Chapter Text
Jeremy returned during twilight, less than an hour before sunrise. He’d rushed, sweat formed across the top of his brow despite the cold, his knuckles and fingers dipped in red. He returned his horse past a sleeping stable boy, past a guard that knew better than to spill his secrets.
Instead of pretending to emerge from his bedroom, he headed directly to the training grounds. He adjusted his clothing to seem less suspicious, shedding the dark upper layers to reveal a white shirt underneath. He’d morphed from intruder into model heir. Biting morning air cooled reddened cheeks and soon enough, he was in the training grounds with a wooden sword slamming it against a straw dummy. The sweat from exertion became one of practice instead of travel.
The rhythm was easy to fall into. Hit, hit, back away, readjust, flurry of hits with adjustment. Adjust again. The simplicity of picking at his own mistakes, allowed his mind to slip into the past. He could visit Shuri again. His excuses would be airtight when he returned, his lies honed into fine edges.
But her reaction unnerved him. She had come over to a stranger donned in all black in her home. Shuri had recognised him enough to meet him in secret and warn him against the affair. Had she recognised him through his father? Had she seen a portrait of him? She wasn’t surprised enough for his expectations when he had introduced himself. The more time that passed between their encounter, the more her every facial expression rolled around in his head, dissecting every glance she gave back to her house, every shuffle of her shoes.
Was he too late already? Why bring him back if he was already powerless? Jeremy had no desire to relive his past for the sake of it.
The wooden sword creaked under the force of his strikes. They became messier as time marched on, until one strike burrowed into the fabric at the wrong angle, bending his wrist sharply. Jeremy hissed, shooting pain running down from finger to elbow. Both his wrists burnt as the sun’s first ray ricocheted across the sands. The heir dropped his sword, glancing around and crouching to lift up his sleeves. Unfurling the right bandage offered nothing, for the hourglass was the same as always. That tiny sliver of sand at the bottom hadn’t changed, not that he could remember. His right wrist ached from the mild injury but that was nothing he couldn’t handle. After stretching it out, it would be fine.
The left however, had changed. 3 6 0 spanned down his forearm, shimmering gold numbers that glowed. The sun continued its steady path above, bathing him in more light. The training grounds were ethereal under its gaze, each shard of metal glinting, the sands blinding, as if he was sitting within yet another hourglass.
… Jeremy was running out of time. Literally speaking, he had a time limit. To what he could not say, nor was it prudent for him to make such conclusions so hastily… but, he had been here for weeks now and his number was seldom the same, always trickling down. How had he not noticed sooner?!
Wrapping his wrist tight enough to sting, he stood in a rush, a plan whirling into place. There had to be something he was missing, almost a year from now, that would be important enough for a god… creature–Jeremy wasn’t sure yet– to acknowledge its existence. He had no time to waste hitting a doll!
Jeremy met Elias’ gaze. He must’ve looked possessed in that moment, emeralds wild and darting, breath stuttering, grip bone-white on his sword. Elias had just dragged himself out of bed, if his long shift was anything to go by, but he had a sharpness Jeremy couldn’t ignore. Elias’ fierce red hair was currently a rat’s nest, leaking onto his face and obscuring part of his deep green eyes but that boy, though decades younger than Jeremy, saw right through him. It was… unnerving.
Neither of them spoke but Elias said it all. Suspicious. Imposter. Who are you?
A maid burst through the far doors of the estate, panicked and flanked by bodyguards. “Young Master Jeremy!” she whined loudy, her voice creaking from panic.
And it seems his time has ran out once more. Maintaining eye contact, he raised an arm and announced clearly, “here!”
She found him and raced over within the minute, long skirts flapping. Jeremy expected his brother to say anything, even if it was a dig, an insult, an emotional tantrum, something. But no, Elias maintained his silence. So he did too.
Even when the maid ushered him away, chastising him that he should be sleeping at this hour, not training. That his tutor would arrive soon and he needed to be prepared to host him as the de facto head of house in his father’s absence. Everything she said glazed over him, because he couldn’t quite erase the sting of seeing his brother no longer recognise him.
Jeremy’s lessons were drowning him. Not in difficulty, but sheer quantity. Despite having the supposed knowledge of a seventeen-year-old boy, he still needed to skim through library books and reread ledgers until his eyes blurred. He still needed to train under Everette properly, because his eleven-year-old body wasn’t listening to him. For all intents and purposes, he was a child like any other, reliving his life with just as little freedoms.
In the pockets of time available to him, he planned his next move. He actually acquired a diary for the first time in his life, purely to write every memory he could think of. X887… the date was underlined and circled as he searched through texts for anything that could jump out to him. His memory for history was not the sharpest but that changed nothing. He had to find out what all of this was leading up to.
No, before that, he needed to understand what mechanisms forced Shuri’s fate into marriage. What could his father possibly want from Shuri that he couldn’t have from any other woman, preferably women his age!
That night, Jeremy felt like pulling his hair out. His candle was half-way down, and he couldn’t deny the sheer exhaustion he felt of pushing his child body through this much work. And, he still needed to see Shuri again.
Jeremy began pacing down his room. His form projected plunging shadows across the walls, all painted in pascals. Everywhere he looked contained relics of the past. Part of him wanted to tear it all down and start afresh, because seeing his mother after it had been years of putting her to rest, was taking its own toll.
Shuri. It all started and ended with her. He needed to see her again. For answers, but partly for his own sanity.
He paused, grazing his fingertips against his lower lips. Only a handful of nights ago, he kissed her. He could not remember a time where he had ever done so, much less his lips gracing bare skin. He didn’t mean to, but was that too forward of him? Did that make her uncomfortable and she had no way of verbalising it? Jeremy covered his mouth, a light blush dusting his cheeks. How embarrassing, a man of his age getting butterflies over Shuri– a Shuri who now was far too young for him.
… was his current age still seventeen?
If so, he now longed for someone who was several years his junior, their age gap had flipped and doubled. Did that make him similar to his father?!
Despite his heart speeding up, a new sickening pit formed in his stomach. He couldn’t consider any of this, not now. His priority had to remain on disrupting her current engagement. No matter what happened from there, their age gap was still not as jarring as the one between her and his father.
The boy tried to push past his thoughts, but they lingered like unwelcome guests in the doorway, watching, waiting for him to lower his guard for the night. He busied himself with the maps at his desk some more. Dozens of maps borrowed from the library lay splayed out under his diary, interlocking in various disjointed patterns that drew his country in unfamiliar lines. He had never bothered to study his own home so deeply, but now he knew every trade route, every forest, and every newly built bridge they deemed important enough to put to paper.
Local maps, drawn by barons and merchants, featured new shortcuts the Neuschwanstein house didn’t bother including. Some featured changing altitudes. Every speck of information allowed him to cut his time down further. He needed a proper conversation and that required time. Goddamned time that he never had enough of.
The heir exhaled. He found himself chasing time endlessly. The goddess had cursed him to stare at the hourglass on his wrist than on his desk, to scramble desperately to prevent the wheels of fate that had begun far, far sooner than he thought. If she truly favoured him as she claimed, she would grant him peace to speak with Shuri and slowly work out a solution.
Though, where was the amusement there? She did get a kick out of watching him flail, didn’t she?
Jeremy pushed away from his work for the final time that night. Running through the motions of hiding all his things, his thoughts wandered aimlessly. The list of things he needed to do was endless. He needed his father’s approval, his trust, his household’s trust, and needed Shuri to trust him more than she ever had in her life, despite them being strangers. Perhaps the goddess had thought too highly of him. Perhaps he was doomed to fail.
The boy blew out the candle. He prayed his sleep was dreamless.
Feigning fatigue worked like a charm. His maid was convinced of his pure innocence, and Elias left whenever he entered the room. He caught up on his sleep through the afternoon after his lessons and from the moment the main staff were sent to bed, he began his escape.
The journey to Shuri’s was more comfortable with his additional preparations, and her house upon the hill came into view while the night was young. Admittedly, he hadn’t thought much of the cover story of how he knew her. The lies would come easily enough, of his father mentioning her off-handedly, of there being a letter or sheet of paper he wasn’t supposed to see. This Shuri didn’t know the intricacies of his house. She didn’t know how firm his father was in ensuring he kept hidden everything he needed to.
He slowed his horse to a trot as he manoeuvred it through the thinner patches of grass laden with trees and rocks. Cutting through the forest had proven its efficiency at the cost of visibility, but that was fine, Jeremy would be in the clear soon enough.
Would it be too forward of him to ask to speak in her room? He didn’t want to give off any impure intentions, but having her stand outside as he interrogated her wasn’t the way he wanted their new relationship to-
Jeremy parried the blade that flew from above, barely keeping it away from his neck. A flash of black whipped down and the boy forced his horse into the clearing. Blood rushed to his head, his vision couldn’t quite catch the figure dipping into the tree cover.
His arms shook from the exertion of fighting off the strike. Why would an assassin wait outside of the Ighöfer's house? What debts had her brother saddled her with now?
Jeremy dropped from his horse, easing into a real fighting stance. Not the sort he prepared when sparring, when his only intents were to disarm or incapacitate. No. Jeremy honed his mind to kill.
Flickers of movement echoed around the forest. Every speck of wildlife became a danger. The rustling leaves and grass forced him onto a fine edge. The stars would be his only witness for the acts he committed here, for if Shuri were to see him maiming another, no matter the reason, she would never look at him the same again.
Instead of his assailant charging forward, Jeremy was left in limbo for seconds on end, each stretching further as his senses became desperate to find them. They were well trained, if he was forced to compliment them, seamlessly blending into the backdrop. They were of average height and build, a little larger than him, but no mountain. But the strength they wielded was not one Jeremy could underestimate.
An arrow whistled through the air. Jeremy threw himself to the ground. Eating dirt during his roll across the grass, he barely parried the figure barralling his way. With the added disadvantage of being beneath them, the boy struggled to keep his neck intact as steel grazed closer with each hit.
The struggle lasted for only a couple seconds yet each instant was an eternity of calculations. His swordsmanship was a meagre imitation of his previous self. His strength faltered when he needed it, and his old habits made his weaker body buckle. His hood fell from his face and sunk into the grass.
Though he had lost his anonymity, he saw under the other’s hood. Despite black fabric bunched up to his nose, Jeremy could recognise those boyish figures and piercing blue anywhere.
“Nora?” Jeremy breathed out.
The figure faltered. His blade hovered inches from Jeremy’s throat. His own reach wasn’t quite long enough to do the same.
“What are you doing here?” he continued, wincing at the crack in his voice. Jeremy tried to quell the residual shake the adrenaline left him, but he couldn’t deny how fear laced through his veins and pounded in his ears. Nora could kill him, right here, and Jeremy would have no idea why.
“I could ask the same,” Nora replied. The confirmation of his identity should’ve helped but Nora did not relent. Jeremy ground his teeth, hating the next words he needed to say before they made a single sound.
“It’s not in our best interests to fight each other here.”
“Perhaps for you.”
Now, Jeremy wouldn’t pretend to be on amazing terms with Nora. They had their scuffles and occasional fights. They certainly weren’t friends at eleven, but the fire in Nora’s eyes was not proportional to the wrong levied against one another. Jeremy remembered their fights as childish and ultimately inconsequential. Never at eleven would he genuinely have considered plunging a sword in his neck.
So why hadn’t Nora put his weapon down?
“Our houses are on good terms,” Jeremy continued, swallowing his pride and gently easing his weapon to the ground, hoping that whatever demons had possessed the other boy would leave and bother someone else. Was he mistaking him for another? Why was he out in the wilderness at all? Did his house not feed him? “Why ruin that now?”
Nora hesitated to tell him more. Every drop of information was ambrosia. Was Nora always at Shuri’s house in the past? If that were the case, how could Nora feign not knowing her so well? “This has nothing to do with your house.”
Nora couldn’t have expected him here. That was an insane assertion, but what other explanation was there? Was this all a ploy from his father, luring him with false security that he had free range, only to sic this rabid dog onto him?! What point was he trying to prove?
“Did my father put you to this?” Jeremy bit out, bile rising to the back of his throat. It was so, so hard not to hate him, not to think and see the worst in him, because just like how Elias no longer saw the same boy in him, Jeremy no longer saw the same man in Johannes. All he saw was an older man marrying a child and forcing her into motherhood, all he saw was Shuri sobbing when she thought no one could hear, sleepwalking as a lifeless corpse at night. All he saw were the long scars across her neck without explanation as to how they got there.
And Nora looked at his expression, at how he began to mirror Nora’s hate, and laughed.
Bastard.
And after those excruciating seconds, where each twitch of his diaphragm landed that blade closer and closer to his skin, Nora’s voice hardened into the same steel as his blade. “I have nothing to say to-”
Blue eyes darted up.
Jeremy tried to follow but his position didn’t offer much leeway. But he heard soft footsteps trekking across the grass from up that hill. For the first time that evening, Jeremy felt like they were on the same page.
Nora’s blade slipped away from his neck and became a nervous bird taking flight. He shrunk into a boy more fitting of his years, looking not at Jeremy with each step back but at the footsteps above. Ignoring the voice that whispered to strike now while the enemy was distracted–it had to be the goddess, because who else would have such clinical regard for human life?– he craned his neck to find a flash of pink streaking across green.
Shuri. His angel, saving him again. Her nightgown fluttered, accompanied by an equally flimsy shawl. The stricken expression on her face, with her skin flushed and pale, lodged a rock in his throat. She rushed barefoot across the grass, stumbling and staining her hem verdant and bronze. Jeremy couldn’t look away from her. Shuri’s fear looked the same no matter her age: shaking pupils, quivering lips, a ghostlike pallor, and not a sound leaving her lips. It made sense, she was about to watch him die. Jeremy regretted coming here, because Nora had stalked him through the woods and brought bloodshed upon her doorstep.
When his stupor broke, Nora was gone.
Shuri’s hair spilt over him in the next minute and he was looking at her face upside down. The gentle slopes of her face were marred by the thoughts that haunted her. The boy felt tossed into a dream, where his beloved was in arms reach but further than ever. Where, maybe, if he craned his neck just so, she would kiss him.
“Jeremy,” she murmured so lovingly that it lodged his heart in his throat. All he could do was stare, with unblinking eyes, because she scoured his face as if it was cleaved with porcelain. “You’re… you’re not safe here, come with me.”
With every word, she built up courage. But Shuri’s fear lingered in the air. The stench of prey. This was another failing of his. He had once more caused her trouble and strife. He could only pray that the goddess did not regret sending him back. Jeremy would protect her–he had to.
The boy grabbed his sword. Shuri moved away and watched the forest. Whether or not Nora knew her was irrelevant; Shuri surely didn’t recognise him. He sat up and covered her in his cloak, fastening it well, directing her to sit on his horse so they could move faster. Whatever protest she had about the matter faltered whenever she glanced at the thick treeline. Don’t return through there, she told him instead.
Jeremy nodded.
As they moved through the motions of returning to her home, Jeremy let her take control of everything. It was what they were good at, what he was comfortable with. Shuri knew the right things to do even without the Neuschwanstein education. As he snuck through the doors and tiptoed through her house, boots in his hands, Shuri’s grasp tight on his wrist, his worries felt futile. Shuri had bigger issues to think about than whether it was proper for her to speak with Jeremy in private. She had a family freshly plucked from hell to manoeuvre around, she had a looming marriage with a man double her age… Jeremy had now brought an assassin to her doorstep, at least, that was what she would assume.
Even now, timelines and lifetimes apart, Jeremy brought new worries on a silver platter for her to handle.
In the confines of her room, the two could finally breathe.
Shuri’s room was quaint and girlish. Pink dotted her bedsheets, her clothes draped over her chair. He noticed now how her day clothes were made with cheap linen and cotton, no cashmere or organza. The lacework at the hem must have been done by her hands. Everything in her room was simple, almost barren, from the oak chest of drawers by her bed under the window, to the four-legged desk.
He didn’t remember Shuri as erratic, but her desk was flooded in papers, marred in scribbles. All were written in her handwriting, but she was not the one to write fairy tales to pass the time. Or, perhaps she was, and that part of her died when she entered the estate.
After Shuri ushered him to sit down, she hurried to the desk to hide it all. A thick journal emerged as she folded and organised paper, throwing some away in a haphazard fashion, paranoia leaking each time she glanced back at him. Jeremy pointedly focused on his horse outside, whom he could watch comfortably from the flowerbed window. Each flower was meticulously cared for, manicured even. He saw where she had snipped the unbecoming leaves, where she had plucked one petal too many. Though curiosity ate him alive as to what she hid, if he could not be trusted with not looking at her diary, how could he be trusted with her heart?
The drawer closed with a click. Her movements were accompanied by the thick swishes of his cloak. Her hands were upon him and it took him everything to not jump out of his skin.
“Sorry-” she pulled back an instant later, realising her faux-pas, “-I didn’t-”
“It’s fine,” he breathed out. “I wasn’t expecting it.”
“I wanted to make sure you weren’t injured,” she continued. Shuri could’ve asked instead but he wouldn’t tell her that. Her hands returned more tentatively to his hairline. “You never say anything when you are.”
The sickness returned. “Did father say that?”
“Yes.” Shuri looked away from him. She took out a wooden box under her bed. “You have to be dragged out of the training hall kicking and screaming, even for supper.” It should’ve been an insult, but she had a soft smile on her face.
“I’ve changed,” he argued. “I attend all of my lessons on the dot.”
Shuri blinked at him. Then, one of the brightest smiles he had seen from her thus far emerged. “I’m glad.”
“I don’t neglect my swordsmanship,” he continued, pushed by whatever force within him to convince her that he was not some lout nor a boy that sat idly by for fate to whisk him away. He had to be the best at everything, because Shuri was once a matriarch that towered above him: untouchable. Why bother trusting someone else with a task she excelled at herself? “What happened this evening was-” the boy cleared his throat, “-unbecoming. I am one of the best among my peers. I am more than capable of protecting myself. And, other people.”
Shuri dropped a hand down to his, where he picked at his protruding knuckles and dug at the reddened spots where he held his sword too hard. Her hand was so soft compared to his own, a scarless blank slate, save her fingernails that were jagged at the end. Looking closer, her veins reflected through her skin, drawing mesmerising lines down each graceful finger.
“You’re still a child. You don’t have to be strong.”
Jeremy caught himself, taking a sharp inhale as if waking from a stupor.
“I’m the heir to my house,” he replied. “I have to be strong-” he looked up at her, almost as a challenge. “And we’re the same age.”
Shuri hummed. Flipping his hand over, she examined the smaller scrapes he had gotten from the encounter, down to the scratch on his wrist that he got after flinging himself to the ground. With gentle gestures, she pulled up his shirt sleeve to reveal the skin underneath, up to part of the bandage. It had gone all shades of red, but he couldn’t see the nuance from this angle. “You have a lifetime of adult years to become strong. It’s not good to hide your problems.”
He almost laughed at her. How rich, coming from Shuri. The same woman that he needed to pry apart with a crowbar to understand, who refused to tell him anything unless she was pushed into a corner and needed him to act. But he said nothing. He watched her dab the injury with a soaked cotton and said nothing when it stung, said nothing when she debated to herself between wrapping it or leaving it in a different adhesive. He doubted she’d listen to him.
“What are these?” But when her hands dipped to his forearm, he panicked.
“Training injuries,” he lied. “I’ve taken good care of them. Don’t look.”
Shuri furrowed her pink brows. “It doesn’t hurt to rewrap them.”
He didn’t tell her that she wasn’t all that good at dressing wounds. “They’ll be fine. The physician will notice if someone else changes them.”
Shuri relented, just skimming past the hourglass that itched when she touched it. She busied herself with other things, and they fell into an almost comfortable conversation.
“When did you first meet him?” Almost, if Jeremy wasn’t interrogating her.
“If he hasn’t told you, I likely shouldn’t either.”
“No, Shuri. This is important.”
How did they start speaking on a first name basis already? He wouldn’t be the one to enforce distance between the two, but he found it odd. Did lower-ranked nobles not bother with formalities, or was their situation so strange that they skipped the acquaintance stage altogether?
“When did you find out about this?” Shuri pivoted the discussion to him.
The two searched each other for cracks in their facade. Jeremy found nothing. The frown Shuri reflected back was reassuring. “I don’t have time to waste,” the boy pressed on. “I need to know so I can act accordingly.”
“What is there to act on precisely? For an eleven-year-old, you worry so much about time.” Jeremy began to hate how Shuri looked at him too, like some lost boy who stumbled out of the woods too far from home. He wasn’t lost, he wasn’t to be pitied. He knew exactly what he needed to do, but how he got there was determined solely upon what Shuri could, and was willing to do.
“For a thirteen-year-old, you speak older than your years.” He pulled away from her and leant back. Jeremy almost forgot that his palms were now pressed into Shuri’s mattress. Shuri’s bed. Where she slept. A furious blush threatened to bite his cheeks; Jeremy scowled instead.
Shuri pulled away too. “I suppose you’re right,” she answered. The coldness in her voice was uncharacteristic of her. Jeremy wasn’t close enough anymore to comment.
Their resulting conversation was a series of non-answers and deadends. Jeremy couldn’t share much about how he knew her, only that he found out through his father and he wasn’t supposed to. Shuri didn’t know anything about how far their marriage talks had gone, only that Johannes had arrived at the house once–when? She wouldn’t say.
They were at a painful standstill. Jeremy was almost at the point where he wanted to sneak into the Ighöfer's office and find their agreements. At the Neuschwanstein estate, such a feat would be nigh impossible without the butler or head maid catching him, but here, in the small townhouse with no live-in staff, the task should be easy enough. He was discreet.
But Shuri killed the idea.
“Absolutely not. You’ll be in danger if you’re caught.”
“I won’t get caught.”
“You do not dictate if someone sees you.”
Shuri’s firm nature was one he wasn’t used to having directed his way. Usually, they worked together. The few times she gave him unilateral decisions were only when he was far out of his depth. This wasn’t the case here. They were on an even playing field- worse, he had more knowledge of the situation than her. He knew of the consequences of the choices she hadn’t made yet. Still, Jeremy gritted his teeth and tried to work with her. “And what do you propose? That we wait like sitting ducks?”
The pauses between Shuri’s answers became longer. “There aren’t any choices for us to make. We are not in control of this decision.”
“Why are you acting as if this is fate?” he snapped. “This is not an insurmountable issue. I am offering to help you.” Shuri was reasonable. There was no part of her that desired marriage between her and his father, so why was she so obstinate?
“Still, it’s too dangerous. I refuse to put you at risk for a fruitless endeavour.”
“But-”
“Jeremy. No.” Shuri spoke as if she was still his step-mother. As if her decisions were final and Jeremy almost bowed his head and complied. But this wasn’t the same situation, they weren’t the same people. She was not in charge of him as his guardian and he refused for that to happen again.
“My decisions are under my jurisdiction. You don’t decide that.” The tone of the conservation tilted to harsher tones, firmer gazes.
“Your decisions are naive and short-sighted. Your decisions will get you slaughtered one day,” Shuri snapped back. Jeremy flinched. Shuri did not lash out at him that way, never. She let the words hang in the air like hideous ornaments, with garish and blaring colours. He didn’t know what to say to that, because she did not know enough about him to make such a judgement. Had she met his father more than she let on? Was the decision already set in stone, already so hopeless that all she could do is deter him away from investigating? Who else would have whispered in her ear about his incompetence, than the man who lamented it the most?
After a painful pause, Shuri offered a quieter, “it’s been a long night.”
She did not apologise.
Jeremy lowered his head. “I’ve certainly taken up enough of your time.”
Shuri handed him his cloak and that alone was a strike to his heart. She had shuffled away from him to make room for his departure. He was shut out of her life before he had left the door. She said, “return safely.”
“Can I come back?”
“Why?”
Why? This interaction choked him.
“I don’t- so I can prevent your marriage. There must be something I can do. Surely, you don’t want to get married, right?”
Shuri didn’t respond for a while. She looked at her barren walls, her now empty desk hiding a library’s worth of pages. To the flowers that were perfectly manicured in a way she never cared for in the estate. “I want… freedom.” she looked straight at him, or perhaps through him. Shuri looked at the heir to the Neuschwanstein house, to his hair the colour of silken gold, his eyes of emeralds, “that is not something I will have here.”
Jeremy didn’t know what to say to that. He still didn’t know what to say when she led him back down the scant stairwell, without even a candle holder hoisted upon its walls. Down the exit, to where she stood in the cold by his horse. Another series of motions that were lost to him.
It made sense. Of course, it made sense. How could he fault her for that?
But the Neuschwanstein household wasn’t freedom. His house was gilded chains wrought around her heart and soul. Jeremy glanced at Shuri’s home as he mounted his steed, still unable to give her an answer. She wouldn’t believe him if he said that.
Shuri responded to the distress on his face, placing a gentle hand above his once more. “No matter what happens, you will remain the heir to the House of Neuschwanstein.”
“This isn’t what I’m frustrated about!” Jeremy spoke just a bit too loud. His voice carried clear into the night. The two froze. Jeremy dropped to a whisper. “I am worried about your fate there. If you want freedom, you will not find it within those walls.”
“That is for me to decide.”
“Please,” he begged her fruitlessly. “Let me return once more. I’ll show you freedom is found in the open air.”
“… This is something I must do.”
“You will be more restricted than ever after becoming the matriarch to that house.”
“This is getting us nowhere. Go home.”
“Can I return?”
“Clearly I can’t stop you from your foolish choices. No need to ask me for permission.”
Jeremy was feeling mightly foolish that evening. He had to end things here, because if he didn’t, he would say something out of turn. Something so preposterous that Shuri would have that adorable shocked look on her face, something like, if marriage is what you seek for freedom, why not marry me?
But Jeremy did not say that, for he was no fool.
Instead, he bid her farewell with a small smile and a, “I’ll try to return within the month.”
“Stay safe.”
Jeremy waited a minute longer, until Shuri was safely home with the door locked, before turning his horse around and taking the longer, safer route home.
Despite how prepared Jeremy was for another altercation, he did not see Nora again that night.