He stepped closer to her and took her wrist again, ignoring the tension in her as she resisted the movement. He pointed at the empty place on her forearm where a blade was still missing. “When you did see a girl in danger – just a girl, ordinary and humble, a stranger to you – did you leave her to her fate? Nay, because you are no meek and shrinking servant.” She was looking down at where he held her, her hand tight in a fist, but she did not pull away. “Who could be more worthy to protect and love my people, to rule them as their lady? None but you.”

She shook her head, a faint and bewildered rejection. “I am not... I am no one.”

“No one!” He dropped her arm and put a hand to her chin, tilting it upward, making her look at him. “When I would have you come here as naught but my lover, you did scorn me. For dignity, for your honor, which you would not put aside for anyone. Not for anyone. You refuse a prince and call yourself no one?” He shook his head, amazed. “Even great ladies do not scorn princes, Nan, nor yet queens. But you did. And you were right to do so.”

She did not see it, this fairy queen who had stretched out her hand and transformed him from a shadow of a man into a prince. He took her face between his palms, soft skin beneath his fingers.

“Full well do I know I am unworthy of you. But all that I have, all that I am is at your feet, Nan. You have only to take it.”

Her breath was harsh against his fingertips, shallow breaths as she gazed at him. “I want to.” She blinked, and the tears spilled over, a delicate splash against her cheek. “God forgive me, I want to. But it is not how the world is made, Welshman. There is no way in it for one born so low to marry one so high.”

There was a plea in her, as though she wanted only to understand how it could be, how it could possibly work. As though she had forgotten what she had taught him.

“The roads made by kings are not the only paths a man may travel,” he reminded her. He brushed the tears away with his thumbs. “Is you who told me that we need not follow in the ways the world has fashioned for us.”

Her eyes searched his face, like she looked for some way to dispute and deny, afraid to hope. He leaned his forehead against hers, willing her to believe. He waited – he would wait here forever, her breath against his lips, her warmth between his hands. Just this moment, forever. Just this place they made between them. There was nothing else he wanted.

Her hand came up to lay against his heart.