The gardens of Honeyholt had once been Ellyn Beesbury's favorite refuge. As a girl she had wandered the flower paths with her brother at her side, laughing beneath the buzzing of bees and dreaming of the happy life that had seemed promised to her. Now, after Ashford Meadow had claimed both Ser Humfrey Beesbury and her husband, Ser Humfrey Hardyng, the gardens had become a place not of joy but solitude. The smallfolk had begun calling her Ellyn Never Sweet, a sorrowful echo of the legendary Ellyn Ever Sweet, and though none spoke it with cruelty anymore, she heard it all the same. Lost in thoughts of what might have been, she stood staring blankly across the hives and flowering fields, so consumed by memory that she failed to notice one of the young knights her father had invited quietly enter the garden behind her.