There was no better smell than the sea air, nothing more salubrious or more reminiscent of good memories passed. Ulric's father had often smelled of the sea. The man had sailed on it whenever he could.
Passion,
he had named his ship. It was one of the smallest in the Crown's fleet, and by far the fastest.
'A life without Passion is no life at all,'
Ulric's father had loved to say. He had thought that so clever. Ulric had taken Passion as his own after his father's death, but he hadn't sailed on her for two years now, not since before the War. Ulric had neglected her, her and the sea.
Ulric stood on the sand of the coast, hundreds of feet below the Weswyn city proper and thousands of feet below the palace itself. The sun was on the horizon of the sea, nearly gone. Jagged rocks rose from the water before him, each standing tall and grainy and hard. The water here was far too dangerous for ships to sail. There wasn't a seaport for five hundred yards in either direction. That gave Ulric some privacy, and he intended to use it well.
An angry wind bit at his ears and rocked the lantern clutched in his hand. Dark clouds marred the sky above him. A blackstorm. Only a few of them struck Weswyn in any given year. The wrath of God, most called them. Centuries ago, when Weswyn was a city of wooden buildings, before it was the Capital, the storms had often leveled whole quarters of the city. The fires it wrought would burn for days.
But as deafening as blackstorms were, Ulric knew he'd sleep soundly tonight all the same. After all, he wouldn't be alone.
"My cousin Della hates the sea," Vivian said. She stood beside Ulric, gazing with him out over the West Sea. They'd decided to share Ulric's bedchambers again tonight, for only the second such time in the three months they'd known each other. Ulric could see that she'd made sure she looked the part for the occasion.
Vivian wore a deeply-blue dress, the color of her eyes, with a long skirt that flowed at her ankles. Her top was of a low cut, and her sizable cleavage breathed the air openly. She looked as though she'd spent hours prettying herself for him. Her lips were glossed with lipstick to the shade of a warm, gentle pink, and the rouge on her cheeks gave them a rosy-red blush. A smoky, black cosmetic sat around her eyes. The harsh winds whipped her long, blonde hair behind her in a wispy trail of gold.
"Heartlanders don't understand," She shook her head. "They don't appreciate it like we do."
"No," Ulric smiled to her. "They don't."
In unison, they took the sea air deep through their noses, letting it fill their lungs, and let it out with a long, pleasured sigh.
Tonight would be a good one. One to remember. Ulric was sure of it.
Ulric turned and made his way with Vivian further down the beachside, till they were walking through a small inlet hidden in the bedrock directly beneath the palace. Few ever stepped foot in this cove, and even fewer knew its true purpose. In this cove there was a tunnel, carved out of the rock over the course of many years, that spiraled upwards into the bowels of the palace. Should Weswyn ever be sacked by invaders, the royal family could flee down into this cove and be ferried by a dinghy out into the city's fleet, assuming that fleet was still standing. Only, that sacking had never happened. Not once. As far as Ulric knew, the tunnel had only ever been used to sneak lovers into the King's bed. To that end, Ulric had a hard time believing he was the first.
That day Ulric first met Vivian, more than three months ago now, Edwin had been the one to bring her through this cove. Ulric had asked Edwin to bring her tonight as well, just as he did before, but the steward refused. He wanted no part in their romance, not anymore.
'Foolish and reckless,'
he had called it. Ulric supposed he could've forced his steward's hand, made it a binding order, but Edwin had always served him well. The least Ulric owed the man was some dignity. Edwin deserved as much.
The howls and moans of the West Sea's winds echoed deep through the tunnel. The path forward was utterly black, darker than a moonless night, and Ulric could see only as far as the light of his lantern. A fear began to creep into the back of Ulric's mind, a fear not of the tunnel's darkness, but of where the tunnel would take him.
"Ulric?" Vivian chirped up, keeping pace close behind him.
Ulric spared a glance her way as he kept his path onwards. "Yes, love?"
"Have you... thought of our futures together?" She asked him. "What we'll do?"
Ulric's face tightened. He looked forward, away from her. "We've had this conversation once before."
"I want to have it again," Vivian said, obstinate against him.
"What is it you want to say this time, then?"
"You deserve better than her."
"Why?" Ulric scoffed. "Elise is a woman same as any other. She's a person. She has wants and needs. She's not some wicked witch, Vivi. As far as Rosewalls go, she may well be the least horrid one I've been around."
Vivian fell quiet for a moment. For the first time, Ulric was grateful for it. He hated it when she did this, when she clawed at his words and clambered for this one thing she simply couldn't have. But Vivian wasn't done pressing him. "She doesn't love you," She said.
"Love has nothing to do with it. She's my wife."
"She doesn't have to be. You're King. If commoners can separate, Kings can too."
"We've been over this, Vivi," Ulric grumbled. "I took Elise as my wife because I need her family. The Rosewalls hold a sixth of my land and a fifth of my people. They're powerful, and I need them."
"You don't have to do this for them. You don't have to do
anything
for them. You're their
King
. They're sworn to you."
Ulric's patience ran thin. He stopped and spun 'round, towering over Vivian. The flame of his lantern had shadows flickering over his face. To his surprise, as belligerent as Vivian was, there was no anger in her eyes. Instead they had a wistfulness to them, a gentleness. Ulric knew that look. He'd seen it from her before. She was sorry for him.
Though Ulric had turned with the intention to growl at her, her gaze softened him. It was impossible to be angry with her. She was far too sweet of a girl for that, too loving, too compassionate.
"When their ancestors bent the knee to mine and swore fealty," Ulric told her gently, "The vows they made, they mean nothing now. They're dead words on dead lips. The Rosewalls don't care about them. None of the families do. They don't care about the Crown. They want things from me for their loyalty, Vivi. They want their chamberlains in my court, their officers in my army, their daughters as my wife."
"It doesn't have to be that way," Vivian said weakly.
Ulric breathed a long sigh. "What d'you want from me, Vivi?" He asked her. "You want to be Queen, is that it? Vivian Kargray, Lady of Weswyn? Is that what you want?"
"Ulric, I—"
"—We can't be more than what we are, Vivian," Ulric said to her. His voice was stern, but so too was it heavy with regret. He wished his words weren't true,
