A rustling at her door made her stiff.
"Your Majesty?" came a voice that was soft, old, and familiar.
It was Meara, a new maid, a thin woman with silver hair pulled into a tight knot.
"Come in," the queen said.
Meara entered slowly. She carried a tray with warm tea and a small bowl of honeyed figs.
But she did not smile. Instead, she paused.
"Another sleepless night?" Meera asked gently.
Queen Elizabeth forced a steady breath. "Too much depends on clarity."
Maera set the tray down. "The king is recovering. Prince Adrian is preparing for tomorrow's hearing. The guards are triple posted around Eric and Emelia's confinement hall."
The queen's expression darkened slightly. "And yet none of that helps me."
Meara studied her. "You look troubled."
"No, I am calculating," the queen corrected sharply. "And I cannot find the answer."
"Regarding…?" Meara asked quietly.
"The second conspirator."
Meara's brows pinched. "You still believe there was one?"
"I do not believe," the queen replied. "I know."
She paced slowly around the room.
"Rylan was under my instruction, yet paralysis potion was harmless. Eric would have grown tired, perhaps collapsed gently. Nothing more or dangerous." she thought.
Meara nodded as if in the queen's thought. "But then who attacked the king."
"It might have been someone else who intervened," the queen said. "A guard sprayed that… strange fragrance and placed a blade in Eric's hand. Someone tried stopping him. He would never have done so if he were colluding."
"Or… perhaps he betrayed who sent him!." Meera said.
"No," the queen said immediately. Her tone carried certainty. "He probably acted out of confusion, fear or perhaps even guilt. But not betrayal."
"But then, who was it?" The Queen thought.
Her eyes drifted to the balcony again.
Her voice grew quieter.
"Someone manipulated both Eric and Talen. Someone used my plan as cover. Someone silenced Lena. Someone whose motive benefits from the prince's downfall."
Meara swallowed. "Your Majesty… do you suspect Prince Adrian?"
The queen stopped pacing.
For a long moment, there was silence.
Then she shook her head.
"No. Adrian is ambitious but impulsive. He lacks subtlety. He could never orchestrate something so layered."
"Then who…?" Meera breathed.
"I do not know," the queen admitted.
And the admission tasted like bitterness.
She moved to her writing desk, pulling open a drawer filled with sealed documents. But she didn't remove any. She simply stared at them, lost in thought.
"Rylan knew something before he fled," the queen said. "Something he did not have time or did not dare to tell me."
She remembered the slight panic in his eyes after the chaos. The blood on his side. The wound he tried to hide. He had come to her through the chambers once… explaining how he had completed his task … but then he disappeared.
Rylan's fear meant someone had targeted him.
"It means the second conspirator may know about him," the queen thought. "Which means they may know about me."
She turned back to her mirror, staring into her own dark eyes.
"Whoever seized control of my plan…" she whispered, "they intend to undo more than a prince. They intend to take the kingdom."
Myra stepped forward with caution. "Should we tighten your guards?"
The queen nodded slowly. "Yes. But quietly. If we move too obviously, we alert the enemy."
She walked toward the balcony, pushing the curtains aside.
The wind brushed through her hair as she looked out over the palace. Torches flickered. Guards walked their posts and silence loomed.
But danger whispered from every shadow.
She whispered into the night air:
"Rylan… What did you see? What do you know?"
Her eyes drifted to the empty wooden perch where her dove usually rested.
If Rylan had received her letter… why had he not returned a message?
Was he really frightened? Wounded? On the run? Or…
The queen's heart tightened, though she kept her expression still.
"Or," she murmured, "someone intercepted my message."
That possibility chilled her.
Someone had to know she used doves for secret correspondence. Someone had to anticipate the path. Someone could have lured the bird down… read the message… and understood her involvement in the plot.
Someone could now use that knowledge against her.
She returned to her chair with slow, measured steps and sat again with hands clasped tightly.
Her voice shook only slightly in thought:
"I must find the conspirator before they find me."
Myra bowed and backed toward the door. "Your majesty, you must rest."
"No," the queen said. "Not yet."
She looked toward the heavens through the balcony opening.
"First," she whispered, "I must figure out who sent someone to kill Lena."
Her fingers tapped the armrest again as the beat grew faster.
"Because whoever sent someone to kill the woman… is the same person who turned a plan into a violent disaster."
For the next hour, she sat completely still with eyes open yet distant, mind racing through possibilities, names, motives and alliances. She sifted through memories, conversations, expressions and past conflicts… but every conclusion dissolved like smoke.
She whispered to herself:
"I cannot guess right. Every time I believe I have found the answer… it slips away."
The moon rose higher, the palace slept deeper but the queen did not rest.
And somewhere far outside her chambers hidden in the palace walls, in the towers and in the shadows, someone else watched her movements with cold, calculated interest.
Someone who knew exactly what she had done. Someone who knew exactly what Rylan had seen.
It was Princess Athalia.
She had observed signs during the interrogation. But seeing a message from the queen to the unknown man was enough to convince her the Queen had something to do with it.
Athalia didn't need to intercept it, because she wanted the same man gone. If he stood by and watched Eric try hurting the king, then he must have seen the shadow guard disguised as Princess Emelia.
However, she wasn't sure of the full details of the Queens plot and the reason for the Queen's action.
The Shadow guard had come to Princess Athalia's chamber that night after the Prince left her room.
"I have completed the task" he said. "No one can stand in the way of Prince Adrain succeeding the throne. Congratulations, your highness."
"You shall be rewarded."
"Thank you, your highness." he said. "However, it seemed someone had plans for the Prince and tried intercepting."
Then they heard a noise outside the door.
"Who's there?" The princess shouted.
It was Lena. She had passed by to hand over some medicine from the queen to princess Athalia who has earlier complained she was unable to sleep. Lena ran away in fear.
Athalia caught a glimpse of her as she ran and instructed the guard to kill her before she spills anything. When he got close enough to prince Adrian, he retreated back and hypnotized the guard on the tower to shoot her.
The palace had grown strangely quiet in the days after the attack. The palace had survived many storms across the reigns of past kings, but none had ever left silence in their wake like the one that followed the king's attack.
For days, the corridors felt hollow, as though every voice had retreated into stone. Soldiers walked with stiff backs and their eyes shadowed with worry.
Only the soft shuffle of healers, the rustling of curtains, and the occasional murmur of guards interrupted the stillness. Every servant felt it and the kingdom was still holding its breath.
No one walked quickly anymore. They moved with caution, with fear and with questions.
Word that the king had been stabbed or attacked by his son had spread beyond the palace gates.
The nobles waited uneasily for updates from the royal healers. The servants whispered in kitchens and laundry halls and the guards, once relaxed in familiar routines, now stood tense at every corner.
The kingdom felt suspended and unsure of whether it was preparing for recovery or collapse.
Inside the king's chamber, time passed quietly. The king lay motionless except for the faint rise and fall of his chest. The healers worked in hushed movements, checking the salves on his wound, changing the cool cloth on his forehead, murmuring to one another about the state of his pulse, his breathing and the small signs of either hope or defeat.
Several times, members of the royal family visited the chamber. Prince Adrain stood at his father's bedside often, speaking softly in case the king could hear something or anything.
Queen Athalia came too, though never for long. She stood at the doorway, observing with careful eyes with her expression mixed with a blend of worry and calculation.
On one cold morning since the attack and after the interrogation had been adjourned, the air changed.
A faint, sharp gasp rose from the bedside. It was the kind of sound that made the nearest healer freeze.
"His Majesty… he moved."
Every healer in the room turned at once. The oldest among them, a man with silver hair tied neatly at the nape of his neck, leaned over the king and gently touched his shoulder.
"Your Majesty?" he whispered. "Can you hear me?"
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the king's fingers twitched and his eyelids fluttered.
And slowly but heavily, he opened his eyes.
The healer's breath escaped in a relieved sigh.
"Fetch the Queen. Summon the prince and let the council know the king is awake."
"His Majesty is awake!"
Within minutes, footsteps thundered against the stone floors from different directions. The palace came alive with a rush of emotions long held at bay.
Servants hurried through the corridors spreading the news. Guards exchanged relieved looks. Noble advisors gathered, adjusting their robes with urgency.
Ministers, nobles, guards, and healers rushed toward the royal chamber with hope and fear twisting together in their faces.
The royal family gathered quickly, their relief heavy with exhaustion. Adrain hurried in with a mix of genuine relief and something harder to read beneath it. Queen Athalia entered moments later, careful, composed, and visibly astonished.
Everyone came.
Except Prince Eric… and Princess Emelia.
They remained locked away, their absence unnoticed by the king, who was only now returning to the world.
The king lay propped against pillows, pale but conscious. His eyes wandered, unfocused at first, then gradually sharpening with confusion.
He touched the bandaged wound at his side, wincing.
The king blinked against the light. His throat felt dry, his voice trapped somewhere between waking and memory.
"Easy, Your Majesty," the chief healer murmured. "You are safe."
"Safe?" the king whispered, though his voice carried more bewilderment than belief. "What happened? Who…?"
He trailed off, unable to piece together the fragments of the attack.
Adrain stepped forward quickly. "Father, you're safe. You were attacked, but the healers have taken good care of you."
The king winced, instinctively lifting a weak hand toward his side where the wound lay bandaged.
"Slowly, Your Majesty," a healer murmured.
"You've been unconscious for several days."
"Do not move too much," the chief healer murmured. "Your body is still recovering."
Queen Athalia arrived moments later. She moved to the king's bedside with measured steps, her face composed and her hands clasped lightly before her.
"It is good to see you awake," she said. Her tone was calm and nearly serene.
The king studied her face with faint confusion, then looked again at Adrain, his focus clearing slowly.
The king searched the faces around him. His gaze lingered on Athalia, then on Adrain, then drifted past them as though expecting someone else.
"The king's eyes darkened with the effort to remember. "The attack… yes… someone…"
He closed his eyes, trying to search through the fog of memory.
Athalia's fingers curled ever so slightly against her palm. "You must not strain yourself now," she said. "Let the healers continue their work."
"Eric…?" he asked faintly.
Adrain froze. Athalia's expression barely changed, but something tightened around her eyes.
The healer answered gently before either could react.
"Prince Eric has not been informed of your awakening yet, Your Majesty."
The king frowned at this as confusion settled into the lines of his face.
It was only a matter of time before the absence would be explained or twisted.
For now, they kept the moment peaceful. The king's strength was fragile because too many truths at once would serve no one.
The king's recovery over the next day was slow, but noticeable.
His voice grew clearer, his eyes regained focus and he remembered more though fragmented, scattered memories of the night of the attack seemed to cause him discomfort.
The Chief Adviser, Lord Maeron, watched every sign carefully. A thoughtful man with a calm posture and sharp judgment who had taken charge of palace affairs during the king's unconsciousness. He respected order above all else and believed that only truth was complete and an undeniable truth could stabilize the kingdom.
But with that belief came urgency.
The attack on the king was not merely a crime, it was a threat to the stability of the throne. And with rumors circulating, Maeron feared that waiting too long to address the matter would allow dangerous narratives to grow.
When the king regained enough strength to speak without losing his breath, the Chief Advisor, Lord Maeron, stepped forward. His expression was stern, but beneath it was a deep concern for the kingdom's stability.
"Your Majesty," he said, bowing, "for the sake of truth and justice, we must know who harmed you. The kingdom cannot move forward while uncertainty remains."
He paused, then added, "And we need your testimony."