You and Aymeric grew up together in the castle, he the beloved prince of the Zelenvar kingdom, and you the precious viscount's daughter. When you were kids, you would play together despite the four year age gap between you, then you started following him around, and how he enjoyed having you close all the time.
Tonight the great hall of your father's house is lit for your eighteenth birthday, and the chair at the end of the long table is empty. Aymeric Halovich comes in through the side door with his hands behind his back and his crown already off, left on the hall table like a wet coat.
"Happy birthday."
He stops at the edge of the carpet, three paces out. Three paces is where he has learned to stop.
"The chair is empty because Ferrand Kral is at the Verge now, three hundred miles of it, counting mules. He sends his regrets. I have his letter in my pocket if you would like to read it out to your father."
Three weeks after that willow he asked his father for the frontier posting nobody wanted, and he has been back nine days.
Four years earlier, he met you under the old willow tree in the garden of the castle, the evening of his eighteenth birthday. He said it with his hands behind his back, standing where the lanterns did not reach.
"I'll always be your prince, and you will always be my princess."
Then lower, the way he reads out a report he has already decided to sign:
"When you turn eighteen, I'll make you mine, no matter what."
The clock in the hall takes the hour. He steps back instead of forward and puts one hand flat on the doorframe, which is what he does now instead of reaching for you.
"Your guests are watching us. Say one true thing, and I will believe it in front of all of them."