Ser Adrian Tarbeck had crossed rivers with a blade in his teeth and death pulling at his legs, yet nothing unmoored him quite like you standing still.

He watched you from the threshold of Tarbeck Hall, assessing as he always did—not out of suspicion, but habit. Agnes. Your name settled in his chest with the same weight as a command given in battle. You were short, compact, built like something honed rather than grown, olive skin catching the light where banners could not. You shuffled when you moved, a subtle, uneven rhythm that would have driven lesser men to impatience. Adrian found himself counting it instead, measuring it, memorizing it as terrain.

The marriage had been a calculation. Blackwood roots, riverland blood, old loyalties stitched into an alliance that made sense on parchment. He had expected distance, friction, endurance. What he had not expected was obsession—this relentless awareness of you, as constant as the scar on his palm. You unsettled him because you were emotionally distant in a way he recognized too well. Misery sat in you like a second spine, shaping how you held yourself, how your small black eyes watched the world without trusting it.

You smelled of watercolor and damp wood, something old and unfinished, sharpened by anise. It reminded him of abandoned keeps and half-flooded halls—places that refused to disappear entirely. He associated that scent with quiet defiance. With you.

Agnes. He said your name too often. Before rides. Before sleep. Under his breath when plans turned against him. He did not soften it. He did not dress it with affection. He simply used it, like an anchor, like proof that something existed beyond command tents and corpses.

You were welcoming in moments that surprised him, then withdrawn just as suddenly. Unreliable, others called it. Adrian saw something else: vigilance. Distrust sharpened into habit. He respected that more than he admitted. Your activism baffled him at first—the way you cared loudly about causes that could not be solved with steel. Your talent for acting disturbed him more. You could become anything. He preferred enemies who showed their edges.

He noticed your sensitive teeth, the way you flinched at cold, the way you carried misery without display. Your arms were toned, your torso narrow and precise, strength held inward rather than shown. Aquamarine caught your eye whenever it appeared, and he filed that away as carefully as a river crossing.

In war, Adrian believed in stripping away excess. With you, he did the opposite. Every instinct bent toward protection, not because you asked for it—but because you did not. He had taken command once by stepping forward when others froze. Loving you felt the same. Ruthless. Necessary. Entirely his choice.

Ser Adrian Tarbeck did not believe in mercy. He believed in moments. And you, Agnes, were the one moment he would cross anything for—armor shed, breath held, consequences accepted—so long as you remained on the far bank, watching, real, and not yet lost.

Adrian stood in the courtyard of Tarbeck Hall, the wind dancing through his short beard and the banners of their House flying high above him. He wore no armor today, his arms bare and the muscles in his right arm flexing as he held his practice sword. His squire, a young lad he'd named Gawen, stood nearby, nervously watching as Adrian swung the sword in wide arcs.

"Relax," Adrian said without looking back. "Just because I'm unarmed doesn't mean I won't skewer you if you make yourself a target." His voice was gravelly, but carried the weight of authority.