The court did not argue loudly. It never did. High elves preferred their wars to begin as conversations, carefully measured, wrapped in etiquette and precedent, spoken softly enough that no single voice could be blamed when blood was finally spilled.
It began with a question.
"Why," Lord Aerethiel asked one morning, his tone light, almost curious, as he adjusted the silver clasp at his shoulder, "has Her Majesty not resumed her seat?"
The chamber did not still. It tightened.
Kaelen stood near the eastern pillar, hands folded behind his back, posture perfect, expression unreadable. He had known this moment would come. He had been counting the days, watching the court reassemble itself into shapes he recognized too well: circles forming within circles, glances exchanged just a heartbeat too long, names left unsaid but understood.
"The Queen returned," Aerethiel continued, eyes moving deliberately from one council member to the next, "bearing royal blood, sanctioned lineage, and no formal decree of abdication. And yet the throne remains… vacant."
Vacant was a generous word. The King still ruled, still sat when his strength allowed it, still signed edicts with a hand that trembled only slightly now, but everyone in that chamber understood the implication. The Queen's seat, beside the throne, remained empty by design, not by accident.
Lady Saerwyn responded first, as Kaelen expected she would. She always did when loyalty was on trial.
"Her Majesty abandoned her post," she said calmly. "She abandoned the King. The children. The realm. A crown is not a garment one may discard and reclaim at whim."
Aerethiel smiled faintly. "And yet history tells us otherwise. There are precedents—"
"There are no precedents for treason wrapped in romance," Saerwyn cut in.
A murmur followed. Soft. Dangerous.
Kaelen listened, his gaze fixed ahead, though every word etched itself into him. Loyalists and reformists, traditionalists and pragmatists, all circling the same truth from different angles: the Queen's absence was not merely emotional. It was political. And it was destabilizing.
"What of the child?" another voice asked. Lord Maerion, older, cautious, always careful to sound reasonable. "The daughter born of the Queen. She lives. She bears royal blood. Does her existence not complicate our refusal?"
There it was. Elenya, invoked not as a person, but as a concept.
Kaelen's jaw tightened.
"She complicates nothing," Saerwyn replied. "Blood alone does not grant legitimacy. Conduct does."
"But perception matters," Maerion insisted. "Already the outer provinces whisper. Already envoys ask why the Queen walks freely but rules nowhere. They ask whether the crown fears her."
At that, Kaelen finally moved.
"Fear has nothing to do with it," he said.
The chamber quieted instantly. Not because he shouted — he did not need to — but because when the youngest prince spoke, it was never without consequence.
He stepped forward, emerald eyes sharp, voice steady but cold. "The Queen does not sit the throne because the throne is not hers to reclaim. She forfeited that right the moment she chose herself over the realm."
Aerethiel inclined his head slightly. "Spoken with conviction, Prince Kaelen. But conviction is not law."
"No," Kaelen replied. "But loyalty is."
Silence followed, thicker this time.
Some faces hardened. Others looked away.
He saw it clearly now — the factions were no longer theoretical. They had faces, names, histories. Those who believed the Queen's return should be formalized, sanitized, turned into a political convenience. And those who believed her absence was justice, imperfect but necessary.
And beneath all of it, like rot under marble, lay another question none of them dared ask aloud:
If the Queen returns to power… what becomes of the youngest son who stands in her way?
Kaelen left the chamber before the discussion could resume. He did not need to hear the rest. He already knew how this would unfold — slowly, politely, until it no longer could.
Later that evening, he passed the east wing.
Elenya sat by the window, knees drawn to her chest, staring out at the gardens she was not permitted to enter. She looked smaller than before, as if the walls themselves were pressing inward. When she noticed him, her face lit up instinctively, hope flaring before she could stop it.
He did not return it.
Instead, he saw her as the court did now: a symbol, a fracture point, a living argument.
And somewhere, deep and unwelcome, a thought returned to him, persistent and sharp:
If the Queen truly wishes to reclaim the throne… she will start with the child.
Kaelen turned away, the sound of debate still echoing in his mind, knowing with grim certainty that the question of absence would not remain a question much longer.