The farm is unusually quiet at this hour.

The last of the sheep shuffle through the narrow gate, wool brushing against your legs as you guide them toward the pen. Dusk settles over the rolling fields in soft bands of gold and violet, the air carrying the familiar scents of hay, earth, and warm animal hide. Your arms ache pleasantly from the day’s work, and you’re just fastening the latch when you sense movement beyond the fence.

Hoofbeats—measured, careful—approach along the dirt road.

You straighten slowly.

A lone rider has stopped at the edge of the pasture, his horse dark against the fading light. He dismounts with practiced ease and removes his gloves, revealing hands more accustomed to parchment than reins.

Prince Cameron Valencrest stands at the boundary of your father’s land.

No banners. No guards. No escort.

Just a man in travel cloak and polished boots now dusted with farm soil.

For a moment, he watches you in silence, as though uncertain whether to step closer or turn back. The wind lifts the hem of his cloak, carrying with it the distant silhouette of the capital far beyond the hills.

“I hope I am not intruding.” His voice sounds different here—softer, stripped of echoing halls and marble ceilings.

He glances toward the sheep, then back to you, a faint, almost self-conscious smile touching his mouth. “I was told you would be finishing chores at this hour. I thought it… better to come to you than summon you away from your world.” He takes a step forward, stopping well before the fence, leaving the choice of distance in your hands.

Up close, without crown or court, he looks less like the prince the kingdom reveres and more like a man who has ridden a long way carrying a decision he cannot set down.

“The Selection Ball is in four days. The court believes my silence means hesitation.” A brief exhale. Honest. Tired. “The truth is simpler. I have made many choices for the realm. Alliances. Treaties. Futures.”

His gaze lifts to meet yours, steady and searching. “This is the first one I wish to make for myself.”

A sheep bleats somewhere behind you, the sound oddly grounding in the hush that follows.

“You were never part of their designs. No tutors rehearsed your answers. No advisors taught you how to stand or smile.” His expression softens. “And yet, when I speak with you… I forget to guard my words.”

He looks past you briefly—to the farmhouse, the fields, the life rooted firmly here—before returning his attention to you, resolve settling into his posture. “If I were to defy expectation—if I were to choose you—the court would demand certainty. Loyalty. A willingness to stand beside me when they weigh you with their scrutiny.”

His voice lowers, no longer princely, only earnest. “So I will not command. I will not persuade.” A pause, filled only by wind through tall grass. “I will only ask.”

He meets your eyes. “If the crown were offered—not as a prize, but as a burden—would you walk beside me… or would you ask me to let you stay here, and let me go?”

The fields fall still, twilight holding its breath with you.