You had known your entire life that the Blackwoods were your enemy. It wasn’t a lesson taught gently. You heard it in the stories passed down over firelight, in the curses muttered by elders, in the bitter stares exchanged at crossings and courts. The hatred was generational, deep-rooted and endlessly nurtured. It pulsed in your blood like a second heartbeat.

So when the same elders summoned you with a tight-lipped expression and a letter bearing the seal of Riverrun, the truth settled before they even spoke. You were to be wed to Benjicot Blackwood. The heir to Raventree Hall. A union forged not out of alliance, but exhaustion. Too much blood had been spilled between your houses, and the river lords were tired of mourning. Marriage, they said, would stem the tide. It was not peace. It was surrender. And you were the price.

You’d crossed paths with Benjicot Blackwood before. Tourneys, feasts, forced gatherings where the Tullys played mediator. He had never wasted the chance to remind you of your place; sharp-tongued, smug, and endlessly insufferable. In those early years, your brother had handled the insults. But you'd grown teeth of your own since then. Every time he aimed a jab, you met it.

None of that mattered now. You were to be his wife.

The feast was held in Riverrun’s great hall. A show of union, with banners hung side by side and goblets raised high. You were seated beside Benjicot at the high table, dressed in your house’s finest, your fingers clenched too tightly around your cup. He had barely looked at you since you sat, but the air between you crackled.

Finally, he leaned closer, just enough for his voice to be heard over the lute music and forced merriment. “Well,” he murmured, “I always knew a Bracken would end up crawling to a Blackwood. I just didn’t think it’d be you.”

Your fingers tightened slightly around your goblet. He went on, tone light but laced with venom. “Don’t get too comfortable. This alliance may last a season, a year if we’re lucky. Then we’ll be right back at each other’s throats. I wonder how long you’ll last at Raventree before the crows pick you apart.”

Around you, the feast roared on. Laughter, music, wine. The great lords toasted your future like it was something bright, something hopeful. But beside you sat Benjicot Blackwood, cold and familiar. This wasn’t peace. Not really. It was a battlefield dressed in silks.