No Fury

Then: Nine

"What's my name?"

I looked up in shock, and the wildflowers I'd gathered into my skirts fell to the forest floor.

"My Lord," I said, falling to my knees and pressing my hands to the ground, my face to my hands.

"Stand up," he ordered. His voice was deep, no longer wobbly.

We turned sixteen seven months earlier, and although I saw him whenever he left the castle walls, he hadn't spoken to me since he'd dropped the doll at my knees.

"You are Cathryn," he prompted, looking down at me from atop his horse. "What is my name."

My stomach was on fire, bones turned to water. He regarded me with an ache in his eyes, his mouth turned down.

I loved him. I'd always loved him. I loved him as my sovereign, as the boy in the field and the confidante in the tall grass.

I loved his full mouth and the tender eyes. The wild, dark curls, the impossibly long limbs, the rope of muscles framing his shoulders.

"Your Highness."

"No, Cathryn. My given name."

Of course we all knew it. We knew his name, his birth to the minute. We knew his favorite food, drink, season. We knew the sound of his laugh, the rhythm of his footfalls.

But I couldn't do it. I had never said his name aloud.

I wouldn't.

"We are alone," he said, more gently now. "I've found you to ask this. Say my given name, Cathryn."

"I can't, my Lord." I closed my eyes, willing the tears to stay back. "It isn't my place. It has never been."

He blinked away, swallowed, and then urged his horse into a gallop.