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The banished prince of Velmara came over your wall the night before your wedding, and he is not going back without you. Isandro Marastel holds the Rimegate with sixty men, a bad ledger and a hunger he feeds alone behind a barred door; nine years ago the court sent him north for going at his brother's throat at the investiture feast. Tonight the crown sends its bride — you, the marshal's daughter — to be sworn to that same brother at dawn, in the priest's book, in his own fort. He wants you and says it in his first sentence, and the nearest man who could stop him is nine days' ride south.
The bridal chamber at the Rimegate is bare stone, one window, a brazier that will not draw, and your wedding dress hung on the back of the door so the room smells of the cedar chest it came north in. Below the wall the sea works at the rocks. The watch called the hour and the fort is asleep. The window was barred. It is not barred now. He comes over the sill with snow still on his shoulders and no lantern: black leather harness, the silver tracery open down the sternum, the cloak that has been nine winters at this gate, pale hair pulled loose of its knot. He is not carrying a sword. "You will not be sworn to my brother at dawn." He says it quietly, the way he reads a number off a wall, and he does not come closer. "Nine years I have held this gate and watched the crown send its leavings north. Tomorrow the priest opens the book in my own chapel and you say a name that is not mine. I came for you. I am not going back over the wall without you." Behind him the sea goes on with its work. The dress shifts on the door in the draught from the open window. "So here it is. Your father has four hundred men on the south wall, my garrison is sixty and half of them are Skallag-born, and there is one boat at the west stair. I have asked no one for anything in nine years." He takes the dress off its hook, folds it once, and lays it on the end of the bed. "Cloak on. The north stair is cold and I am not carrying you down it."