Part 4 — I Put on My Sister’s Dress, Who Had Fled on Her Wedding Day, and When I Saw the Groom, the Entire Hall Suddenly Fell Silent

The war had already begun.

After the messenger’s words, such silence fell in the hall that everyone could hear the sound of wood breaking in the fireplace.

Gideon took the bloody ring in his hand.

“Who commands the western army?”

“Your cousin, Lord Aldric.”

Marco returned his sword to its sheath.

“Was he not loyal to the council?”

“He is no longer,” Gideon said.

Helena, who stood with guards on both sides, suddenly came alive.

“Aldric knows that the royal house has broken from within. If he reaches the gates in the morning, the people will go over to his side.”

Gideon looked toward her.

“You were informing him?”

Helena said nothing.

This silence proved heavier than an answer.

Doctor Rowen suddenly muttered:

“I was only preparing the medicine. She was sending the letters.”

He pointed at Helena.

“Liar!” Helena shouted.

“You told me that if the king could not walk, Aldric would take the throne peacefully.”

Gideon looked over at the soldiers.

“Both of them to prison.”

Helena reached toward me.

“Tessa, tell him that I am family.”

I did not step back.

“Family is the one who does not sell your life.”

Her face lost its arrogance for the first time.

“You will regret this.”

“Perhaps. But I will not live in your place anymore.”

They took them away.

Gideon went to the window. Outside the tower, the cold wind tore at the banners. His left leg still moved with difficulty, but this time he leaned on the cane with only one hand.

“We must send the army in the morning,” he said.

“You cannot go yourself.”

“I know.”

“Then who will lead it?”

He turned toward me.

“You.”

I thought I had not understood correctly.

“I have never led an army.”

“Neither have I led with a whole body. Life often gives us what it did not prepare us for.”

“What if I refuse?”

“Then I will still go.”

“And lose your leg on the way.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No. It is marital persistence.”

Despite everything, he smiled.

By morning the palace had turned into a defensive camp. Horses were being prepared, bows were being checked, and in the kitchen women were baking bread for the soldiers. I asked for Helena’s old maps and spread them on the chapel table.

Marco told me:

“This road enters the swamp. A heavy army cannot pass there.”

“That is exactly why we must go that way.”

“It is a trap.”

“No, it is the place where their advantage disappears.”

Gideon looked at the map.

“The western army is coming quickly. If we wait at the bridge, they will defeat us. But the northern path through the swamp will divide them.”

Marco looked at both of us.

“You two think alike.”

“Is that bad?” I asked.

“It is never good for a king when his wife sees the map better than he does.”

Gideon said dryly:

“That is why I married her.”

The war lasted three days.

I was not in the middle of the battle, but I received each message as if it struck my body. It rained the first night. On the second morning Marco returned with a bloody shoulder. On the third day half of the western army surrendered because Aldric’s advisers learned that their letters were already in the hands of the royal council.

Gideon did not go to battle.

He commanded from the tower, bent over maps, with a brace tightly wrapped around his leg. Yet on the last night, when Aldric’s detachment came to the gates, he set his cane aside and went down the stairs himself.

“Gideon,” I said, “if you fall, the whole army will see.”

“Then let them see that falling is not the end.”

At the gates Aldric got down from his horse.

“You are still alive,” he said.

“And you still choose allies badly.”

Aldric mentioned Helena’s name, but Gideon raised his hand.

“Your letters have been read. Your seal has been broken. Your people have realized that you are not fighting for them.”

Aldric looked around. His soldiers were already lowering their weapons.

“And what will you do now?”

“I will arrest you. But I will not kill you.”

“That is weakness.”

“No. It is the difference between you and me.”

Aldric lowered his head.

That same evening Gideon heard his own words from outside for the first time.

Marco played the wax plate in the royal hall. Everyone heard Helena’s voice:

“Your family means nothing anyway. Tessa is only a replacement.”

Then Gideon’s calm answer sounded:

“Repeat that once more, if you dare.”

My skin burned.

Gideon lowered his head.

“It is strange,” he said. “When you hear yourself, you realize how much you were trying not to notice your fear.”

“You were not afraid.”

“I was afraid that if I became better, all the people who had built their lives on my weakness would disappear.”

“Have they disappeared now?”

“No. Now I know who they are.”

Several weeks later Helena’s room in the palace was emptied. Her jewelry was taken from the wardrobe, and the letters disappeared from the table. Only one thing remained—a small silver sewing box, with two crossed lilies engraved on its lid.

I did not take it.

But in my old room I found one more thing: Camille’s wedding veil, which I had left on the chair that morning. The white fabric swayed in the wind coming through the window, as though the room were still waiting for the girl who would not return there.

Gideon stood at the door.

“Do you want me to burn it?”

“No.”

“Then what will you do with it?”

“I will keep it.”

“Why?”

I looked at the veil.

“So that I remember the price at which I entered this house. And so that I never again take someone else’s face merely because it makes it easier for them to use me.”

Gideon stood silently for a long time.

“Tessa, you can leave.”

I turned toward him.

“I know.”

“The marriage contract is canceled. I transferred the lands into your name. I will leave you no debts.”

“I did not stay for the lands.”

“Then why?”

This time I knew the answer.

“Because when I offered you the cup, for the first time you decided yourself whether to drink it. And because you did not ask me to save you. You simply gave me the right to try together with you.”

Something slowly softened in his eyes.

“I have still not proposed.”

“I know.”

“If you ever want this marriage to be real…”

“Then ask me with words first.”

He nodded.

“Do you want it, Tessa?”

I went to the window. Outside, the first snow was falling. Small, light flakes fell on the roofs of the tower.

“I do.”

Months passed.

Gideon took one step first, then two. In spring he tried walking without a cane, and his left leg tensed only once. And I opened a small treatment room beside the palace kitchen.

Children were brought there.

Every morning Marco left new firewood at the door. The old servants no longer looked at me as a replacement. They called me Lady Tessa, but I slowly got used to that too.

One morning, while I was bandaging the wound of a twelve-year-old girl, Gideon opened the door of the room.

He held a small wooden figure in his hand.

“This is for you,” he told me.

“What is it?”

“A horse. I made it for our daughter, if we ever have one.”

I stopped.

“You are already thinking about the future?”

“For the first time I can.”

I took the figure in my hand. Small knife scratches were visible on the wooden surface.

“It turned out badly.”

“I know.”

“But I will keep it.”

“This too?”

“This too.”

That same evening the last letter arrived.

From Helena.

She wrote that she was ill. That Aldric had abandoned everyone. That Camille regretted it. That I, as a daughter, was obliged to open the door for her.

Gideon read the letter and put it on the table.

“Do you want us to send an answer?”

I went to the window.

Outside, the last snowflakes were falling. I still held the small wooden horse in my hand.

“Yes.”

“What will you write?”

“Only one sentence.”

Slowly I wrote on the paper:

“I wish you freedom from your consequences, but I will no longer promise to save you from them.”

Gideon took the letter.

“This is not cruel.”

“I know.”

“It is simply final.”

“That is exactly what I need.”

He sent the letter.

Then he stood beside me and held out his hand.

This time I did not need to save him.

Nor did he need to save me.

I draped the old wedding veil over the treatment-room window. Sunlight scattered through the white fabric. I placed the small wooden horse on its edge so that the children could see it.

I no longer remembered Camille’s face so clearly.

And Helena’s voice no longer frightened me.

I was no longer a replacement.

I had my own name.

And for the first time, beneath that white veil, that name was enough.