heard Aliana speak. They were so close he could have kissed her easily, and he could feel her breath on his chin even as she spoke. "I can't," she said, her voice rough in its shallowness, "and I wouldn't. You are an adviser to me. What would you have told me to do if you were not yourself involved?" She paused, her cheeks durning red. "You should not yourself have been involved." William felt hurt by it, by the regret in her voice at what had happened between them. "But I am," he affirmed, his hands still unmoving from her face. "And we said we would not speak of it, but it must be spoken of, if never again after tonight." Aliana swallowed, and William felt it under his fingers. "What's done is done," she said, ever queenly and diplomatic. "I cannot waste you on myself when I am barren and you are the most loyal of my people." The reality of it was something William had always known, but hearing her say it struck him deeply. Even if she had taken him for herself despite the waste of a possible strategic alliance through her marriage elsewhere, no children could come of it, and it would be twice the folly. "You should go home to your wife, William," Aliana said, jarring him. "See her before you must redeploy." William looked down, eyes finding the spot between them where her hands lay in clenched fists against the front of her dress. "I want to see you," he said, quiet but with weight. He looked up again to meet her eyes, now slightly narrowed, searching. Forbidding himself to be hesitant, William leaned closer, close enough to kiss. Aliana startled and shoved him away, stumbling back a step. "No, William, to whatever you were trying to do," she said, her words inflamed. “Your wife is an innocent, being used by her father much as I am using you. I was she once, and I will not myself betray her because you cannot understand my duty.” “Then you ought never to have put us in this position,” William told her angrily, striding just as close to her again, not caring if she backed away. She didn't. “Because I hate you, by the gods I hate you, but I need you more than that.” Aliana stared at him almost incredulously, her expression going from cold to shock. She said in even, perfect syllables, “I am not a whore. I’m not yours to need at will.” William recoiled from her immediately, taking a step back. His face softened, almost sad; how could she not understand? "It's not at will," William breathed, shattered by her lack of recognition or purposeful ignorance, he could not be sure which. "I don't ask to need you, I don't decide to want you with me. You're like a fever, you come when least I ask, and you linger like a phantom."