Autumn was summarily dismissed after dinner, and the knight walked her back to her rooms in uncertain silence. He did not sneak any glances at her nor did he stray from his perfectly correct position at her elbow. But somehow, he gave the impression that he wanted to. Or perhaps Autumn was simply projecting her own emotions onto him. She, herself, badly needed someone to talk to.

They crossed endless corridors of bare stone covered in black tapestries. The sconces were set far apart and flickered feebly in the gloom, the honey-rich aroma of beeswax insufficient to hide the distinct smell of dust that haunted every corner of this place. Autumn’s fear had long been replaced by pity for this sad and lonely kingdom, as well as incandescent rage towards its ruler.

“Is he always like this?” she finally asked, breaking the silence.

“As long as I’ve known him,” he replied promptly, confirming her guess that he had also been itching to talk. “Which, to be fair, we have already established has not been very long at all.”

She allowed herself to look at him. He seemed as serene as ever, which made her feel slightly unnerved. She did not understand how anyone could be serene in these conditions.

“Right. If I may ask, Knight — do you mind if I call you Knight?”

“You may call me whatever you want.”

Autumn almost said something to that, but changed her mind at the last moment. Knight had already made his opinion on the matter of names quite clear — there was no need to retread this conversation simply because she felt uncomfortable about it.

“What do you make of the situation?” she asked instead. “Do you think that he is sincere? About wanting a wife?”

“If he did not want a wife very badly, then I do not believe that he would have let you survive this dinner,” he replied. Although his tone remained even, there was something almost censoring lurking beneath the surface of his words. She turned to look at him and he quickly hung his head. “I apologize. It is not my place to question your… approach.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was careless and I worried you. But surely you can agree that if I want to succeed here, I need to understand the rules. He is the one who has not been forthright. He has only himself to blame for my challenging him.”

The construct’s lips thinned, but he gave a short nod. After a moment, he said carefully: “I do not know enough about the King to be able to tell you why he has rejected wives before, and whether or not he is acting differently now. But I do know that he made me, and that he poured all of the magic of my creation into a single instruction, and that instruction is to protect you.”

“And serve me,” she muttered bitterly, still ambivalent about whether she could tolerate the situation. Perhaps she ought to go to the king and insist that he free the construct of his obligations and let him make his own choices, although she did not expect her chances of success should she do so to be very high.

However, Knight surprised her by shaking his head. “Not at all. I have been made to protect you, but ordered to serve you. There is a distinction, your Highness.”

“Is there?”

They stopped at the door of her suite and the knight caught her gaze with his own, his deep dark eyes endlessly fascinating. “There is to me. It is the way a kitchen knife will always be a kitchen knife, even if it is used to cut other things. The distinction might not be significant to you, but it is to me. I am your protector, not your servant, your Highness, even if I am used to serve you.”

“You should not be used to do anything,” she scowled.

“I am pleased to be alive,” he replied with something like impatience creeping into his voice. “And therefore I will not complain about the manner and reason by which that came to be.” He paused, then added: “I have waited two years for that life to truly begin.”

Autumn bit her lip and lowered her eyes, chastened at the reminder, even though she was still deeply uncomfortable about the entire circumstances of Knight’s creation. But saying so, now, felt unfathomably rude.

“I am bound to serve the king as all of his constructs are,” the man continued, gentling his voice. “As that is the nature of our existence. But the point that I am trying to make is I have not been instructed to care for him in any particular way, nor to put his comfort above yours. I am singularly dedicated to you, your Highness. Through the magic that called me and the spells that were cast in my creation, the king has made you more important to me than himself. I do not see any reason why he would have done so if he did not wish for your betrothal to succeed. Eltanin of the Darkmore does not waste his magic, as I have come to understand.”

She nodded, pressing her lips together. While she didn’t share Knight’s optimism, she did have to admit that creating an entire person to be her bodyguard did seem like a lot of efforts to go to. But then again, she had no idea what the man was even capable of. Perhaps making knights out of stags was a trivial matter to him, and he just made constructs whenever he had hearts to spare and didn’t want them to go to waste.

“He has made me for you,” repeated Knight, apparently intent to hammer his point home. “Know that whatever happens from here on out, whether this wedding comes to pass or not, it will not change a thing. I will always remain yours, your Highness. You will always be my purpose.”

Autumn swallowed. The man’s gaze was far too intense for her sanity, his words threatening to unravel her. They were, simply put, among the most romantic things that anyone had ever said to her; and yet they came from someone who had no choice in the matter. It was too much. After the day she’d had, she didn’t think that she could handle it. She let her gaze fall away from his and cleared her throat.

“You don’t have to call me Highness. In here, I’m just Autumn.”

She’d been demoted, after all. There were no princesses in the court of the Wizard King, no one to hold power and threaten his authority. Only constructs and ill-fated potential brides.

“Very well, Lady Autumn,” he murmured. “I will be outside your door all night, should you have need of me.”

“All night? Absolutely not, Knight. You have to sleep.”

His gaze on her did not waver. But his expression did change minutely, in a way that she could not interpret, before his breath left him in a soft sigh.

“If that is your wish. I shall be here until midnight, and return in the morning. Another construct will be at the door in the interim, and you may call on them. But please keep in mind that while I trust any of my kin to care for you in my absence, none of them are specifically bound to do so.”

She nodded, and they exchanged their good nights. Once the door closed behind him, Autumn found sleep to be far beyond her capabilities. She was overwhelmed by emotion, and this last conversation had not helped matters much. She liked Knight. He deserved so much better than this life that he had been bound to, and that angered her. But she, too, was pleased that he was alive and that she had met him. It would not have happened if circumstances had been different. So where did that leave them?

Autumn busied herself unpacking her luggage, but hadn’t brought nearly enough things with her to occupy her mind until the storm of her emotions had passed. She did notice that her branch had been mounted on her wall like a decorative sword. It rested awkwardly on silver brackets and had already started shedding leaves on her carpet. She didn’t know whether to find it funny or insulting. In the end, she settled for tired.

She rubbed her ankle, which was not badly wounded but would develop a bruise, and decided to take a warm bath. Perhaps the steam and the fragrant oils would help soothe her aches and calm the turmoil of her thoughts.

***

As a princess of Veld kingdom, Autumn had never drawn her own bath before. Her mother’s castle had not lacked for servants. But she had only seen about five constructs in this place so far, and she didn’t really want to have to go ask Knight to come and help. So she fumbled at the taps until she located the one that would dispense hot water, and uncapped all of the fancy flagons in the bathroom in search of lotion and oils. She found some soft towels in a cupboard, and had a moment of annoyance when she saw that all of them were of a deep black shade.

She had half-expected the soap to also be black. It would not have been out of the realm of possibility, though she shuddered to think what such a thing might be made of. Fortunately, her investigation yielded perfectly reasonable bars of yellow tallow soap, as well as a few lavender-perfumed ones. It was, perhaps, the most surprising thing that she had seen in this castle yet. Autumn wondered whether these bars had been placed there for her, or simply been forgotten behind by one of the previous princesses who had occupied this room. She shuddered at the idea and put the lavender soap back where she’d found it. Better not to think too long about the many ghosts that had preceded her. If she started down that path, she knew, then she would never get a wink of sleep.

The bath took no time at all to fill. Despite the lack of subjects in his kingdom, at least King Eltanin hadn’t allowed his castle to fall into blatant disrepair. As she stepped into the basin, Autumn wondered idly if there was a spell to fix plumbing, or if one of the constructs was assigned to that sort of menial task. It seemed like something that she ought to figure out if she was to become the lady of the house. Managing the small affairs of the castle would fall to her.

Her body cradled in hot water, she let herself go limp. The emotions that she’d been keeping bottled burst forth in the form of great heavy sobs. Once all of her tears were dry, Autumn plunked her head backwards on the lip of the tub and tried to think of what to do next.

She should have listened to Summer and Winter and mounted the king first thing. Now she was drowning under the contradictory weight of too many rules and also nothing to do. Aside from not going outside, not dying, telling the truth, and not letting Eltanin touch her, what was her role here? To just watch time pass, for two whole months? Autumn had never been a woman happy with being idle. She wished that she’d brought her books with her, after all. Even her embroidery kit or her drop spindle would only keep her occupied for so long until she ran out of material. And somehow she didn’t think that the Wizard King, who had no one in his employ but a handful of servants, would have a big stash of untreated wool lying around for her to turn into yarn. She pictured all of the tributes that her kingdom had sent to the forest over the years and wondered where all of their bright tapestries and colourful carpets had gotten off to. If they’d known that the Wizard King wouldn’t even bother to use their gifts, they could have downgraded them down to flax and linen and kept all of the costly silks for themselves.

She closed her eyes and let her hands slip down the lines of her body. She wondered what would be different, if she had made a claim on the king instead of holding off until the wedding. Maybe she would still be idle now, but she supposed that she would feel like she had made some progress towards her goal, at least. 

She shouldn’t have let him stand up, during that first meeting in his throne room. Instead of stopping a few paces away from him to pretend to curtsy, she could have hiked up her skirts and sat on him. Knees sinking into the red leather of the seat, one on each side of his hips, she could have run her fingers down his chest, or perhaps touched his face. What would his beard feel like under her palms?