The Queen chose the gardens.
Not the grand ones that faced the city, nor the ceremonial terraces meant for foreign eyes, but the inner gardens, old and enclosed, where the hedges had grown tall enough over centuries to listen better than they showed. It was there she walked now, unescorted, unannounced, wearing no crown and no colors that marked her station, as if restraint itself were a performance.
Those who found her there did not mean to.
That was the point.
Lord Maerion encountered her first, or so he would later claim, though Kaelen suspected the meeting had been engineered with far more care than accident allowed. The Queen greeted him as if no years had passed, as if she had never left, as if absence were a pause rather than a rupture. She asked after his health, his house, his grandchildren. She did not speak of the throne. She did not speak of her return. She listened, and in that listening, she allowed Maerion to feel reasonable, compassionate, necessary.
Others followed. A lady of the western provinces, a scholar who specialized in ancestral law, a pair of minor nobles whose loyalty could be bought with recognition rather than gold. Each left the garden unsettled in the same way, carrying the same thought they did not yet recognize as planted: perhaps her absence has been punishment enough.
Kaelen learned of these meetings the way he learned everything now — through fragments, through silences, through patterns that revealed themselves only when he stopped hoping for coincidence.
"She never asks," a servant said quietly, eyes lowered. "She only wonders aloud."
That infuriated him more than open demand ever could have.
He confronted Lady Saerwyn in the west hall, his steps sharp, his voice tight. "She is speaking to them."
Saerwyn did not deny it. "Yes."
"You allow this?"
"I observe it," she corrected. "As you do."
Kaelen turned away, pacing. "She is shaping sentiment. Softening resistance. If she gathers enough support, they will force Father's hand."
"They may try," Saerwyn said. "But the King has not wavered."
Kaelen stopped. "He is tired."
The word hung between them, heavy and undeniable.
That evening, Kaelen went to his father's chambers.
The King was seated by the window, reading, though Kaelen suspected he had been staring through the page for some time. He looked up when Kaelen entered, a faint smile touching his lips.
"You walk like someone preparing for war," the King said gently.
Kaelen did not return the smile. "She is moving."
The King's eyes lowered. He did not ask who.
"I know," he said after a moment.
That surprised Kaelen. "Then why do you allow it?"
"Because forbidding her would make her a martyr," the King replied. "And because the court needs to see her clearly before it decides."
Kaelen's hands curled at his sides. "They are deciding already."
"Yes," the King said softly. "And so are you."
Kaelen said nothing. There was no denial to offer.
Later, in the east wing, Elenya sat with a book she could not focus on, her fingers tracing the same line again and again. She had noticed the change too — the way people looked at her now, some with warmth, others with calculation. A lady she barely knew had smiled at her today and said, "You must be so proud of your mother."
The words had left her hollow.
When Kaelen appeared in the doorway, she stood immediately. "Your Highness—"
"Who has spoken to you?" he asked.
She blinked. "About what?"
"About your mother."
Elenya hesitated. "Many people."
"Who," he pressed, stepping closer.
She swallowed. "They ask me what she is like. If she is kind. If she misses the kingdom."
"And what do you say?"
"I don't know," she said, voice small. "I don't remember her."
The honesty struck him harder than any lie could have.
Kaelen closed his eyes briefly. For a moment — only a moment — the anger faltered, replaced by something dangerously close to grief. Then it hardened again, sharper for having been threatened.
"Listen to me," he said quietly. "No matter what they tell you, no matter how they speak of her, you are not to answer. Not to anyone. Do you understand?"
Elenya nodded, fear flickering across her face. "Am I in trouble?"
"No," he said. "You are in danger."
She did not ask from whom.
That night, Kaelen stood once more on the balcony, the city spread beneath him, the palace behind him alive with whispers and slow, deliberate motion. The Queen was not rushing. She did not need to. Time was doing the work for her, and patience had always been her sharpest weapon.
He understood now what this would cost.
Not a debate. Not a decree.
A stand.
And as the wind carried the distant sounds of the court settling into uneasy sleep, Kaelen made his decision, alone, without counsel, without comfort, knowing that whatever came next would define not only the fate of the throne, but the shape of the man he was becoming.