The palace was never truly silent but tonight, it listened. In a private wing far removed from the guest quarters, Queen Liora stood by the tall windows of her study, the lights far below blurred into soft gold. Her reflection stared back at her from the glass, regal and composed, yet her hands trembled slightly where they rested against the sill.
Behind her, the King placed a slim folder on the table. It made no sound, it didn't need to.
She turned slowly.
"You're certain?" her voice asked, steady despite everything raging beneath it.
The King nodded once. "There is no margin for doubt. The markers align perfectly. Maternal. Paternal. Full confirmation."
Liora closed her eyes, for a long moment she didn't breathe. Years, no, decades collapsed inward. Endless searches conducted quietly. False hopes buried with dignity. The empty nursery they never allowed themselves to dismantle. The child taken from them at five years old, lost to chaos and circumstance, swallowed by a world that never knew who she truly was. Alive, here and under their roof.
"i brushed her hair tonight," Liora whispered, more to herself than to him. "She said she'd never had anyone do that for her."
Aldren's jaw tightened not with anger, but grief sharpened into purpose.
"She doesn't know," he said gently.
"No," Liora replied. "And she must not. Not yet."
She moved toward the table, finally sitting, folding her hands together as though containing something fragile.
"We cannot rush this," she continued. "She has a life. People she trusts, a world she understands. If we pull too hard, we risk breaking what little peace she has built."
Aldren studied her carefully. "And the danger around her?"
Liora's eyes hardened.
"That," she said, "we remove quietly and fast."
"The Alarics," Alistair said calmly.
A sharp exhale escaped her. "They never learn."
"They believed she was unprotected," he continued. "They were wrong. Keigh Dynamite has been shielding her efficiently. But he doesn't know about us."
"No," Liora said. "And for now, he shouldn't."
She stood again, pacing slowly.
"He protects her because he cares," she said softly. "That much is clear. And I will not punish that."
"Even if he complicates matters?"
Liora stopped.
"He complicates nothing," she replied firmly. "He is the reason she is still breathing freely. We owe him restraint."
The King inclined his head. "Then our approach?"
"We watch," Liora said. "We shield, we dismantle threats before they reach her doorstep."
"And when she learns the truth?"
Liora's gaze softened again, vulnerability briefly piercing through steel.
"Then she will learn it from us," she said. "Gently. When she is ready and when she trusts us, not as monarchs, but as parents."
Silence stretched between them.
"She reminds me of you," Aldren said quietly. "The way she speaks. The way she notices everything."
Liora smiled faintly, eyes wet. "She reminds me of who I was… before the crown."
She turned toward the door.
"Double her security," she ordered. "Invisible. No uniforms, no presence she can feel."
"And the Alarics?"
Her voice was calm when she answered.
"End their reach quick and thoroughly. Make sure they never come near her again."
---
Elsewhere in the palace, unaware of the bloodlines tightening around her, Nara slept peacefully for the first time in days,curled beneath silk sheets, wrapped in a borrowed sense of safety she couldn't name.
Outside her window, guards moved without sound. Across the country, powerful families felt pressure without knowing its source and somewhere between quiet planning rooms and royal studies, fate long delayed had finally begun to close the distance.