Chapter Text
The stone corridors of the Citadel were always coldest just before dawn, but Sir Michael of Wheeler stood as unmoving as the statues of the Old Kings. His cloak, a heavy navy wool pinned with the crest of Hawkins, muffled the occasional clank of his greaves.
He was the youngest knight to ever hold the post of High Guard, a position he had earned through a single-minded devotion to the Crown. Or, more accurately, to the Princess.
"You’re brooding again, Mike," a soft voice drifted from the balcony.
Mike turned, his hand instinctively dropping to the pommel of his sword before he recognized the speaker. Prince Will stood framed by the moonlight, a charcoal stained parchment clutched in his hand. He looked small against the vastness of the Mirkwood forest stretching out behind him, his golden silk tunic far too thin for the night air.
"I am standing guard, Your Highness," Mike corrected, though his posture softened. "And you are awake past the witching hour. Again."
Will stepped closer, the heels of his boots clicking softly on the flagstones. He didn't look like a prince of a warrior lineage; he looked like a dream rendered in ink and shadow. "The moon was the color of a polished shield. I couldn't sleep until I described it."
"You should be dreaming of the tourney," Mike said, trying to summon the sternness his mentors had taught him. "Your sister is to be named the Sun-Heir in just a few hours. It is a great day for your house."
"For El, yes," Will murmured, leaning against the cold stone pillar right next to Mike. He was close enough that Mike could smell the faint scent of cedarwood and old library dust. "And for you. My father says he will formally announce your betrothal to her. The Knight and his Princess. It’s the story the bards already sing."
Mike felt a strange, sudden tightness in his chest—a phantom weight heavier than his breastplate. "It is my greatest honor. I have spent my life preparing to be her champion."
Will looked up at him then. His eyes were wide, searching, and filled with a terrifying sort of empathy that made Mike want to look away. "Is that what you want, Mike? Or is it just what you were told to want?"
"It is the same thing," Mike snapped, perhaps too quickly.
Will didn't flinch. He reached out, his ink-stained fingers hovering just an inch from the cold steel of Mike’s gauntlet. "You speak of honor like it’s a cage. You don't have to be a statue for her, you know. Or for anyone."
Will pulled his hand back before the contact could be made, leaving the air between them buzzing with a sudden, sharp tension. The Prince offered a small, sad smile and turned back toward his chambers.
"Goodnight, Sir Michael," Will called over his shoulder. "Try not to let the frost settle on your heart. It’s harder to shake off than the snow."
Mike watched him go, the Prince’s silhouette disappearing into the darkness of the inner sanctum. He stood alone in the silence, his hand still resting on his sword, wondering why the thought of his upcoming betrothal to the Princess felt less like a victory and more like a sentence.
The heavy oak doors to the Princess’s solar were already ajar. Mike didn't knock; as her sworn shield, he had the right of entry, and as her closest friend since they were children, he had the habit.
The room smelled of lavender and something metallic—the scent of El’s "Gift." She was standing by the window, her back to him, wearing a nightgown that looked far too delicate for a girl who could uproot an oak tree with a flick of her wrist. Around her, several small pewter soldiers were levitating in a slow, rhythmic circle.
"You’re early," El said without turning. Her voice was flat, lacking the practiced poise she showed the court.
"Will is awake," Mike said, stepping into the room. He felt more at ease here than in the hallway, though the Prince’s question still echoed in the back of his mind. Is it what you want? "He’s out on the balcony again, writing about the moon."
El dropped her hand. The pewter soldiers fell to the rug with a series of dull thuds. She turned around, her dark eyes scanning Mike’s face with unnerving intensity.
"He worries too much," she whispered. She walked over to Mike and began to fidget with the clasp of his crimson cloak, her fingers clumsy. "And you look tired, Mike. You look like you’ve been fighting a war with the air."
"I’m fine," Mike insisted, standing tall. He looked down at her, trying to summon that rush of romantic heat he’d read about in the epics. He reached out and took her hands, his leather gloves swallowing her small, pale fingers. "Tonight is the ceremony, El. Once you are named Sun-Heir... everything changes. We become the future of Hawkins."
El looked down at their joined hands. There was no blush on her cheeks, no fluttering of her lashes. Instead, she sighed, a heavy sound that seemed to deflate her shoulders.
"Everyone says we will be happy," she said. It sounded like she was reciting a lesson. "Dad says you are the best knight in the kingdom. Mom says you will keep me safe."
"I will," Mike vowed, squeezing her hands. "I’ll kill any beast that comes out of the Mirkwood. I’ll lead your armies. I’ll do whatever you need."
El looked up, a small, knowing smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "You are a very good knight, Mike. But sometimes..." She trailed off, pulling one hand away to point toward the door Mike had just entered. "Sometimes I think you protect me because you don't know who you are without a sword in your hand."
Mike stiffened. It was the second time within the same hour a royal had dismantled his entire identity. "I am your champion, El. That is who I am."
"We are friends," she corrected softly, patting his armored chest. "Best friends."
The word friends hit Mike like a mace to the ribs. It should have offended him—they were meant to be the Kingdom’s great romance—but instead, it felt like a relief he wasn't allowed to acknowledge.
"I have to go get ready," El said, turning back toward her dressing table where her heavy gold crown sat waiting. "Go find Will. Make him eat something before the ceremony. He listens to you."
"El—"
"Go, Mike," she said, her voice firm but kind. "I am safe here. The walls are thick."
Mike bowed, the metal of his armor grinding. As he backed out of the room, he realized with a sinking heart that he was more eager to go find the Prince in the kitchens than he was to stand by the Princess’s side at the altar.
The Great Hall was a sea of gold and banners, the air thick with the scent of beeswax and the heavy, metallic tang of incense. From his seat on the dais, Will felt the weight of his velvet robes like a leaden shroud.
Below, the court held its breath.
El stood at the center of the nave, her spine straight, her power humming so vibrantly that the flames in the wall-sconces flickered in her presence. And there, standing just a step behind her shoulder—the position he would occupy for the rest of their lives—was Mike.
Mike looked every bit the legendary hero. His armor had been polished to a mirror finish, reflecting the sunlight pouring through the stained glass. His jaw was set, his gaze fixed forward. He looked like he belonged to the history of Hawkins. He looked like he belonged to El.
"By the blood of the earth and the light of the sun," King Hopper’s voice boomed, echoing off the vaulted ceiling. "I name Jane, my daughter, the Sun-Heir. And by her side, to lead our blades and guard her heart, I name Sir Michael of Wheeler as her Consort-Elect."
A roar of approval erupted from the nobility. Will felt the sound vibrate in his very marrow. He forced his hands to remain still in his lap, his fingers interlaced so tightly his knuckles turned white.
Don’t look away, Will told himself. Don't you dare blink.
He watched Mike step forward. He watched Mike take El’s hand. It was a picture-perfect tableau, the sort of scene Will had sketched a thousand times in the margins of his journals. But in his sketches, the knight’s eyes weren't always so haunted.
Will felt a hot, sharp prickling behind his eyelids. He swallowed hard, the lump in his throat feeling like a jagged stone. He wouldn't cry. He couldn't. To cry was to betray the sister he loved; to cry was to admit to a longing that shouldn't exist.
Across the hall, he caught his mother’s eye. Joyce was smiling, but her brow was furrowed as she looked at Will, her intuitive gaze lingering just a second too long. Will quickly rearranged his face into a mask of princely joy.
It’s enough, he whispered to himself, a silent prayer. It has to be enough.
If Mike married El, Mike stayed in the palace. He stayed in the gardens. He stayed in the halls where Will could hear the rhythm of his footsteps. He stayed within reach. If Will had to spend the rest of his life watching Mike love his sister, it was a price he would pay a thousand times over just to ensure Mike never left his orbit.
Mike glanced up toward the dais then, his eyes searching. For a fleeting, breathless second, his gaze bypassed the King, bypassed the Queen, and landed directly on Will.
In that look, Mike didn't look like a hero. He looked like a man drowning, reaching for a buoy.
Will offered a small, encouraging nod, forcing his lips into a smile that felt like it was breaking his face. He watched the tension leave Mike’s shoulders at the gesture.
I will be your gravity, Will thought, his heart aching with a hollow, beautiful pain. Even if you never know it's me holding you down.
The cheers of the court were a deafening roar, a wall of sound that seemed to push Will further into the shadows of the high stone pillars. He sat in a small alcove at the very back of the hall, a goblet of untouched wine in his hand, watching the blur of color and light as the feast began.
Then, the lutes struck up a slower, rhythmic cadence. The center of the hall cleared for the First Dance.
Mike and El stepped into the circle.
They moved with a practiced grace. Mike’s hand was steady on El’s waist, his other hand holding hers aloft. From a distance, they were the very image of a kingdom’s hope. But Will, who studied the way light fell on skin and the way eyes betrayed the soul, saw the truth. Mike was moving like a soldier on a march—precise, stiff, and terrifyingly careful. El was looking at the rafters, her mind clearly miles away, perhaps in the woods or the quiet of her solar.
Will let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and looked down at his lap. He couldn't watch anymore. The sight of Mike’s hand on her back felt like a brand.
Out on the floor, Mike’s focus wavered. He spun El slowly, his eyes instinctively scanning the room as if looking for a threat, but they stopped when they hit the back corner. Through the haze of torchlight and the spinning silk of the courtiers, he saw a shock of brown hair and a slumped pair of velvet shoulders.
Will.
He looked so solitary. So separate from the joy of the room. Mike’s feet stuttered, a micro-second of a break in the rhythm.
"You're missing the step, Mike," El said softly. She didn't sound angry; she sounded amused.
"Sorry," Mike muttered, his eyes darting back to her. "The heat. It’s just... the hall is crowded."
El didn't look at the crowd. She followed his line of sight, her eyes landing on her brother in the shadows. She looked back at Mike, observing the way his jaw had tightened, the way his fingers were twitching against hers.
"Go," she said.
Mike blinked, confused. "What? The dance isn't over. The King is watching."
"My father is deep in his ale with the General," El said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. She stopped moving, bringing them to a halt in the middle of the floor. "And I am tired of being held like a fragile vase."
"El, I'm not—"
"You are," she interrupted. She reached up, her small hand brushing the collar of his ceremonial doublet. "Even now, without your plate and mail, you move like a knight. Like you’re still trapped in that armor, Mike. Like you’re waiting for an order."
"I am your Consort-Elect," Mike said, his voice thick with a sudden, defensive panic. "My place is here."
El shook her head, a knowing, almost motherly smile on her lips. "You are stiff with me. You are careful. But when you are with Will... the armor falls off. I see it. You laugh. You breathe."
Mike felt a cold splash of shock go down his spine. "I don't—"
"Go talk to him, Mike," she said, gently unlinking her arm from his. She gave him a small, firm shove toward the back of the hall. "It’s okay. Really. I want to go find Max and see if we can sneak some cakes to the stables anyway."
Mike stood frozen for a moment, the centerpiece of the room, feeling exposed. He looked at El, searching for any sign of hurt or betrayal, but he found only a quiet, liberating kindness.
He turned. His boots, no longer heavy with steel but still loud in his own ears, carried him away from the light. He pushed through the crowd, his heart hammering a rhythm far faster than the music, until the noise of the feast faded into a dull hum.
He reached the alcove. Will didn't look up at first, his thumb tracing the rim of his goblet.
"The Princess is very forgiving," Will said quietly, his voice catching Mike off guard. "Leaving her in the middle of the floor is a scandal, Sir Michael."
Mike leaned against the cold stone pillar opposite Will, his lungs feeling strangely tight. "She told me to come here. She said... she said I looked like I was in a cage."
Will finally looked up. The moonlight from a high narrow window caught the unshed tears in his eyes, making them shine like silver. "Are you?"
Mike didn't answer. He couldn't. Instead, he sat down on the stone bench next to Will, much closer than a knight should sit to a prince, and for the first time all day, he let his shoulders drop.
The silence between them stretched, thick and heavy as the tapestries lining the walls. Will didn’t look back at the dance floor. He kept his gaze fixed on Mike, his eyes searching, stripped of the royal mask he’d worn all evening.
"Why are you really here, Mike?" Will asked. His voice was steady, but there was a raw edge to it that cut through the distant music. "Was it truly just because El gave you an order? Because you’re a 'good knight' who does what he’s told?"
Mike looked down at his hands. Without his gauntlets, they felt bare, vulnerable. "I don't know," he admitted, the words tasting like ash. "She told me to go, and I… I just moved. I didn't think."
"Don't lie to me."
The sharpness of Will’s tone made Mike flinch. Will stood up, the silk of his robes hissing against the stone. He stepped into the sliver of moonlight, looking down at Mike with a fierce, quiet intensity.
"I’ve known you since we were children hiding in the garden sheds, Mike. I know the way you look when you’re performing a duty, and I know the way you look when you’re lying. So tell me the truth. Do you want to be out there with her, or do you want to be here?"
Mike felt a frantic pulse in his throat. He wanted to say out there. He wanted to say that his place was at the side of the future Queen, fulfilling the destiny everyone had carved out for him. But the lie felt too heavy to lift.
"It’s complicated, Will," Mike croaked, reaching up to tug at the high, stiff collar of his doublet. "Everything today… the ceremony, the oaths, the way everyone is looking at me like I’m already a King. It’s all just so complicated."
"Complicated," Will repeated. He let out a short, hollow laugh that didn't reach his eyes. "Right. That’s the word you use when you’re too afraid to say the real one."
"And what is the real one?" Mike demanded, standing up to face him. He was taller, broader, but in the shadow of the alcove, Will seemed to tower over him with the sheer weight of his transparency.
"Honest," Will whispered.
He stepped closer, closing the gap until the heat from his body seeped through the fine fabric of Mike’s clothes. "You’ve spent your whole life preparing to protect El’s heart, Mike. But you haven't spent a single second looking at your own. You're here because you’re suffocating out there. You’re here because when you look at my sister, you see a crown. But when you look at me…"
Will broke off, his breath hitching. He looked terrified of his own words, but he didn't pull away.
"When I look at you," Mike prompted, his voice barely a breath. The world outside the alcove—the King, the feast, the betrothal—faded into nothingness. There was only the scent of cedar and the way Will’s eyes were searching his, pleading for him to finally, for once, stop being a soldier.
"You look at me like I’m the only person who can see you without your armor," Will finished, his voice trembling.
Mike didn't move. He should have walked away. He should have returned to the Princess. Instead, he found his hand rising, his fingers ghosting near Will’s sleeve, aching to bridge the final inch. He didn't have the words for what he felt—his world didn't have a name for a knight who loved a prince—but he knew that for the first time in his life, he didn't want to be anywhere else.
The air in the alcove suddenly felt too thin, as if the stone walls were closing in to crush the breath from Mike’s lungs. Will’s words were a mirror, and Mike wasn't ready to see the reflection.
Honest.
The word felt like a threat. Mike’s hand, which had been hovering so close to Will’s arm, suddenly felt like a traitorous thing. He jerked it back, his knuckles cracking as he balled his hands into fists.
"I have to go," Mike said, his voice coming out harsh and jagged.
"Mike—"
"No," Mike interrupted, stepping backward out of the moonlight and into the safety of the dark. "This is wrong. I’m the Consort-Elect. I swore an oath to your father, to your sister... to the Kingdom. That was the deal, Will. That has always been the deal."
He was reciting the words like a prayer, a shield to ward off the terrifying heat that had just flared in his chest. He looked at Will, but he didn't see the boy he used to play with in the woods; he saw a temptation that could undo everything he had worked for.
"There is nothing to feel," Mike said, though his voice shook. "I’m just tired. The ceremony was a lot, and El was right, the armor... it’s just the weight of it. That's all this is. Weight."
Will didn't move. He stood perfectly still in the silver light, his face pale and composed, though his eyes looked like they had been hollowed out. He didn't argue. He didn't plead. He simply watched as Mike rebuilt the walls brick by painful brick.
"I’m going back to the feast," Mike muttered, unable to meet Will’s gaze any longer. "I need to be by her side. Where I belong."
He turned to leave, his heart thumping a frantic, irregular beat against his ribs. He had only taken two steps when Will’s voice drifted after him—soft, quiet, and devastatingly final.
"I hope you find what you’re looking for, Mike," Will said.
Mike stopped for a fraction of a second, his back to the Prince.
He didn't turn around. He couldn't. He forced his legs to move, marching back toward the light and the noise of the Great Hall. He found El near the musicians, laughing with a group of ladies-in-waiting. He stepped up behind her, assuming his position, his hand resting once more on the cold, hard pommel of his sword.
He looked like the perfect knight again. He looked exactly like the hero the bards sang about. But as he watched the dancers swirl, the music sounded like discord, and the golden hall felt colder than the darkest corner of the Mirkwood.
The morning sun didn't rise; it glared. It spilled through the high windows of the barracks, catching the silver of Mike’s breastplate and turning it into a blinding, accusing light.
For Mike, the transition from "the future" to "the present" happened with the ringing of the chapel bells. Usually, they signaled the change of the guard, but today they sounded like a countdown.
Thirty days.
He was in the training courtyard before the dew had even burned off the grass. He was hitting the wooden pell with a practice sword, the thwack-thwack-thwack of wood on wood echoing off the stone walls. Each strike was an attempt to bury the memory of the alcove—the scent of cedar, the silver in Will’s eyes, the way the word honest had felt like a blade.
"You’re going to break the pell, Sir Michael," a voice called out.
Mike spun, sweat dripping down his forehead. It was King Hopper, dressed in heavy furs, looking every bit the weary mountain of a man he was. He held a scroll sealed with the royal wax.
"Your Majesty," Mike said, dropping into a quick, stiff bow.
"The heralds are leaving at noon," Hopper said, leaning against the fence. "They carry the proclamations to every corner of Hawkins. By nightfall, every farmer and blacksmith from here to the Shadow Margin will know that in one month's time, you become a Prince of the Realm."
The word Prince felt like a heavy stone being dropped into Mike’s stomach. "It’s a great honor, Sire."
Hopper grunted, his keen eyes scanning Mike’s face. "You look like you’re preparing for a siege, kid, not a wedding. Joyce is already arguing with the seamstresses about the silk for your cloak. El is… well, El is trying to figure out how to wear a crown without getting a headache."
Hopper stepped closer, dropping his voice. "And Will is in the library, packing his things. He asked to be sent to the Northern Outpost to oversee the tithes for the next few months."
Mike’s heart stuttered. "The North? For months? He’ll miss the wedding."
"He says the accounts are a mess and he wants to be useful," Hopper sighed, rubbing his beard. "I told him he should stay, but you know how he is. When he gets an idea in his head, he’s as stubborn as a mule. Quiet about it, but stubborn. Runs in the family, I suppose."
Mike felt a cold wave of panic. Will wasn't just letting him go; he was disappearing. He was removing himself so Mike didn't have to look at him and feel the "weight" he had complained about.
"I’m sure he has his reasons," Mike said, his voice sounding hollow even to his own ears.
"Right," Hopper said, clapping a heavy hand on Mike’s shoulder. It was meant to be an encouraging gesture, but it felt like being pinned to the earth. "One month, Mike. Get your head right. You’re not just a guard anymore. You’ll be the anchor for my daughter. Don't let her drift, but don’t choose to be something you're not, either."
As the King walked away, Mike looked up at the royal balcony. He saw a flash of yellow velvet—Will, looking down at the courtyard for just a second before retreating back into the shadows of the stone.
The training sword felt useless in Mike’s hand. He had spent his life learning how to fight monsters, how to charge into battle, how to die for a cause. But nobody had taught him how to stand still while the only person who truly saw him walked out of the castle gates.
The library was a labyrinth of dust and silence, the only sound the frantic scratching of quills and the rustle of vellum. Mike found Will in the furthest corner, surrounded by half-packed crates and stacks of ancient maps.
"You’re leaving," Mike said, not a question but an accusation.
Will didn’t look up from the crate he was lining with straw. "My father already told you. The Northern accounts are in disarray. It’s my duty."
"Your duty is here," Mike stepped closer, his boots loud on the wood floor. "The wedding is in a month, Will. Every noble in the land is coming. What is it going to look like if the Prince isn't there to stand for his sister? If he’s hiding in some frozen outpost because he’s bored of the capital?"
Will finally looked up, his face pale and his eyes rimmed with red. "You think I’m doing this because I’m bored?"
"Then why?" Mike pressed, his frustration boiling over. The fear of Will leaving was morphing into a sharp, ugly anger. "El needs you. I—the Kingdom needs you. You’re being selfish, Will. You’re running away because you’d rather hide in your books and your poems than face the real world."
Will’s jaw tightened. "The real world? You mean the one where you spend every day pretending to be a hero while you’re actually a coward?"
The word coward snapped something in Mike. He took a step into Will’s space, his shadow looming over the smaller boy. "I am a knight. I risk my life for this family every time I put on my armor. What do you do? You sit in the dark and scribble lines about feelings that don't matter. You’re just a spare prince who can't handle the fact that the world doesn't move the way you want it to."
Mike’s voice dropped, cruel and low. "Maybe it’s better you leave. At least in the North, no one will have to listen to your pathetic pining."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Will’s face didn't just crumple; it broke. A single, jagged sob escaped his throat, and he looked at Mike as if he were a monster he’d never seen before.
"You're right," Will whispered, his voice thick with tears. "I am pathetic. Because I actually thought there was a person under that suit of armor. I thought you were my friend."
Will didn't wait for a response. He shoved past Mike, his shoulder hitting Mike’s chest with a dull thud. He ran toward the spiral staircase, his robes fluttering behind him, the sound of his choked-back sobs echoing off the high stone ceiling.
Mike stood frozen, the echo of his own words ringing in his ears. Pathetic pining. He felt sick. The anger had vanished, leaving nothing but a cold, hollow shame. He reached out a hand as if to call him back, but the words died in his throat.
As Will disappeared around the corner of the stacks, a small, folded piece of parchment slipped from his pocket and drifted to the floor like a dying bird.
Mike walked over on leaden legs and picked it up. His hands trembled as he unfolded it.
It wasn't an accounting ledger. It was a poem, written in Will’s elegant, flowing script, titled The Shadow Knight.
He wears a face of iron and a heart of lead, Walking the paths where the ghosts are led. He swears his vows to a throne of gold, While his own soul shivers in the bitter cold.
He guards the gate, he holds the line, But drinks of duty instead of wine. He loves a ghost, he serves a part, The knight who does not know his heart.
Mike stopped breathing. The words weren't just ink on a page; they were a mirror. Will hadn't been pining for some abstract ideal—he had been watching Mike’s slow suffocation for years. He had seen the truth that Mike had buried under layers of steel and "duty."
Mike felt stripped bare. He felt naked, vulnerable, and more terrified than he had ever been in a forest full of monsters. He looked at the empty doorway where Will had vanished, the poem clutched so tightly in his hand that the edges began to tear.
The heavy oak door to Will’s chambers shut with a click that sounded like the end of a life.
Will didn't make it to his bed. He slumped against the wood, sliding down until his knees hit the stone floor, and let the first sob break out of him. It was a jagged, ugly sound—the sound of a heart finally fracturing under a weight it was never meant to carry.
"Stupid," he choked out, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars. "So incredibly stupid."
He felt like a fool. A romantic, delusional fool who had spent years crafting a version of Mike Wheeler that didn't exist. He had imagined a boy who looked at him and saw a sanctuary; instead, he had found a man who looked at him and saw an inconvenience. Pathetic pining. Mike’s voice echoed in his head, cold and sharp as a winter frost.
He stayed there for a long time, the cold of the floor seeping into his bones, until his tears finally ran dry, leaving his face tight and his throat burning. He had to be strong. He had to pack. He had to leave before the sun went down.
He reached into the deep pocket of his tunic, his fingers searching for the one thing that usually grounded him—the scrap of parchment where he’d poured out his secret truths. He wanted to burn it. He wanted to watch the word Knight turn to ash so he could finally be free of the aching that so often came with it.
His hand met empty fabric.
Will froze. He patted the other pocket. Nothing. He stood up abruptly, his heart beginning a frantic, erratic drumbeat against his ribs. He checked the floor, the table, the folds of his cloak.
"No," he whispered, his voice rising in panic. "No, no, no..."
He remembered the hallway. He remembered the collision with Mike’s chest. The paper must have fallen then. It was lying in the library, or worse, it was in Mike’s hands. The thought made him feel physically ill—the idea of Mike reading those lines, seeing every raw, bleeding part of Will’s soul exposed to the very person it was about. The very person who had just called him pathetic.
A sharp, rhythmic knock at the door made him jump so violently he nearly knocked over his inkwell.
Will’s heart stopped. Mike. It had to be Mike, coming to finish the job, coming to mock the poem, coming to tell him that his "honesty" was a crime.
"Come in," Will said, his voice paper-thin and trembling.
The door swung open, but it wasn't the heavy, clanking gait of a knight that entered. It was the soft, hurried rustle of silk.
"Will? Honey?"
It was Joyce. She stood in the doorway, her crown slightly askew as if she’d put it on in a hurry, her face etched with that fierce, maternal worry that usually meant she had already sensed something was wrong. She took one look at his blotchy, tear-stained face and the half-packed crates, and the breath left her in a soft oh.
"Mom," Will breathed, the panic shifting into a different kind of ache.
Joyce closed the door behind her and moved across the room with the speed of a bird, taking his face in her warm, calloused hands. "Hopper told me you were leaving for the North today. I didn't believe him. I thought... I thought you were just upset about the festivities."
She searched his eyes, her thumbs brushing away a stray, lingering tear. "What happened, Will? And don't you dare tell me it’s the accounting ledgers."
Will forced a shaky laugh, stepping back from her touch to fiddle with the latch of a wooden chest. "I'm not lying, Mom. The North is... it's quiet. I think the quiet would be good for me. I can write. I can help the settlers. It’s a chance to be more than just a decoration in the Great Hall."
Joyce didn't move. She stood with her arms folded over her royal embroidery, her eyes narrowing in that way that always made Will feel like he was made of glass.
"The North is frozen and miserable, and you hate the cold," she said flatly. "You’ve spent your whole life avoiding the North. You’re telling me that suddenly, a month before your sister’s wedding—the biggest event this kingdom has seen in twenty years—you’ve developed a passion for mountain air and tax ledgers?"
"People change," Will muttered, shoving a bundle of shirts into a crate with more force than necessary.
"William Byers, look at me."
The use of his full name, stripped of his title, made him stop. He looked at her, his bottom lip trembling despite his best efforts to keep it still.
"You are a terrible liar," Joyce said softly, her voice losing its edge and turning into something heartbreakingly tender. "You’ve always been. When you were six and you broke the King’s vase, you looked exactly like this. When you were ten and you were hiding that stray dog in the stables, you looked like this."
She walked over to him, gently taking the shirt out of his hand and laying it on the bed. "You’re not telling me the truth. Maybe you’re not even telling yourself the whole truth. But I know pain when I see it, Will. This isn't about 'being useful.' This is about a heart that’s being squeezed so hard it can’t breathe in this castle anymore."
"It’s fine, Mom. I’m fine," he whispered, though his voice cracked on the last word.
"Is it Mike?"
The name hung in the air like a lightning strike. Will’s breath hitched, and he immediately turned his head away, but the damage was done. The way his shoulders tensed was answer enough for a mother who had spent years watching him watch the boy in the armor.
"I know you two had words in the library," Joyce continued, her voice cautious. "I saw him leave. He looked like he’d seen a ghost, Will. He looked… broken."
"He looked broken?" Will turned back, his anger flaring for a brief, white-hot second. "He doesn't care, Mom. He’s a knight. He’s the Consort-Elect. He has everything he ever wanted, and he... he thinks I’m pathetic. So please, just let me go. Let me go before the wedding starts and I have to stand there and watch him swear his life away to someone else."
Joyce reached out, her fingers catching his chin, forcing him to meet her gaze. "Will, listen to me. Mike is a boy who has been taught that his only value is in his sword. He is confused and he is scared, and sometimes scared men say the cruelest things."
"He meant it," Will choked out.
"Maybe he did," Joyce said. "But I also saw the way he was looking at that piece of paper in his hand when he left the library. He looked like a man who had finally found a map out of a dark forest, and he was terrified to follow it."
She squeezed his hand. "Don't go to the North, Will. Not like this. Not because you’re running."
Will’s composure finally shattered. He pulled his hand away from his mother’s, pacing the length of the rug like a caged animal. The frantic energy that had been simmering under his skin all morning boiled over.
"I can't take it anymore, Mom!" he cried, his voice echoing off the vaulted stone ceiling. "I tried. I sat on that dais yesterday and I watched them. I did exactly what a Prince is supposed to do. I smiled, I stood tall, and I told myself that as long as he was happy, as long as he was still in my life, I could survive it. I thought I was strong enough to just be his friend from a distance."
He stopped, turning to face her, his chest heaving. "But then he came to me at the dance. He left her. He left the Princess in the middle of the floor to come find me in the dark. And for a second—just one second—he looked at me and the armor was gone. He looked at me like he was actually going to say it. Like he felt even a fraction of what I feel."
Will’s eyes filled with fresh, hot tears. "And then he pulled away. He looked at me like I was a disease. He told me it was 'wrong' and that there was 'nothing to feel.' He took that tiny spark of hope I had and he crushed it under his boot."
He collapsed onto the edge of his bed, his head in his hands. "I can't handle the 'maybe' anymore, Mom. I can't live in the 'will-he-won't-he.' Every time he looks at me and then looks away, it’s like a knife in my ribs. My heart is breaking, and every day I stay here, I’m just watching the person I love prepare to marry my sister. If I stay for the wedding, I won't just be sad—I’ll be destroyed."
Joyce moved toward him, her own eyes glistening. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled his head onto her shoulder, stroking his hair the way she used to when he was a child frightened of the shadows in the Mirkwood.
"It’s a different kind of torture, isn't it?" she whispered. "Knowing he’s right there, but miles away."
"He called me pathetic," Will sobbed into her silks. "He called my pining pathetic. He has the poem, Mom. He knows. He knows everything and he hates me for it."
"He doesn't hate you, Will," Joyce said firmly, though she held him tighter. "He hates that he hasn't discovered how to be as brave as you are yet."
Just as the words left her mouth, a heavy, hesitant thud sounded at the door. It wasn't the gentle knock of a servant. It was the unmistakable, metallic thud of a gauntlet hitting wood.
Will froze against his mother’s shoulder. His breath hitched. He knew that knock. He had heard it against his door a thousand times since they were ten years old.
Outside, a voice cracked with an emotion that sounded dangerously close to desperation.
"Will? Please. I... I have something of yours."
Will looked at his mother, his eyes wide with a silent, desperate plea for her to stay, to hide him, to tell the man on the other side of the door to go away. But Joyce didn't move to comfort him. Instead, she straightened her back, her expression shifting into something firm—the look of a Queen who knew that some battles had to be fought without a shield.
She gave Will a stern, pointed nod toward the door. It was a command.
With trembling hands, Will stood up. He wiped his face with his sleeve, though he knew his eyes were still red and his skin splotchy. He crossed the room, every step feeling like he was walking toward a gallows, and pulled the heavy door open.
Mike was standing there. He had stripped off his breastplate, appearing smaller in just his dark tunics, but he was still gripping the crumpled parchment like it was a holy relic. When he saw Will, his mouth opened to speak, but then his eyes shifted to the figure behind him.
Mike froze, his entire body going rigid. "Queen Joyce," he stammered, his hand instinctively flying to his chest in a formal salute. "I—I didn't realize you were… I apologize for the intrusion, Your Majesty."
Joyce didn't look angry. She looked at Mike with a piercing, knowing gaze that seemed to strip him down to his very soul. She stepped forward, her silk skirts rustling in the quiet room.
"Sir Michael," she said, her voice calm but carrying a weight that made Mike swallow hard. "There is no need for apologies. I was just leaving."
She turned to Will, reaching out to squeeze his arm one last time. Her eyes softened, silently telling him to be brave. "Goodbye, Will. We will finish our conversation later."
She walked past Mike, stopping for only a fraction of a second in the doorway. She didn't say a word to him, but the look she gave him was a warning: Do not break him again.
Then, she was gone. The click of the door closing echoed through the room, leaving Will and Mike standing in a silence so heavy it felt like it might collapse the floor beneath them.
Mike didn't move. He stood just inside the threshold, looking down at the floor, then at the poem, and finally up at Will. The arrogance from the library was gone. The "Knight of the Palace" was gone. In his place was a boy who looked like he had finally realized the world was much larger, and much more frightening, than he had been told.
"You dropped this," Mike said, his voice a low, rough rasp. He held out the parchment.
Will didn't take it. He kept his hands at his sides, his jaw set. "You read it."
Mike stepped further into the room, the distance between them feeling like a chasm he didn't know how to bridge. He looked down at the poem in his hand, the ink blurring under the intensity of his gaze.
"I’m sorry," he whispered, the words sounding small and fragile in the high-ceilinged room. "What I said in the library... about you being pathetic, about the pining... it was the cruelest thing I’ve ever said. I was angry because I was scared, Will. I’m always scared."
Will let out a shaky, bitter breath. "Scared of what, Mike? You’re the hero. You’re the one everyone is cheering for."
"I’m scared because I don’t recognize myself anymore!" Mike stepped closer, his voice rising with a desperate edge. "I look in the mirror and I see a knight, but then I look at you and the knight disappears. I don't know what that makes me. I don't have a name for what I feel, or... or what I am. Everything I was taught says I should be one thing, but every time I’m near you, I’m something else entirely."
Will’s eyes searched Mike’s face, looking for the lie, but Mike was too raw, too broken open to hide.
"Please don't go to the North," Mike pleaded. He reached out, not to touch Will, but as if he were trying to catch the air between them. "I know I have no right to ask. I know I’m the one who pushed you away. But you can’t go."
"Why?" Will asked, his voice a ghost of a sound. "Give me one reason to stay and watch you marry my sister."
"Because you’ll be miserable," Mike said, his words coming faster now. "Forget about me for a second. If you won't stay for me, then stay for El. She needs her brother. She needs the person who was the first to look at her and not see a weapon. And if you won't stay for her... then stay for yourself, Will."
Mike gestured vaguely toward the windows, toward the direction of the frozen peaks. "You hate the cold. You’ve always hated it. You hate the ledgers and the silence and the isolation. You’d be a prisoner up there, and I can’t—I can’t stand the thought of you being in a cage just because I was too much of a coward to be honest with myself."
Mike finally looked down at the poem, his thumb brushing over the words The Shadow Knight.
"I don't know who I am yet," Mike admitted, his voice dropping to a vulnerable confession. "I don't know how to fix any of this. But I know that the castle is darker when you aren't in it. I know that I’m a better man when you’re standing in my shadow. Please, Will. Don't go to the North. Stay where it's warm."
Will stood frozen, the silence stretching between them. For the first time, the "maybe" didn't feel like a torture; it felt like a tiny, flickering candle in a very dark room.
Will stood his ground, the tear-tracks on his face drying into salt, but his eyes were hard and clear. He looked at the poem in Mike’s hand, then back up at the boy who was supposed to be a king.
"I’ll stay," Will said, his voice regaining a fraction of its princely steel. "But only on one condition, Mike."
Mike stepped forward, his face flooded with a relief so intense it looked like pain. "Anything. Name it."
"You only marry El if that is what you truly want," Will said firmly. He raised a hand as Mike started to protest with the usual talk of duty. "I’m not talking about feelings. I’m not talking about love, or us, or what happened in the alcove. I’m talking about your life."
Will took a step closer, forcing Mike to look him in the eye. "If you choose to stand at that altar because you want the stability of the crown, then do it. If you choose it because you want to be King, or because you want the glory of the history books, then do it. But do it because it is the thing Michael Wheeler wants most in this world. Not because the kingdom expects it. Not because your father told you to. Not because it’s the only path you think you're allowed to walk."
Will’s voice softened, but the weight of it remained. "If you can look me in the eye and tell me that being her King is what you truly desire above all else, then I will sit in that front pew. I will cheer for you. I will stay in this castle and I will be your friend until our hair turns grey. But I won't stay and watch you play a part in a play you never signed up for."
Mike opened his mouth, the word Duty already on his tongue, but he choked on it. He looked at Will—really looked at him—and realized that the Prince was offering him something more valuable than a crown: he was offering him a choice.
For a knight, a choice was a dangerous thing. It was heavier than any armor.
"Do you understand, Mike?" Will pressed. "If you do it for the wrong reasons, you’ll turn into stone. And I won’t stay to watch you crumble."
Mike looked down at the parchment in his hand, then back at Will. The silence in the room was no longer heavy with grief; it was heavy with a terrifying, New World possibility.
"I understand," Mike whispered. He reached out, and this time he didn't pull away. He pressed the folded poem into Will’s palm, his fingers lingering against Will’s skin just a second too long to be accidental. "I’ll stay for the wedding. I’ll think. I’ll... I'll try to find an answer that isn't just an order."
"Good," Will said, his fingers curling around the paper. "Then I'll unpack my books."