Nyssa tucked Roan back into his stable at the academy, kissed him goodbye for the day and went to find Jara.

“I haven’t seen him in two days, Princess Nyssa. Sorry!” Triva said to her when Nyssa caught up with her in the dorm. She was a classmate of Jara’s. Triva was in a hurry to get to class when Nyssa found her tying her boots at her bunk, which was beside Jara’s. Nyssa waved and smiled goodbye when she dashed off but found herself alone in the bunk room totally confused. She sat down on Jara’s bed.

She started to make her way back to her own room, not worried that something was wrong, just lonely that he was busy when she was finally not. She had time then to rearrange her room, take a shower herself, polish her equipment, write a letter to her brother advising him of her success (or bragging anyway. Patrick never took the warhorse module himself) and insisting that he attend her graduation parade as she was going to be participating in it.

She wrote to her father with the news of her success with Roan and told him the two of them had been invited to display their success at the parade. His attendance was his choice. She didn’t need to invite him, but she wanted him to know that she had succeeded in her challenge. She would be keeping her beast after all.

With a soft knock at the door but no wait, Jara stuck his head around the edge and smiled when he saw her there. He moved to enter all the way and shut it quietly behind him. He was about to say something, but he stopped, his eyes moving all around the room.

“Wow,” he said admiringly. “When did you get back?”

“This morning,” she answered. She followed his eyes and wondered why he was impressed.

“I don’t think I have ever seen this room so clean. Or so homey,” he said and resumed coming across the floor to lean over and kiss her.

He backed up again and sat in the chair beside the desk. Nyssa looked again around the small chamber and nodded. She had been “puttering” most of the day. Her fire was lit but in that happy, slow-burn phase that gave low warmth and mild crackle. Her clothes were away, her weapons hung and her bundles packed in the shelves. Her books were stacked, the papers only slightly messy because she had been using them. Her bed was made, her linen picked up…

“Shut up, Jara,” she said jokingly and smirked at him. He grinned back at her.

“Where have you been?” she asked him more lightly. “I did look for you for a while this morning. No one seemed to know where you had gone. Triva said she hadn’t seen you in two days.”

Jara nodded. “Brack had me come to him in the main office. I’ve been writing exams mostly this week, but I think I am finished now.” He shrugged.

“What’s next?” she asked him.

“I’ll do some physical combat exams with him. Most of the lessons are done, but he hasn’t said when. When I get a message to attend him, I have to go.”

Nyssa nodded. It made her a little apprehensive but not for any reason she could describe.

“So?” he said and leaned closer to her. “How did you and Roan do?” She smiled at him.

“We passed. Atris asked us to represent the warhorse program in the graduation parade. We passed so well,” she said proudly. Jara raised his eyebrows in his enthusiasm.

“Well done!” he said and she stood up to add a log to the fire. “I imagine you’ll have special preparations then?”

“Yes, I have practice tomorrow and the full dress-rehearsal the day after,” she said not turning back.

“If Brack is here with you, that means my father is here also, right?” she asked him and turned a quarter to look back at him. He was sitting back with one long leg crossed with his ankle on his knee. He nodded.

“I haven’t seen him, but yes, he is here,” he said. She nodded.

She understood he would be at the event then. It meant something that he would be.

“I get the feeling they are waiting for you,” he added and now she did turn to look at him.

“There have been a lot of dispatches and the Elite are running around the main academy offices, in and out all day of Brom’s office, which I assume is where your father works also. I overheard Titus talking to one of the colonels about provisions and getting ready to go in three days.”

“Three days?” she said surprised.

“In three days, you will be graduated. What’s there to do here after that?” he said and moved his leg down to lean over his elbows on his knees to look at her and she turned to face him too. She considered that.

Nothing. There was absolutely no reason to stay here after that and she was completely surprised that it hadn’t occurred to her. She’d lived at the academy for four years. It was her home, but she was just remembering that it really wasn’t. She looked at him but then looked around the room. It felt suddenly ridiculous that three days before leaving, she’d finally unpacked.

“Will you be coming? I mean, will you be ready…er, whatever? What do we do anyway?” she asked him and didn’t like not knowing more about what was happening. What if he had to stay behind for training?

He shrugged but didn’t seem upset by it. He leaned forward and took her hands, pulling her across the room and over to the chair so he could sit back and pull her to straddle and sit in his lap.

“I looked it up,” he began. He pulled her shirt laces undone and spread the material so her chest was exposed across her breasts. “There is a ceremony,” he began and he kissed her lightly. “Your father presides over it, normally alone, but because I am for you, he’ll have you participate in some way.” His mouth moved to her neck and back all over the surface of her upper chest. Nyssa, her arms wrapped loosely around his neck and shoulders, just relaxed into it.

“Just us?” she said quietly, moving her head back and to the side to make room for his kisses.

“No, the whole court and the officer corps sits for it,” he replied and didn’t hesitate in his movements. Nyssa opened her eyes and stared at the wall in surprise.

“The whole court?!” she said, startled. Jara nodded but kept going.

“Of course,” he replied calmly.

Nyssa was really surprised then. That would mean they would have to travel to the palace. It would be announced and there would be preparations…it was a bit startling.

“You’re not nervous?” she asked him and tried to pull back to see his face. He didn’t feel like stopping, but she pulled his face up to look at her. He frowned.

“Why would I be?” he asked her patiently. “You’ll be there. What else matters?”

Nyssa watched him, looking into his face, trying to read his eyes. He seemed to be completely at ease, no hiding at all. She wasn’t worried about it, but it all seemed so sudden.

“Did you hear me?” he said and shook her rear to jar her to look back at him. She did and nodded. She moved her fingers to trace his lips and he closed his eyes to let her, opening his mouth a little to kiss them. With his eyes closed, she pulled his face to kiss him. He responded like he had been impatiently waiting for her.

Jara moved to stand, sliding her forward onto her own feet, but when he was upright and still kissing her, he leaned forward and picked her up in his arms. He carried her to the bed and gently set her down, climbing in over top of her and lowering himself slowly and to the side so as not to squash her underneath him. He never separated from their kiss for more than a few moments.

Nyssa allowed him to undress her, including the binding of her ribs, which still irked her now and then but were well on their way to mending: a crack and not a break. She’d been extremely lucky. Likewise, she insisted he undress as well, but he drew the line at his underclothes. A short and light linen pant he wore under his heavy cotton or leather breeches; they had annoying tightly pulled laces at the waist and Nyssa was never able to discreetly defeat them. He didn’t catch that she had hidden a dagger under her mattress, a practice she considered she should adapt for life on the road and had added when she was cleaning up her room earlier.

Jara had finally rolled over to let her take the lead for a while. Nyssa kissed his mouth, his neck, his chest and all over, while he rubbed her back and took interest in her breasts. She was kissing him slowly down his stomach, onto his navel and down to the hair line. She was so giddy he didn’t notice her cut the laces; she almost laughed out loud. He was hard underneath, a sensation that drove Nyssa inexplicably mad with desire (she hadn’t even seen it before), but her hands were on him through the material and he moaned and moved in appreciation. When she dipped the material down, and her lips made contact with the skin, he nearly yelled out in surprise.

“What are you doing?!” he said and sat upright, nearly dumping her on the floor. She frowned at him for a second and then moved back up to face him, her hands pushing him down by his chest.

“Sssh!” she said harshly. “I want to try something.”

Jara was shaking his head, but she wasn’t listening. She returned a hand to the area and was stroking him, under the fabric. Jara was clearly losing his ability to argue. He leaned up and kissed her hard but fell back when she left him again to go back down. His hands gripped her shoulders hard. Nyssa smiled.

“Nyssa!” he cried out before she even got there, but she kept it up and now, she didn’t hide that she could get under. She simply pulled the fabric down and freed him.

She was surprised to say the least, interested, intrigued and in love all at once. His skin there was like silk and it was suddenly and weirdly incredibly hard. She kissed the tip and Jara moaned involuntarily. She kissed it again and moved down the length of him. Jara had her sheets gripped now in both his fists. His eyes clenched shut. She continued to kiss him lightly and he moved with it. She was particularly fond of his musk and how the slightest touch in this area seemed to drive him crazy.

Nyssa was watching him from her vantage point and his eyes were still closed. He called out her name and on the last pass of her kisses, he arched his back a little. She had no idea taking him into her mouth would cause him to virtually lose his mind.

Jara’s head shot up like it was on a spring and he yelled out in complete surprise and pleasure. Nyssa instantly knew there was no hiding the noise from anyone still awake on the floor. It was the loudest she’d ever heard him be. But Nyssa wasn’t startled; she was concentrating and enjoying herself as she was giving him pleasure, the likes she had never done before. But he was panting and started to panic.

“Nyssa,” he said, breathing hard, “I don’t know. I don’t think we should,” he was trying to say, but Nyssa increased the pressure of her mouth and he lost the rest of his words. She thought he was done protesting, but he sat up again, this time dislodging her.

“What in the world, Nyssa?!” he whispered to her, but he wasn’t over it. Not by a long shot.

Nyssa wanted to tell him the idea hadn’t been hers, but it sounded weird and gross to say that she’d seen two of their friends, Sheesha and Tom, in the showers that morning and Tom had been incredibly excited over Sheesha’s ministrations. She’d thought to discreetly sneak away but had been instead intrigued by Tom’s intense reactions. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she’d backed up and hidden in a closet to watch. Nyssa had learned more about the male anatomy in that ten-minute episode than she’d learned in her entire life.

She crossed her arms and sat back, not entirely backed off. She hadn’t been sure of the ending. That part was a bit too intense for her to understand. Sheesha ended up yelling along with Tom, which she couldn’t understand, but she didn’t care about them anymore. Her own experience was working out far better. She was feeling excited but satisfied at the same time to be doing something with his body he obviously enjoyed, rather than just touching and kisses above the belt. Jara had flopped backward onto the pillows, still breathing hard. Nyssa looked back to her target and reached out a hand to rub it lightly again. He groaned.

“I’m sorry,” he said to her, not opening his eyes. “I just, I didn’t expect you would, you know…I just, I think we should wai-…”

Nyssa watched him a second longer. Completely ignoring his words, she bent over to lightly drag her body and breasts up his thighs and, not giving him any warning, resumed her earlier attentions. He cried out again, a little better controlled, but there was surrender in it. Nyssa started to involve her tongue, moved her head and added a hand to help. Jara cried out and then, out of nowhere, bent to lift her up and kissed her mouth, at the exact same time as he put his hand over hers and moved it two or three times with her. Then suddenly, she was covered in warm liquid, from her breasts to her navel. Jara had stiffened and stopped kissing her when it happened. It was so intense she’d been gripping him hard by the shoulders and kissing him in return and then came the surprise at the end. She’d never felt more turned on by anything in her life.

When he was through it, his whole body seemed to slump in an extreme relaxed way and even his kisses were slow and smoother. He did kiss her though, intensely, appreciatively. When he needed to take a breath, he leaned his forehead on hers; she was still sitting on his lap, the little mess between them. Nyssa was surprised at the soft smell of it. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

“What the hell have you been up to, Princess?” he said to her and laughed one chuckle between catching his breath.

“I’m sure you’ll find I’m full of surprises, Jara. You just have to trust me sometimes,” she replied and was tracing a finger through the glistening liquid on his tummy and her breasts. Jara stared at her, a pained expression on his face. He closed his eyes and shook his head in, what she hoped was, defeat. He let himself fall back but kept his hands on her lightly clothed rear and thigh to keep her from falling.

Nyssa didn’t care about the mess; she just didn’t. She lay down on his chest, a bit to the side, so she could see him. She noticed he was not hard anymore. It was softer and getting smaller. Convenient, she thought. She traced her finger through the liquid on his stomach for a while. Curious but not curious enough to ask. Maybe she could inquire with a nurse one day about what the purpose of the final ejaculate was for.

“It’s seed, Nyssa,” Jara said out of nowhere. Nyssa blinked; her finger stopped moving.

“Oh,” she said, not quite understanding. She thought about it some more. “OH!” she said and sat up fast.

Nyssa knew where babies came from. She’d grown up around animals. She was embarrassed, horribly so, to have never made the connection about a man and his parts before. How they were built, what they were supposed to do, all made sense like a thunderclap in her mind. She felt incredibly young and stupid. Her moment of victory, of maturity and proof to Jara that she was mature enough especially for this, seemed to evaporate.

“Do you understand now why I think we should wait to go any further?” he asked her gently and moved his hand to push her hair behind her shoulder and ear. He pulled his hand back across her cheek. “It’s how it works. Once I’m inside you, I can’t protect you from it, even though I want to,” he said gently. “It doesn’t work every time, but we’d always be playing with fire. We just would never know when our luck would run out. It could even happen on the first time…”

Nyssa nodded, but she thought he could see the discomfort in her eyes.

“Talk to me,” he said then and worry crossed his face. He pulled her so she was closer to him, her chin rested now on his chest. She shut her eyes. It took her a while to speak again.

“What are we waiting for? If it happens like that every time, what are we going to do?” she asked. Jara was silent for a long time, enough to scare her.

“There are tinctures, I heard,” he said finally. She looked up at him. “I don’t know more about them except I’ve overheard some of the women here talk about them. You get them from the nurse.”

“A tincture?” she asked, very interested. He was watching her intently.

“I don’t know enough about how they work, Nyssa. And if they’re not guaranteed, I won’t risk you getting pregnant, “he said sternly. “I won’t.”

He was going to close his eyes again but changed his mind. Instead, he moved her over, gently enough, and got out of bed. He went to the washstand and wet the towel. Nyssa had stayed sitting upright in the middle of the bed and watched him plainly. He looked over at her for a second and saw her staring after him. He stopped and leaned on the table with a big sigh. She thought he was upset.

“You think I don’t want this,” he said matter-of-factly. It wasn’t a question. She continued to stare at him.

“I know that you do,” she said barely above a whisper. He turned back to the table. His lean, nude body was lit by the low light from the fireplace. He picked up the towel and came over to her, kneeling on the floor and began wiping her skin gently. She was watching him, but he didn’t look to meet her eyes.

“Will you do it, Jara? Will you show me...how, I mean?” she asked, and was incredibly nervous about talking about it. A moment ago, she’d been revved up so tight he could have done anything with her, but now she felt only doubt; doubt that her feelings about it had been true and that he wanted it too.

Jara stopped moving the towel and now he did look up at her. He smiled encouragingly and seemed very relaxed about it.

“If it’s really what you want, Nyssa, we will be together. I promise you,” he said and lifted her hand to hold it. She stared at him, mildly reassured.

“Have you?...”she asked then, one shoulder rising in her nervousness, her tone changing instantly. Jara looked uneasy for a second, his eyes dipping to the side as he thought about it; he cleared his throat and barely nodded. He looked down again and resumed wiping her with the towel.

“I have,” he said simply.

Both Nyssa’s eyebrows shot up. He noticed but didn’t say anything more. Nyssa was suddenly dying to know every detail, but the look on Jara’s face didn’t give her the impression it was welcome territory. She became concerned.

“Did it hurt?” she asked quietly.

Jara frowned and shook his head. “It can be a bit uncomfortable for the girl at first, or so I’m told,” he added. “But the result is worth it, also, so I’m told.”

Nyssa reached out to put her hands through his hair. He leaned into it.

“I’m sorry I’m not more experienced for you. I mean, if I were, it wouldn’t be such a big deal. I know. I’m sorry you have to go through this again,” she said. Jara froze and looked up at her.

“You are exactly who you should be!” he said firmly and got up to sit on the bed beside her. Still nude but oblivious with her, he pulled her back onto his lap into an embrace, tucking her head under his chin. He sighed heavily and she felt the tension release from his body again. He was so warm and smooth on her skin; Nyssa sighed as well and stared at the fire.

“My first time wasn’t with someone I loved, but I cared about her enough. I didn’t wait, like I want to with you. We realized after only a few months we weren’t what each other wanted. It was...empty.” He was trying to describe it; his face showed his regret. “It felt like a waste when it was over. I still think of it as the most selfish thing I’ve ever done. All I wanted was to satisfy myself. I don’t feel that way about you, though, Nyssa. It’s exactly the opposite. I care about you so much, I’m more afraid to ruin it.”

“I’m not afraid,” she whispered after a while.

He chuckled once. She lifted her head to look up at him. He met her eyes but shook his head. He took her chin between his fingers and kissed her very gently.

“All I want is to show you how I feel,” he said finally. “There is nothing to be afraid of, I promise.” Nyssa nodded and leaned back to him for another kiss.

They’d gone to bed after, Jara getting in under the covers, still full nude, and holding them open for her. She snuggled tight against him, breathing him in, feeling the warmth and the smoothness of his skin. They lay quiet for a very long time and Nyssa watched the fire burn low.

“I can’t ever have children, can I, Jara?” she asked him, knowing he too was still awake. There was a long pause.

“I don’t know, Princess,” he said quietly. “Not with me, I don’t think. No.”

Well, Nyssa was thinking about it. Not having thought it through before, but with the prospect of leaving with her father’s troops as soon as three days’ time, losing her only chance at a husband and father when her lover took his oaths in less than that, Nyssa felt she was completely out of options. She knew it. Motherhood, if she chose to follow the path she’d always believed she would have, even up to a few hours ago, was simply not for her.

At sixteen and a half, Nyssa suddenly didn’t know if what she’d always dreamed about, what she’d worked so hard at the academy to achieve, was right for her. Did she even want babies? Certainly not now, but ever? Could she, Nyssa, even be a mother? She wriggled her body closer against his and she felt she could — at least, she wanted the option with him — he would love her and love them. Nyssa knew it in her bones, they would be like her mother and father once were. She felt his body around hers and she imagined an infant at her breast. Suddenly, she was terrified: terrified she was completely out of time.

Nyssa awoke before dawn and left Jara snoring softly in her bed. She had a little more than two hours to make it to the infirmary: a half hour’s run on the other side of the compound from her dorm and back to the parade grounds. When she entered, she found the nurse who saw girls specifically just coming on shift. She was bouncing on the balls of her feet in her anxiety.

“How may I help you, Princess?” the nurse said patiently and sat down in the room opposite Nyssa.

“I wish to have the tincture that stops a woman from getting pregnant,” she said immediately and watched the nurse intently. The nurse blinked at her and stared back.

“That does exist, doesn’t it?” she pushed. The nurse blinked out of her shock.

“There is a mixture I have prescribed,” she said slowly, but she was beginning to look unhappy. “But it is just a mixture of herbs I know to be toxic to the process. There is no guarantee, Princess,” she said and she didn’t rise. Nyssa narrowed her eyes at her.

“What do you mean it’s not guaranteed?”

“Princess, I can appreciate that you are growing older and are probably at the stage where you wish to experiment with the opposite sex,” she began and Nyssa nearly screamed at the sound of a lecture. Her time was limited. Any moment, her absence would be noticed, by Jara or the parade crew that were expecting her in less than an hour. She was terrified of having to explain where she was.

“I do not wish to ‘experiment’,” she said cutting her off and making great effort not to clench her teeth. She took a deep breath and started again.

“I will leave with my father’s troops very soon. To face battle, to maybe die at his command. I am not a young girl with prospects of husbands and babies. I’m a soldier. In light of this, I think it would be fairly inconvenient that should I find a brief reprieve from the violence and cold in the arms of someone who cares for me, that in the end I find myself forced to bear a child I cannot keep. If you have a tincture that can give me that one night every so often of comfort and warmth, I would be quite grateful, Mistress Nurse. But if you cannot give me that, then please say so and I will be on my way.”

The nurse stared at Nyssa with her mouth slightly open. Nyssa felt her impatience growing and just wanted to leave, to give up on it, but the nurse came to her senses, stood up and nodded. Before leaving the room, she put a hand warmly on Nyssa’s shoulder and squeezed.

Nyssa left with three tiny, cobalt blue vials of the tincture. The nurse instructed her not to exceed the dosage per use or she would suffer terrible menstruation and cramps. Two drops on the tongue, ideally immediately to several hours before or after the act would suffice to maybe stop the process. She had had much success with it at the academy, she did tell her, trying to sound reassuring.

Nyssa had nodded her thanks and simply left the room, the tiny bottles tucked deeply into her cloak and she took off at a fast jog to get to the stables to dress Roan.

The dry run consisted of a lot of standing around as the choreographers moved people and changed their minds a hundred times. It drizzled for most of it, but Nyssa was enjoying the company of a few of her classmates. They joked and chatted under the stands’ easements, drinking warm tea and telling stories of this or that class. All of them were excited for the ceremony. Nyssa was too. Roan put up with the day mostly but was bored and shifted restlessly through most of it.

The next day, Roan was much more into it. He was made to wear his full armour and blankets. Nyssa likewise wore her new complete armour for the very first time, the last of the decorative pieces arriving just that morning.

She had admired the final piece, her helmet, now fitted with an extra-long, white, horse hair plume that was perfectly brushed and trimmed high on the top, but that was unique to her as a gift from her father. It trailed long down her back. She’d thanked the blacksmith profusely for his dramatic design, kissing him on the cheeks so that he blushed and nearly giggled.

Now, mounted on Roan, she went through the paces they’d learned the day before. She was moved in a tight group to the middle of the grounds to face the podium and be inspected and shown where her father would sit. She then moved alone to encourage Roan to prance along the front and down to the edge so she could turn him, pick up a bow and arrow from a waiting batman and, with enough space, run him back across the front of the stands and, at near full speed, stand up and take aim at the archery target and hopefully get a good score. Once completed, she was to be again joined by the other knights and armoured horses, which would run impressively to catch up to her, then line up in a phalanx, with her at its apex. The rest of the graduating class, an impressive fifty more mounted soldiers, were to be grouped in a perfect line behind her. Jara would be among her phalanx, she thought, but when she looked for him at this final practice, he was not there.

Admiral Brom and General Titus would give short speeches, with her and her group sitting at attention, pennants flapping. When they were declared “fit for service,” the infantry, consisting of active soldiers lined up near the stands, would bang their shields smartly three times in their honour.

They were dismissed from practice once the organizers were satisfied and told the precise hour they needed to be dressed and onsite to begin the actual ceremony.

When she got back to the dorms, she craved a hot shower and her long-ago-seen bed. She wondered if it would be well stocked, like it had been when she got up that morning. She was feeling anxious about Jara. They’d not spoken since she’d fallen asleep with him beside her.

Jara wasn’t there, but there was a note pinned to the pillow.

“Nyssa — I wish you luck today. I know you and Roan will be great. Try not to worry about what this parade graduation means. Enjoy the day. You have earned it in spades. I wanted you to know how proud I am of you. How magnificent I think you are, and how I hope you remember that no one else but you has done the work to achieve what you have. You have bled, broken and fought your way to whatever prize your father grants you, but no one did it for you. For that, you will always be you and no one can take that away. I will be your guardsman because I admire you and wish I could be as strong as you, in that I will heed your example. I promise to be brave and never to leave you in darkness. If that is enough, then I will take my oaths with all the confidence you can give me. I will not fail you. I will not leave you.

I love you, too. I am sorry I wasn’t more prepared for the other night. You caught me off guard with your incredible ability to see to a point. Sometimes it’s a little raw, a little hard to face the reality around us, but it doesn’t stop you and I have to admire that. Please don’t think I was mad.

Nyssa, I would give you a dozen children if it were what you wanted, and if it is what you want one day, then nothing should stand in your way of having them. But it is only a dream that I could ever be the father of our children. Please understand, I go now willingly to begin my duty to you, and I know and I understand why I can’t be that man as part of what lies ahead, and in that I beg you to please believe me when I say, it’s OK. I will take you in any way I can for as long as you will have me, guardsman, friend.

I will always love you, Nyssa. Eternity and beyond.

J

Nyssa looked up and out of the window when she finished reading, her eyes unfocused, her mind a bizarre blank. After a long while staring out, she tried to read the page again, but no longer seeing it, she sighed heavily. Her mind was racing through the law she knew, but she remembered the military code books a few feet away and she flew to her bookshelf and brought down the heavy volume. She found the section, ‘Code of the First Guardsman’ and raced through the pages. She was remembering while she was trying to find the right line. A guardsman could marry someone other than his monarch if she approved. She found it and now read out loud, her finger following the page: “A guardsman should consider the exclusive charge of his duty when contemplating a personal choice, as his monarch must always be primary in his responsibilities. Guardsmen have no higher authority than his monarch and a monarch have absolute power of his elected office. As a result of the exclusivity of the authority assigned this dual partnership, monarch and guardsman must be of exclusive non-relative relationship, including blood relative or spouse.”

Nyssa froze, her eyes not seeing the pages of the book anymore.

She raced back to the bookshelf and pulled the Orak’Thune Code of Law and Civil Regulations and thumbed through to the section outlining the Code of Conduct for Elected Monarchs until she found the clause dealing with the guardsman; “A monarch assuming the function of overlord and commander to the grand armies will be assigned a first guardsman by either the current residing monarch or the admiral of the military. The first guardsman is a knight of the Elite Order, a singularly accomplished soldier who will act as a personal bodyguard and assistant to the overlord. The guardsman will have exclusive rights of person to the management, protection and care of the monarch and his office; his rank not to be exceeded by any other within the known military structure. As a result of the exclusivity of the authority assigned by the dual partnership, monarch and guardsman must be of exclusive non-relative relationship, including blood relative or spouse.”

Nyssa sat heavily on the edge of her bed. The two heavy books were now in her lap, Jara’s letter in her hand.

Did she need to marry Jara to have his children? No, but the implication of their indifference to the law would be exposed if she did. He would be dishonoured easily and decommissioned immediately. She also could be removed from her own commission, her title of princess removed as well. It wasn’t much, but it was the honour of her parents that she bore it and upheld it and did her best to serve in its capacity, not to mention she’d worked her whole life to deserve it.

Her love for him was strong, strong enough she thought she could never do this to him, and she understood now his letter. He wasn’t going to dishonour them either and accepting the commission was his way of staying with her, even if it cost them everything else.

But Nyssa felt the sickening feeling of something more. It wasn’t just if they screwed up and she got pregnant. It was everything else. If they were discovered to even be in a physical relationship, they risked forever having to face proving and defending themselves. It promised to make their lives hard and dishonest.

Nyssa looked out the window; the evening sky was darkening, made sooner by the drizzle starting again.

Was the commission worth it? Should she stop him and take him away with her? Nyssa saw her father’s face and knew the answer. He had plans for her and she herself had worked too hard to stop it all now. Jara too. He deserved greatness; he deserved to be the second most powerful man in the country — well, if ever she ascended, and would she ever consider it? She felt Jara deserved it, more than she did, anyway.

Nyssa heard the hiss of the paper slide under the door and the footsteps recede in the hallway. She stared at it a moment. A linen envelope with a large, dark red seal and trailing ribbon stared back at her. It was her father’s seal and the palace’s ribbon. An invitation to a Crown Hall event.

Nyssa’s breath hitched in her throat. She slid the books from her lap and went on all fours across the floor to pick up the envelope. She sat back on her knees and ran the smooth ribbon through her fingers. She held it to her chest and just cried.