A soft knock came at the door.
She straightened instantly.
"Enter."
A servant stepped inside timidly. "His Highness requests your presence, my lady."
Athalia's smile was gentle, yet composed.
"Tell him I will be there shortly."
When the door closed, she let her expression melt into satisfaction once more.
She stood, smoothed her gown, and walked toward the door.
Her steps were elegant, her posture steady and her heartbeat steady with ambition.
Eric was gone, Emelia disgraced and Adrain was vulnerable and increasingly dependent on her guidance.
Everything was falling into place.
The weeks that followed changed the kingdom in ways both small and profound.
Scribes began drafting new decrees addressed to "His Highness Prince Adrain, the Crown Prince."
Even though the Crowned prince title had been his for a long time, his brothers aura had overshadowed it. Now it carried much authority.
The palace guards adjusted their ceremonial greetings. The nobles shifted their alliances.
Even the common people began saying his name with newfound assurance.
One afternoon, when Adrain walked through the training yard, a young soldier saluted him and said:
"Your Highness, the kingdom stands with you."
Adrain paused, startled but managed a nod.
But as he walked on, he whispered under his breath:
"Do they stand with me…or merely with the version of me that fills the hole my brother left behind?"
The question lingered.
Athalia approached him shortly afterward, her presence as steady as ever.
"You're troubled," she observed.
"Yes," he admitted quietly.
She threaded her arm through his.
"Let the people accept you," she whispered. "Let them find hope in you. This kingdom needs stability and you give them that."
Adrain stared ahead.
"And what do you need, Athalia?" he asked softly.
She smiled.
"Only your love, your trust, that you do not lose yourself to sorrow," she answered. "And that you trust the future that is opening for you."
Her tone was warm and reassuring but beneath the sweetness was the faintest hint of victory.
One evening, as the sun dipped behind the mountains, Adrain stood on a balcony overlooking the kingdom.
He watched the lamplighters move through the streets below. He watched the smoke rise from chimneys. He watched the city settle into dusk, peaceful yet unaware of the tangled truths beneath its calm surface.
Athalia approached him quietly.
"The people are ready for you," she said.
"Are they?" Adrain murmured.
"Yes."
"And what of Eric?"
Athalia clenched her fists and placed a hand on the balcony rail.
"Can you stop talking about Eric!. He made his choice," she said gently. "Now you must make yours."
Adrain sighed, the weight of the future unfolding before him.
He turned toward her.
"Will you help me?" he asked.
She exhaled. A smile touched her lips in a soft, poised and composed manner.
"Always," she whispered, calming her Fury.
And in that fragile moment of uncertainty, Adrain allowed himself to believe her.The winds over Arrandelle now carried the kind of chill that slipped beneath armors and robes, a reminder that autumn was fading into winter. It was the season when the kingdom prepared for both harsher weather and harsher decisions, and Prince Adrain who was now the only prince left within the palace walls felt both settling over him like weight he could not shrug off.
Eric's exile still echoed through the stone corridors. Where his laughter once stirred the servants into warmth, there was now a hollow quiet. Where his confidence once filled court gatherings, people now spoke in lowered tones, careful to avoid using his name. Even his absence had become a presence.
Adrain felt it every morning.
And yet the kingdom did not stop simply because a prince had been sent away. Duties did not bow before heartbreak. Responsibilities did not pause for grief.
One morning, Commander Talver met Adrain at the training grounds. "Your Highness, the reports from the northern border are troubling. Raiders from beyond the marshlands have struck two caravans. We must respond."
Adrain looked toward the soldiers assembled on the grounds, men who once followed Eric without hesitation. Their eyes were on him now.
He swallowed. "Prepare the battalion. I'll lead them myself."
The commander's eyebrow lifted slightly in surprise, but he bowed. "As you command."
It was the first moment Adrain saw the shift not in their eyes alone, but in how his own voice carried across the field. There was certainty in it he did not know he possessed.
He did not celebrate. He simply hoped it was enough.
The march toward the marshland border took five days. Adrain rode at the front, cloak pulled tightly around him against the biting wind. Athalia had placed a hand on his arm before he left, saying quietly:
"Do not doubt yourself. You were trained for this. The people need you."
Her encouragement echoed within him as they approached the marshland village where raiders had last been sighted.
The attack came at dawn.
Screams broke through the village's edge. Raiders on lean horses stormed toward the fields, torches in hand. Adrain drew his sword without hesitation.
"To your positions!" he shouted.
He surprised even himself as his voice rang across the field with a force that made the battalion move instantly.
He clashed with the first raider near a broken fence, steel meeting steel with sharp precision. Adrain had always trained hard, but he had never fought in real battle until now. Each movement required focus, each breath intention. He blocked a strike, countered, then pushed forward.
By midday the raiders retreated into the marshes, leaving the village smoking but standing.
Adrain stood among his soldiers, catching his breath. Commander Talver approached him.
"You fought with clarity, Your Highness," he said. "The men followed you without hesitation."
Adrain wiped the raiders blood from his blade. "I only did what had to be done."
"And that," the commander replied, "is what a leader does."
Their return to Arrandelle was met with cheers that startled Adrain. Children lined the streets, waving banners. Merchants threw dried petals from their doorways and the people shouted his name as though he had been leading armies for years.
One elderly man pressed forward, clutching his sleeve with trembling hands. "Bless you, Prince Adrain. You saved my daughter who trades along the northern route. She could have been among the raided caravans."
Adrain had no prepared response. He simply nodded, touched by the sincerity.
Athalia watched all of this from the palace balcony. To others, she appeared moved and even relieved. But deep inside, where no one could hear, her thoughts were calculated and sharp.
This is the moment, she told herself.
When Adrain entered the palace hall, she ran to him and wrapped her arms around him tightly. "I was terrified," she whispered. "But I knew you would return."
He rested his chin gently against her hair. "Your words carried me through. Truly."
Her smile warmed. She had what she wanted which was his trust, his gratitude and his dependence.
In the weeks that followed, Adrain's confidence began to settle into him like a long-delayed inheritance.
When soldiers disagreed over strategies, he mediated with clarity. People began calling him approachable, something they had often said about Eric, and Adrain found himself unconsciously attempting to emulate that trait.
Athalia saw the change and adapted as well.
Where Emelia had been beloved for her tenderness, Athalia tried to embody a softer and more thoughtful presence. She spoke kindly to servants, visited the infirmary with small baskets of herbs she had pretended to pack herself. She made sure the people saw her standing beside Adrain when he addressed them in the gardens.
Together, without planning it, they began mimicking the qualities that once made Eric and Emelia beloved.
But where their predecessors had acted out of sincerity, Adrain and Athalia acted partly out of intention, partly out of expectation. Yet it worked.
Slowly, the kingdom began to warm to them.
Two months later, the council brought news of trouble in the eastern farmlands. It was of bandits preying upon wandering laborers and stealing stored crops.
Again, Adrian rode out, this time with twice as many soldiers.
The battle was swifter than the one near the marshlands. The bandits were uncoordinated and panic-driven. Their resistance fell apart once Adrian's battalion pushed forward with discipline.
When Adrian captured their leader, a man with wild eyes and a scar running down his jaw, he said firmly, "You harm the people who work hardest for this kingdom. You will answer for that."
The man spat near his boot. "You princes are all the same."
Adrian's jaw tightened but not in anger, but restraint. "If I were the same, I would not have come."
They marched the bandits back toward Arrandelle. Their wagons overflowed with retrieved crops and stolen goods reclaimed from the raiders' storerooms.
When they entered the city gates, the reaction was even larger than before. People shouted praise, clapped, and threw ribbons folded from bright cloth.
Adrain waved once, modest and quiet, but that modesty only enhanced the admiration.
Within the palace, ministers now spoke to him in tones of respect rather than duty.
"Your Highness, your decisions have brought stability to two struggling regions."
"You have strengthened morale among the soldiers."
"The people are hopeful again."
Adrian tried not to let pride twist his judgment, but inwardly he felt something unfamiliar. It was a steady and growing assurance that perhaps he truly could serve his kingdom well.
Athaliah observed every change with attention.
When the people began leaving small gifts at the palace gates of bread, little wooden carvings of soldiers and woven bracelets she collected herself, she arranged them in Adrain's chamber.
"These are for you," she would say.
"They're for the kingdom," he corrected softly.
"Then you carry them on behalf of the kingdom."
He appreciated her, relied on her and trusted her more deeply than he realized.
And Athalia nurtured that trust like a gardener tending her most delicate flower.
Months passed, and winter loosened its grip. With spring came new duties and festivals to oversee, border agreements to renegotiate and village disputes to resolve. Adrian handled each with the growing maturity of one who was becoming central to the kingdom's stability.
People often murmured, "He's so different from before."
"He has become steady and reliable."
Adrian heard such whispers occasionally. They humbled him, and troubled him in equal measure.
One evening he admitted to Athalia, "Sometimes I think the kingdom wants me to be someone I am still learning to become."
She took his hands; her fingers warm over his. "Growth is never instant, Adrain. But you are stepping into your role with sincerity. That is what matters."
Her reassurance soothed him.
But some part of him, quiet and rarely acknowledged it as he wondered if he was growing into himself or growing into the space Eric left behind.
No matter how respected Adrian became, no matter how warmly the people embraced him, one truth never fully dissolved.
Eric and Emelia still existed in the kingdom's collective memory.
Their fall had been dramatic, heir exile had been heavy and their disappearance left questions half-answered and wounds half-healed.
But with each passing month, fewer people whispered their names.
More and more, they whispered Adrian's.
The year following Prince Eric and Princess Emelia's exile unfolded with a surprising calmness that was smooth, unbroken, and prosperous enough that the kingdom eventually stopped whispering about the scandal that had shaken the royal family. Time, as it often did, worked in favor of those who remained in power. And Prince Adrian, under the steady influence of Queen Athaliah, soon found himself rising from the shadows of his brother's former brilliance.
The court, once divided, had accepted him as the rightful heir who had stepped forward during a tumultuous moment. His shoulders straightened, his voice grew firmer and his confidence which was previously a fragile thing resembled true authority.
And through it all, Athaliah stood quietly behind him, guiding with a soft hand and a sharper mind.
The king's health had never fully recovered. Though he regained consciousness after the attack and lived long enough to see his younger son grow into the role he had always feared he might never fill, his strength declined little by little.
Some days he sat on the balcony, watching the kingdom from above with half-focused eyes. Other days he remained in bed, receiving brief reports from advisors. But he spoke less, slept more, and often murmured quietly to himself, as if trying to cling to memories slipping through his fingers.
Adrain visited him often, each time leaving with a heaviness in his chest.
One evening, as winter approached and the palace torches flickered in the cold air, Adrian sat at the edge of the king's bed. The king looked thinner than he had even a month before. His voice trembled when he spoke.
"Adrian," he whispered, "you have done well."
Adrian swallowed. "Father, I only do what is expected."
"Expected…" The word drifted weakly from the king's lips. "But you have done more and the kingdom listens to you now. You will be a fine King."
Adrian hesitated, then asked, "Do you still… do you still believe Eric wanted to harm you?"
It was the question that had lingered in his mind for a year, a question he could not ask earlier without fear of reopening wounds the kingdom had tried so desperately to close.
The king's gaze drifted toward him, unfocused.
"Eric…" he whispered.
Adrian's heart sank. He had hoped for clarity, but instead, he felt only the solidification of doubt.
"Rest, Father," he murmured, taking the king's cold hand. "You've done enough."
The king said nothing more. His breathing slowed, steady but fragile.
Athaliah stepped inside moments later, silent as a shadow.