His chest was a wall at her back—hard as tower stone and hot through the wet.
Lili bucked, elbows driving, but the old guard's arm only slid lower—firm, unyielding—hooking under her ribs, then cinching around her middle to haul her up and away from the river's pull. The torch hissed. Water slapped and gulped at her calves. The sheepdog barked like this was a game worth cheering.
"Peace, girl—hold still!" the man snapped, voice rough with urgency rather than rage. "Cease thy flailing—thou'lt drown us both!"
She did not believe him. Not at first.
Hands had closed on her before—hands that took and locked and smiled while doing it. Albion hands. Blue-lion hands. Her spine remembered the cage.
She twisted anyway, trying to pry his arm away from her belly—not there, not there—and the panic made her stupid. The river did not care about panic. It only tugged, patient and hungry.
"Foolish lass," he grated, and then he lifted rather than squeezed—hoisting her clear of the worst of the current. For a breath she dangled in his grip, dress streaming, cloak draining river-water in cold sheets. Pebbles bruised her feet as he backed them up the muddy bank, step by heavy step, dragging her from the black shallows to firmer ground.
When the bank rose and leveled, he turned his body between her and the water without thinking, as if he could block the river the way he blocked a blade. He sank into a crouch and eased her down—not gently, not kindly, but safe. Like a man setting down a lantern before it shattered.
"Softly, now," he said, voice dropping. "Softly. No hurt meant. Art thou calmed?"
Lili gulped air. Her hands shook with leftover fight. She stared at his gauntlets, at the blue tabard, at the lion stitched there—the same lion—and every instinct in her screamed to run.
The dog circled, snuffling her skirts, tail flagging with pleased energy. It bumped her knee, warm and solid, and huffed steam into the cold night.
The guard didn't move to strike. Didn't shout for ropes. Didn't yank her veil away to see what she hid beneath it. He only kept his stance wide and steady, torch held up and back so the flame stayed away from her—away from her face, away from her fear.
"By God," he muttered, the bite of scolding softening into relief, "thou hadst near made a ghost of thyself."
Lili swallowed. Her jaw ached from clenching. She forced her eyes down and nodded once—small, reluctant—because if she didn't, her breath would never come right again.
"Aye. There." He let out a long breath, as if he'd been holding it with her. "Use the bridge, fool girl," he said, but the words were worry dressed in bark. "That's what it's for."
Bridge.
The word hit her like a door opening. She flicked a glance through the reeds. The bridge's torches glowed not far off—near enough to make her throat tighten. Near enough to bring guards.
More guards.
"I… I go," she managed, English careful and thin.
"You'll go dry," the man said, and reached—not to grab again, but to take her by the upper arm and tug her upright before her knees could fold. His grip was hard because the ground was slick and she was shaking and he wasn't about to let her tumble back into the river out of pride.
She flinched anyway. He felt it—she saw it in the way his fingers eased, a fraction, as though he was learning her fear in real time.
"Easy," he said, lower. "I'm not thy enemy."
Lili didn't answer. If she spoke more, her accent would spill out like a flag.
The sheepdog—Fenton, the other guards had called him earlier—trotted close, watchful now instead of playful, nose working the air around her like he was trying to read a story written in scent.
The old guard jerked his chin toward the bridge. "Come. I'll see thee to it."
He didn't offer his back. Didn't try to shepherd her like a child. He simply walked beside her, half a step ahead, torch angled so she could see the path without having to step into his light. It was a soldier's courtesy: I'll guide you, and I won't stare.
Lili kept her hood low and her veil fixed, hiding the pale blaze beneath. She watched the ground—watched her bare feet, red with cold and scratched raw by thorns—and tried not to shake.
They broke from the reeds onto the road's edge.
A voice called from the bridge, sharp with habit. "Eamon?"
Another lantern swung. A second. Shapes turned—spears lifting, then easing when they saw who it was.
"Found yourself trouble?" one of the younger guards drawled, and then his tone shifted when he saw Lili's soaked hem and trembling hands. "Oh."
The old man—Eamon—answered for her, because she did not trust her own mouth. "She near went in," he said bluntly. "Would've drowned in the dark like a stone. I hauled her out."
Three guards now stood within the torch's reach—broad-shouldered, iron-clad, yawning men with the easy boldness of those who'd never had to fear their own uniform. Lili's stomach tightened.
They did not look at her like prey.
They looked at her like… a problem that shouldn't exist at this hour. A girl alone by a river. A foolish choice. A cold danger.
"Name's Rob," the taller one said, tipping his chin at her as if that was polite enough. "And this sour face is Hugh."
Hugh snorted. "Sour because I'm on watch, you ox."
A third—leaner, with a scar at his brow—shifted his spear and added, "Tomas."
Four of them, then. Eamon plus the three.
They stared—not rudely, not greedily—but plainly curious. Her veil. Her strange stillness. The way her words landed wrong when she'd spoken. A foreigner, yes. Not an enemy.
"What're you doing out here, lass?" Rob asked, trying for friendly and landing somewhere between concerned and nosy. "Road's no place for—"
"I go," Lili said quickly, cutting it off before questions grew teeth. "Just… crossing."
Eamon made a sound like a man swallowing a lecture. "Aye. By the bridge," he said, as if the bridge itself was scolding her. "Like sensible folk."
Rob opened his mouth—probably to ask from where? to where?—and then Fenton stepped in close and pressed his nose to Lili's skirt.
Not to her hand. Not to her cloak.
Lower.
To her middle.
The dog gave a soft, questioning whuff and leaned his brow there, gentle as a greeting.
Lili went still so fast it was like the night had frozen her.
Her palm moved on instinct—covering her belly beneath the wet wool.
Eamon's eyes dropped to that gesture. Hugh saw it too. Tomas's brows lifted. Rob's grin vanished as if someone had snuffed it.
For a heartbeat nobody spoke. Only the river whispered under stone. Only the torches crackled.
Eamon's voice softened, careful as a man approaching a skittish deer. "Art thou… with child?"
Lili's throat tightened. Caught. If these men decided she belonged back behind a locked door, she could not fight four of them. Not in this body, not like this.
She stared at the cobbles. Forced herself to nod once.
Their reaction wasn't triumph.
It was worry.
Hugh swore under his breath. Tomas shifted closer, not to block her path, but like he wanted to put his body between her and the night.
Rob exhaled, slow. "God's mercy," he said, quieter now. "Barefoot and expecting… What are you playing at, girl?"
"She's not playing," Eamon snapped at him, then caught himself and lowered his voice again. "Not if she's out here like this."
Lili's heart thudded. She braced for the turn—for the then you come with us.
Instead, Eamon said, "You need food."
"I don't need—" Lili began, too fast.
"Aye, you do," Tomas cut in, not unkindly. "Look at you."
Lili tightened her cloak, trying to make herself smaller. "No. Please. I go."
Eamon studied her veil, her hunched shoulders, the way she stood like a cornered thing. Whatever he read there made him choose his next words with care.
"We won't stop you," he said, simple and true. "But we won't watch you freeze, either."
Rob was already untying the small pouch at his belt. "Here," he said, thrusting it forward. "Bread and salt pork. Not much, but it's honest."
Hugh dug into his own satchel and produced a squat little waterskin. "And water," he added, as if that was the most natural thing in the world to hand a stranger. "Take it."
Tomas hesitated, then crouched, tugging off the wool wrap from around his own neck—thick, worn, warm. He held it out without stepping closer. "For your feet," he said. "Or your hands. Whichever's hurting worse."
Lili stared at the offered things like they were traps dressed as gifts.
They waited.
No laughter. No demand. No sudden hands closing.
Fenton sat at her side, ears pricked, watching her face like he understood the battle happening behind her eyes.
Slowly—because moving too fast felt like surrender—Lili reached out and took the pouch. Then the waterskin. Then the wool wrap, fingers trembling as the warmth hit her skin.
"Thank you," she whispered, and the words came out rough, dragged through disbelief.
Rob tried a crooked smile, careful not to scare her back into the river. "See? Told you we weren't ghouls."
Hugh huffed. "Speak for yourself."
Eamon jerked his chin toward the bridge's crown. "Go on, then," he said. "Cross. Keep to the center—stones are slick at the edges."
Lili nodded again. She wrapped the wool around one foot, then the other, crude and fast—anything between her and the cold stone. The knot was ugly. It would do.
She tucked the food close beneath her cloak. Slung the waterskin's strap over her shoulder.
Then she moved.
Not running—running invited pursuit—but quick, head down, shoulders tight, crossing the bridge under four pools of torchlight that felt like open hands rather than cages. The river slid beneath her, dark and restless, and she did not look at it.
Halfway across, she risked a glance back.
Eamon stood where she'd left him, torch held steady. Rob leaned on his spear. Hugh's helm was pushed back, his expression drawn with concern. Tomas had one hand resting on Fenton's head, keeping the dog from trotting after her.
Fenton let out one low bark—hopeful, unhappy—and then sat, as if he'd decided the choice was hers.
Lili's throat burned.
If they knew her name—her true one—if they knew who waited in the lion's hall… these same kind men would be bound by duty to return her. Kindness didn't erase oaths. It only complicated them.
So she didn't wave. She didn't linger.
She crossed the last stones, stepped onto the mainland road, and let the darkness swallow her shape.
The dirt path ran away from the bridge into the wilds—ruts and hedgerows and the thick black line of trees. Somewhere beyond that, far from blue roofs and locked doors, there might be a hollow where she could breathe without listening for keys.
Lili pressed a palm to her belly through her cloak, felt the quiet warmth there, and kept moving—bare feet muffled by stolen wool, food thumping gently at her hip—into the trees, into the unknown, into any place that wasn't the Duke.
Behind her, four guards and one sheepdog stood in their pool of light, watching the road as if willing it to be kinder than it usually was.
And for the first time since the ship, since the tower, since the lion banners and the smiling cage—
Lili carried a small, stunned thought with her into the dark:
Perhaps Albion is not made only of brutes.