Beneath the Ashwood Sky

Love defies duty in a changing kingdom’s heart.

The rain had only just stopped when Eleanor Ashwood stepped out onto the stone balcony of the east wing. Below, the castle gardens glistened in a pale silver light, each rose heavy with water, each hedgerow beaded with glass-like drops. She clutched the shawl around her shoulders tighter, not from cold, but from the weight of the day ahead.


Her father, Lord Ashwood, had summoned her to the great hall that evening. She already knew why. Another suitor, another arrangement. Another step in the never-ending chess game of alliances.


The sound of boots echoed in the courtyard below. She leaned forward slightly and saw a rider dismounting -- tall, broad-shouldered, and clearly not from court. His coat was travel-worn, the hem dusted with mud, and his dark hair was damp from the storm. He moved with the easy caution of someone who had seen more battles than dances.


Later, in the hall, the air smelled faintly of cedar from the great fire. Lord Ashwood stood near the head of the long table, speaking to a man in a dark coat. Eleanor's steps slowed as she recognized the rider.


"Eleanor," her father said with a formality that told her he was trying to impress. "This is Captain Nathaniel Ward. He has returned from the colonies. The Crown owes him much."


Nathaniel inclined his head slightly. "My lady."


She curtsied, her eyes never leaving his. "Captain."


Lord Ashwood's voice carried the weight of centuries-old expectation. "Captain Ward will be staying with us for a time. The western territories are unsettled. He has been tasked with overseeing the rail expansion there -- and as such, his position will be... influential."


The word was a signal. It meant marriage potential. Land. Security. Status.


That night, Eleanor found herself at the far end of the table from Nathaniel during supper. Her father kept the conversation firmly on trade routes and iron contracts, but every so often, she caught Nathaniel glancing her way. Not in the assessing manner of the court's polished suitors, but with a quiet, unspoken question in his eyes.


When the meal was done and the candles burned low, she excused herself, stepping into the dim corridor. To her surprise, Nathaniel followed.


"You seem," he said softly, "as though you wish to be anywhere but here."


Eleanor's lips curved faintly. "You've been here less than a day and you've read me so quickly?"


"I've been in enough rooms filled with false smiles to know the difference."


They stood there, two strangers caught between the echo of the past and the pull of something neither could name.


The following weeks unfolded like a strange waltz. In the mornings, Nathaniel rode out with her father to survey the land. In the afternoons, Eleanor found him in the stables, tending to his horse himself, which was unusual for a man of his new rank. They spoke in stolen moments -- about the colonies, about the vast prairies and raw towns far to the west, about how different the air smelled beyond the cities.


"You would hate it," he told her one afternoon. "The dust, the cold nights, the way the wind never seems to stop."


"Or perhaps," she said, brushing her gloved fingers over the velvet muzzle of his horse, "I might love it."


Their words were light, but under them, something else stirred.


A month later, the castle was alive with the preparations for the Harvest Ball. Silk gowns arrived in wooden crates, the kitchens worked through the night, and every candleholder in the estate was polished until it shone. Eleanor wore a gown of pale green that caught the candlelight as though woven from river water.


Nathaniel found her near the edge of the ballroom, where the noise was dimmer.


"You look..." he began, then stopped, searching for the right word.


She tilted her head. "Careful, Captain. You're still under my father's roof."


"I was going to say," he said finally, "as though you belong somewhere no one has yet discovered."


The music swelled, and before she could reply, he offered his hand. She took it, and they stepped into the dance. Around them, the nobility moved in perfect, practiced circles, but Eleanor felt as though the world had tilted.


The next morning brought a change. A letter arrived for Nathaniel bearing the royal seal. Eleanor overheard him speaking with her father in the study. Words like unrest and urgency carried through the heavy oak door. That evening, Nathaniel told her the truth.


"There's trouble on the western border," he said. "The rail expansion has drawn outlaws and... others. I have to return sooner than planned."


Her heart sank. "And you'll be gone for how long?"


He hesitated. "Months. A year, perhaps. Maybe longer."


She nodded, trying to hide the way her chest tightened. "Then I wish you well, Captain."


He stepped closer, lowering his voice. "Eleanor... if I asked you to come with me, what would you say?"


For a heartbeat, she couldn't speak. She saw it then -- the endless plains, the smell of woodsmoke, the nights under a sky so vast it swallowed the horizon. And she saw her father's face, the weight of duty, the life laid out for her here.


"I would say," she whispered, "that you are asking for something you cannot have."


Nathaniel left three days later. She watched from the tower as he rode away, his figure growing smaller against the pale winter fields until he was gone.


The months that followed were a blur of polite suitors and formal dinners. Eleanor played her role, but the memory of Nathaniel's eyes, the sound of his voice in the quiet stables, never left her.


Then, one late summer evening, a rider came to the castle gates. His coat was torn, his face sun-browned, his boots caked in red dust. Eleanor was in the courtyard before the guards had even announced him.


"Nathaniel."


He dismounted, pulling off his gloves. "I told myself I'd stay away if I had nothing to offer you. But the west... it's not the same without you there to see it."


Her throat tightened. "My father--"


"Will rage," Nathaniel finished. "But he can't keep you if you don't let him."


She stepped closer. "And if I come with you? What then?"


"Then," he said, a slow smile forming, "we build something that is ours. Out there, under the ashwood sky."


She looked at him, at the man who had crossed an ocean and a kingdom to return. And in that moment, the centuries of tradition, the marble halls, the endless formalities -- all of it felt like a story she had been told, not one she had written.


She took his hand.


And together, they rode west.