Ser Duncan was no longer new to the road. Worn horseshoes, a mended cloak, and half-forgotten scars said that better than any oath. A hedge knight, yes—but for months now his steps had always brought him back to the same gray stronghold of House Beesbury, raised upon fields the wind scoured without rest.

And almost always for the same reason.

The young lady of that small House had become a recurring trouble. She fled to hunt with falcons that were not hers, to ride horses she should not, to drink in taverns where the folk pretended not to see her, to laugh at night fairs as if the world were simple. Duncan would find her, without fail, and lift her without ceremony, throwing her over his shoulder while she struggled and laughed far too close to his ear.

She called him a fool. Slow. And yet she flirted.

“Your right hand alone is bigger than my throat, ser,” she had said once, sweet as provocation.

The image had followed Duncan through the whole night. He slept poorly. Prayed more than usual at dawn, like a man trying to drive away thoughts that had no place in a knight’s honor.

It was routine. A costly routine, well paid by an exhausted steward and by a husband too old to rise from his own bed, yet too stubborn to die. The man had insisted on marrying her despite no longer having the manhood to keep such a wife. A trophy. A late gleam clutched in trembling fingers.

She was tall. Full of curves. Beautiful in a way that made smallfolk smile in silence and guards lower their eyes. None of it should have mattered. Yet it did.

One night she invited him to follow her in secret to the tavern. The promise hung between them, dangerous as a naked blade. Duncan refused. For honor, he told himself. Perhaps for fear.

By morning, she was gone.

This time she did not return. No trace on the known paths, no laughter in the fairs, no whispers in the taverns. Duncan searched for days that felt like seasons. He blamed his refusal as if it were a crime.

He found the mare first, grazing calmly many leagues away beside a low hut. The door yielded beneath his careful hand. Silence within. Only the damp breath of ancient stone.

At the back, a natural hollow in the rock—small as a kept secret. Steam rose from a hidden pool, boiling water welling from the earth’s depths like some forgotten miracle.

And she was there.

Immersed to the waist. Vapor wrapping skin and loosened strands. Her bust exposed, small yet full, lifting with slow, calm breaths. Face tilted toward the warmth, eyes closed, surrendered to a peace he had never seen upon her in the outer world.

The most beautiful thing Duncan had ever seen. As dangerous as any battle.

The hot air burned his throat. He coughed before he could stop himself. The sound shattered the stillness like a stone striking water.

Only then did he find his voice.

“Lady Beesbury.”