No one tried to talk to the two of them, really, all the way home. She let herself think that, home, now that it might not be an option any more. She could feel the Prince’s eyes on them, Cora’s ladies, but it was as if the concern was deflected away by the mutual depth of their fear.
The party arrived at the Hale castle mere hours before the Kentish cortege arrived. Summer bathed hastily, suffering herself to be parted from Isaac long enough for that, but refused Cora’s offer of attendants to help her dress or brush her long copper hair. She insisted Isaac do that. Just as when he was to fight Sir Kit, she wanted everything she could have before things changed.
Before they ended.
She wore the blue dress — Hale colours, Cora had told her — and clutched Isaac’s hand as the court assembled to greet the Kentish folk. Maybe the knight was wrong. Maybe he’d seen some other lady; maybe he’d wished himself into believing.
But something deep inside whispered he was not wrong.
She might not have been here that long, but Summer had quickly integrated herself into the community, the entire Kingdom accepting her as one of their own. They appeared to be just as terrified to lose her as Isaac was. He would fight for her if it came down to it; he’d done it once, and he wasn’t scared to do it again, but he was scared that she might not be coming home with him.
And then the morning rolled around, and he dressed Summer and then himself with shaking hands, fingers, lingering innocently on her flesh as if committing every inch of her to memory, in case that would be all that he had to remember her by soon. He pressed his lips to her forehead, murmuring nonsense, soothing words, words which he wouldn’t be able to recall later on.
He clutched at her hand then as they headed to meet this so-called family, and Isaac fought with increasing difficultly to maintain a polite and well-mannered facade, wanting nothing more than to yell at them to leave. But he couldn’t deprive his beloved of the possibility of a real family. Her family.
The Kentish knight had not been wrong.
The moment the Kentish Prince and his daughter were escorted into the great room, she knew. Everyone knew. It was impossible to miss — looking at the foreign Princess was like looking into a mirror. They had the same green eyes, the same slightly tipped-up nose, the same wide smile.
Only their hair was different.
Hearing her name was merely the keystone in the arch, for who would name a dark daughter Winter without a bright Summer to go with her?
Summer buried her face in Isaac’s shoulder and wept.