The air inside the Braun carriage was thick with the scent of lavender and expensive, oiled leather—a fragrance so cloying it felt like it was trying to drown the natural world outside. Gerry Waddell sat opposite Mary Anne, his large frame making the plush velvet seat look like a toy. He felt the sway of the carriage in his bones, a rhythmic, nauseating reminder that he was being carried away from the only life he had ever known.
Outside the window, the North was a blur of grey timber and skeletal trees. He could see the silhouettes of the fishing huts, the places where he had bled, sweated, and nearly starved. To anyone else, it was a wasteland. To Gerry, it was honest.
An hour earlier, the atmosphere in Gerry's small cottage had been a different kind of heavy. The ceiling had seemed to drop an inch lower the moment Mary Anne Braun crossed the threshold. She was a vision of emerald silk and porcelain skin, standing amidst the smell of damp wool, woodsmoke, and the metallic tang of medicinal herbs.
"I cannot simply leave," Gerry had said, his voice a low, defensive growl. He stood by the hearth, his hand resting on the mantle he had carved himself. "The children are barely mending. Leo still has the rattle in his lungs, and Sarah... she's still prone to the night-sweats. And Irenne is miles away, tending to a dying woman. This village is my home."
"This village is a graveyard, Gerry," Mary Anne had replied. She didn't shout; she spoke with the terrifyingly calm certainty of someone who had never known a day of hunger. She stepped closer, the rustle of her skirts sounding like a snake in the grass. "The winter cough will return. The damp from the river will rot the very floorboards you're standing on. And the debts... I've seen the magistrate's ledgers, Gerry. I know about the boat. I know about the interest on the tools."
Gerry's jaw tightened until his teeth ached. It was a low blow, delivered with the surgical precision of a woman who knew exactly where the armor was thinnest. He looked at the sleeping forms of his children on the pallet. They looked so small, their skin pale and translucent. He thought of the letter he needed to send to Irenne—the coins she would need to pay the priest, the wood for a coffin, the dignity of a proper burial for her mother.
"I am offering you a position as my personal guard," Mary Anne continued, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that made the hair on his neck stand up. "A formal contract. You will be provided with a suite in the servants' wing of the Braun estate—heated, dry, and staffed with the best healers in Praeven. Your children will eat meat every night. They will have shoes that fit. And your wage... it will be triple what you earned in the mountain passes."
Gerry looked at her—really looked at her. He saw the ambition dancing in her eyes, a hunger that had nothing to do with food. "Why? why me?" he asked. "There are a thousand knights in the capital who would kill for Braun coin. Men with titles and polished shields."
"Knights are loyal to the King, or the Pope, or their own vanity," Mary Anne said, her eyes boring into his. "I need someone loyal only to the hand that pays him. Someone who isn't afraid to get blood on his hands because he's already spent his life in the mud. I need a wolf, Gerry. Not a lapdog in a surcoat."
Gerry felt the trap closing. He smelled the artifice, the way she was tailoring her words to fit his pride. But then Leo coughed—a wet, hacking sound that tore through the quiet room—and the choice vanished.
"Fine," Gerry growled, the word tasting like ash. "I take the coin. But my children will travel with me, they stay within my sight. And Irenne... she comes to the estate the moment she is able."
"Of course," Mary Anne smiled. It was the smile of a victor. "I wouldn't dream of separating a man from his heart."
~
The journey back to the Braun estate was an exercise in silent, grinding tension. Gerry had initially refused to sit inside the carriage, wanting to ride a draft horse alongside the drivers where he could keep his hand on his sword and his eyes on the road. But Mary Anne had insisted, claiming the "optics" of her new head of security sitting in the rain were unacceptable.
From his seat, Gerry watched her. She was a creature of absolute artifice. She didn't read the books she had brought; she didn't practice the delicate needlework sitting in her lap. She sat and she observed.
She watched the way he adjusted his position, the way his eyes never stopped scanning the tree line through the small carriage window. She watched the way he winced when the carriage hit a rut, his body instinctively tensing to protect the space where his children sat in the following wagon.
To Mary Anne, he was a masterpiece of biology. She traced the line of his jaw—the same stubborn, regal line she had seen on the King's coins. She noted the way his red hair caught the dim light, burning with an internal fire that seemed to defy the grey afternoon.
He is magnificent, she thought, a cold shiver of triumph running down her spine. He is a lion born in a kennel, and he doesn't even know he has claws.
~
When they finally crested the hill overlooking the Braun estate, the contrast was a physical blow to Gerry's senses. The manor was a sprawling leviathan of white stone and blue slate, surrounded by gardens so perfect they looked unnatural.
As they pulled into the courtyard, a swarm of servants in grey and silver livery descended upon them. Gerry stepped out of the carriage, his boots tracking the dark, heavy mud of the North onto the pristine cobblestones. He felt the eyes of the other guards—men in polished breastplates with straight noses and soft hands. They looked at him like he was a stray dog brought in from a storm.
Mary Anne didn't waste time. She had the children whisked away to a warm, sun-drenched room in the healers' wing, despite Gerry's protest. She knew that as long as she held the children in a place of comfort, she held Gerry's leash.
"Go, Gerry," she said, touching his arm, her voice soft but firm. "Wash. Eat. My steward has laid out clothing befitting your new station. We have an inspection of the Eastern estate in two days, and I expect my shadow to be ready."
That night, Gerry stood in the center of a room that was larger than his entire cottage. The bed was piled with furs and down; a fire roared in a marble hearth, throwing orange light across walls hung with tapestries of hunts and heroes.
He stood before a towering, gold-framed mirror. He had stripped off his salt-stained tunic, exposing a torso crisscrossed with the white lines of old scars—reminders of bandits, cold winters, and the price of survival.
He looked at the man in the mirror. He saw the copper hair, the sharp, haunted blue eyes, and the shadow of a man he didn't recognize. He picked up the new tunic Mary Anne had provided—a deep charcoal leather reinforced with fine steel links. It was the most expensive thing he had ever touched.
He thought of the king's brother watching him from the birch trees. He thought of the way Mary Anne looked at him—not with the lust of a woman, but with the cold, possessive intensity of a collector.
"I'm a mercenary," he whispered to his reflection, his voice sounding hollow in the luxurious room. "I sell my strength. That's all this is."
But as he laid down on the soft mattress, the silence of the estate felt louder than the roar of the river. He felt the silk of the sheets against his calloused skin, a sensation so alien it made him feel like he was disappearing.
He wasn't a guard. He was a piece of evidence. And as he closed his eyes, he could almost feel the weight of a crown he didn't know he owned, pressing down on him like a shroud.