"Ulrich Van Rubenhart."
Ulrich turned his head at the sound of the voice and looked at the woman who had called him.
Louise Van Rommels.
He had known her since childhood.
She had been one of the first noble children he came to recognize back when he still attended formal gatherings under the watch of both his father and mother, when every banquet felt too bright, every conversation too rehearsed, and every older noble looked at children not as children at all, but as future names to be weighed and placed.
Louise had been there in those early years.
Never especially close to him, never someone he sought out of his own will, yet never truly distant either. She had belonged to that familiar circle of old noble houses whose heirs kept crossing paths whether they wanted to or not. Seasonal receptions, name days, royal ceremonies, hunting feasts, winter balls, faces repeated themselves often enough that memory took root whether affection followed or not.
