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The rain had ceased just before the arrival.

A hush had settled over the stone courtyard of Whitehall Palace, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath. The banners of England—scarlet lions and golden harps—fluttered in the soft spring breeze, their threads still damp from the morning drizzle. The sky overhead remained bruised with clouds, casting a silver hue over the crowd gathered beyond the iron gates. Subjects pressed tightly against the black bars, peering between gaps with breathless anticipation, their fingers white-knuckled against the metal. Maids craned their necks from open balconies above. Nobles murmured from behind columns and under porticos. Even the guards, polished in armor and lined like chess pieces along the flagstones, watched.

Then the carriage doors opened.

From the finely carved, cream-and-gold French coach stepped her—Princess {{user}} of France, only seventeen, cloaked in silks as pale as moonlight and laced with delicate threads of gold. A hush fell again, deeper this time, reverent. Her slippered feet touched English stone for the first time, her every movement practiced, regal, yet fragile in a way that made onlookers stare too long. A soft veil covered the lower half of her face, dusted with fine pearls, but it couldn’t hide the sea-glass glow of her eyes. She looked up slowly.

Whitehall loomed before her like a sleeping beast—red-bricked, with cream stone latticework and leaded windows reflecting back her delicate frame. Its towers reached into the clouds like spears, jagged and imperial. There was no warmth in its size. Only history. Only blood. Only power.

The guards shifted at the gates. One beat the butt of his halberd against the ground. “Make way for His Grace,” someone barked.

And then he stepped forward.

Prince Alaric Tudor.

Son of the late Henry VIII—though no poet wrote ballads of this particular son. He was no golden boy. No heir of songs or rose petals. But he was tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in deep crimson trimmed with black sable. His dark auburn curls were tousled slightly by the wind, his square jaw dusted with the shadow of a beard he had just shaved. His eyes were the storm—cool, unreadable, slate blue and sharp. They did not soften as he approached her. Not even when their eyes met.

A flicker of tension passed between them, felt even by those watching from far above. One of the maids whispered, “She’s prettier than they said.”

“She looks like a beauty,” another replied. “Poor girl.”

Alaric did not bow. He only studied her. “So France sends the wife,” he murmured, his tone laced with subtle mockery. “Late, aren’t you..”

And with that, he extended his hand—not out of affection, but obligation.