DAMON RAVENSWOOD

He sat shirtless in a brown roughspun breeches beside his bedchamber’s hearth, enjoying the snug comfort of heat his body embraced, while he watched the rain patter down through the closed shutters of his window, the glasses stained with their free-falling droplets which trickled like the tears of a heartbroken maiden streaming down her flushed cheeks. Held freely in his hand was a goblet of mulled wine, clanging rhythmically to the beat that came with every tap of his forefinger. Suddenly, he stopped, gulped down the wine in his goblet, and sighed a little less satisfiedly with an ahhhh as he picked up the bronze pitcher on the table to refill his cup with more of the wine he had downed.

She was nowhere to be found, Melisandre. His guard had gone looking for her at his command, but came back with no sign of her. The kitchens, the wells, the stables, the pigsties, the kennels, none of which she had been in, but if she had been found in the pigsty, Damon would have wanted her nowhere near his bedchamber; well she had not been found there and she was equally nowhere near his chambers.

A cold day and now a cold night, and this rain was making it ever more chilly. There was no Melisandre’s warmth for him on this night, that much he established when the fourth guard he had deployed returned lone. The first three had just been incompetent, or so he had thought, but it seemed all the guards in the castle were incompetent if neither of four guards could find him Melisandre. A lot of revamping to do when he becomes king, he thought, there was a lot.

None the worse was the day’s tourney. It had been a great deal enjoyable than he had thought, if he was to speak the truth, and his mother’s nephew, Maurin Lockeheart he had called himself, had impressed him more than he could have imagined, and at the same time cultivated his credence in the strength of his grandfather’s levies. They would do well when he warred for his crown and throne no doubt, this Maurin Lockeheart especially, he wanted him at the head of his armies when the time was ripe, he would make him a commander, the man’s skill was not for anything lesser.

Ten times he had jousted, and only ten times he had readied his lance, one time for each opponent. He rode at them unwaveringly, hisself saddled strongly on the back of his horse, a destrier with bay for its skin coat which swirled like a robe of silk, dancing with the wind as it charged down the lists. A shield was nowhere to be found in the hands of its rider, lost to all who knows where, but still it spurred forward confidently with every boot heel the knight put to it, and none of the men they faced, knight and freerider and peasant, were left mounted when it trotted to a stop with a bored snort.

“I can see it,” Damon muttered. “I can see my crown.” And then there was a smile, finally, one that came from his thought of the crown. It had felt like such a long time since he smiled when he thought of that gold on his head, but now he did. He put his lips to the goblet he held and was about to savour the taste of the wine that filled it, when whatever sort of man was drowned underneath the silver armour of guards, resounded in a call to him from the other side of his door. The rain had grown silent before, but now he could hear it all again, along with the popping sound of the woods burning in the hearth.

“My prince,” the guard had called, and bitter Damon’s mulled wine tasted at once. He hated that word, it was not meant for him, not at all. My king was the correct thing the guard should be calling to him with… My king! “A visitor’s ‘ere,” the guard added.

Damon forced the wine on his tongue down his throat at once. “Who is it?” He answered, a bit too sharply, dare say, on account of the change in mood he had encountered. These days his mood had grown to change like the weather. Very hot, cold, damp, warm, it alternated enigmatically, the words of others having all the control. What they said determined what mood he would have.

“They’d rather not say,” the guard’s voice echoed past the door of his bedchamber.

Damon tsked. “Who comes to my door at this time and dares to act in secrecy?” He was about to continue his drinking when the guard’s voice came again.

“The one who glows brighter than you, they say they are.”

The wine stopped on Damon’s lips, it never made its way to his tongue before Damon removed the cup from his face. “Let them in,” he said and after, smiled. Another change in mood.

The door flashed open then went shut, too quickly, far too quickly. “Care for a drink, Lady Valora?” He asked courteously, as courteously as a calmed Damon could be to a lady, which was the highest feat for any other man. “Mulled wine, I have.” He did not turn to face her, and he did not intend to. His watch was still on the window’s countless tears.

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“Thank you, my lord, but I am not thirsty.” She strode to his front, almost blinding him completely from gazing at the window, a blindness he did not care to dispel. He took it in, fed his eyes with her from where he sat and from the distance she stood away from him, a distance he would not call great. A gown she wore over her slender body, one of lavender just like her eyes. Plain it was, and transparent he might have called it, only he could see nothing from it. Her hair was rough but neatly bundled backwards behind her shoulders, like soft wet hay wrapped together as pretty as any farmer could make them.

Damon smiled. “I am sorry, my lady, but the moment you took a step into my room you asked for this wine.” He took a free goblet and filled it halfway. “Here you go.” He stretched it at her, gesturing for her to take it with his chin as he did.

There it was, her own smile had come. “If you insist,” she told him, surrendering to his sweetened way of chinwagging.

“I most certainly do,” he added while she took the cup from his hand. “Cheers.” He clanged his cup with hers before she could withdraw her hands completely, and that initiated their mutual drink of the wine, almost nearly gulping at the same time. His eyes made no move to leave her even after he drank. “A light one, I see,” he said, noticing the redness that stormed Valora’s cheeks and nose as soon as she drank a quarter of the wine. “Is that why you were not thirsty at first?”

She retreated to the windowsill and perched there, making sure not to lose her step. “Wine isn’t my forte.” She looked into the cup, around and around in her hand it went as she did.

“That I have undoubtedly learnt.” Damon exhaled amusedly with a half subtle smile. “So, what have you come for, my lady, that you did not want your name said from beyond my door?” He inquired, gesturing his cup at her soon after, before taking another sip from it.

Valora turned her head at an angle to peep outside at the sky, a dark weeping one devoid of neither stars nor moon. Clouds and clouds and clouds were all that filled it now, even Damon could see that from where he sat. Gloomy clouds. “My mother always said that walls have ears,” she turned back to Damon, “especially the ones in King’s City. I wonder how many ears this castle has? It’s the king’s castle after all.”

“Rest assured,” Damon bowed slightly while raising his cup at her, “my bedchamber was built deaf, as deaf as anything could be. You might even say it’s the deafest of them all.”

“Oh really?” She smiled, then turned her gaze back out the window, putting her lips to her cup as she did.

Damon watched her, a thought rummaging his mind as he did, that thought he let spill out not long after. “Do you want to have sex?”

Valora turned to face him, slowly she did, a tiring slow to Damon. When she finally met his eyes, he cued his eyebrows to a raise, telling her he awaited her reply, in dire anticipation nonetheless.

She released a gasp at that, a short one which felt as though she had held it in for years past, but it did not come alone, a chuckle followed just after, a quiet and gentle chuckle. “Quite a question you asked.” She did not say no, he thought.

“A simple one at that.” Damon drank the rest of his wine and put down the cup on the table, then he started to trace its rim as he returned his eyes to watch her, not another word escaping further from his lips. He knew what he was doing, both with his silence and the lustful gaze that he planted on her, and he trusted them to work. There was no denying their efficiency.

Her eyes wandered slightly and bashfully, and once the bridge of her nose reddened, she smiled calmly and took the beautiful freckles that graced her face away from the shirtless prince that was seated a few steps from her. It felt closer now, not too far any longer after the words that had come from his mouth. “And what if I say yes?”

It was a question but Damon had his answer already. He stopped his play with the rim of his cup with a soft smile, after which he rose to his feet. They had been on the cold floor all this while, but now they felt colder, small notice he had for that though as he walked closer to his window, shortening whatever distance barrier had been between him and the young lady of Blackwood. In four steps he now stood before her, the barrier all broken to shattered pieces. His fingers cupped her chin and dragged her face away from the dark expanse she gazed upon through the window, turning it back to meet his brown eyes which made no effort to hide the longing that adorned them. “Then I would have my answer,” he whispered, gently tugging the hair that fell over her face behind her ear with his other hand.

Damon stood over her, watching her eyes waver while his stood its ground. A pair of knights they were, strong knights his eyes, a pair of brown knights. He did nothing but look her in the eyes, waiting for a word from her but nothing came, and when the only sound that now filled the room were the knock and whispers of wind and rain on his window, he leaned forward and cushioned his lips on hers, tenderly and softly, her chin still cupped in his fingers. She made no attempt to resist, fully succumbed she was, only a slight waver remained. He pulled away shortly after and whispered again, “I promise you, my walls have no ears to listen, none at all.” He leaned forward again and kissed her, this time her wavering completely gone.