Chapter 129: A Place To Root

Morning arrived without ceremony.

It slipped into the palace the way it always did, curling around stone corridors and resting where it was welcome. By the time Ilaria stirred, the world had already decided to be kind. The night’s heaviness had thinned into something manageable, folded neatly away with the memory of shared dinner, low voices, and the familiar comfort of Levan’s presence beside her as midnight passed and sleep finally claimed them both.

The solarium greeted them.

Not the harsh glare of noon, but the gentle gold of early morning filtered through tall glass panes veined with age. Sunlight spilled across leaves and pale stone, catching on dew that clung stubbornly to the greenery. The windows stood open, just enough to let a breeze wander through whilst carrying the scent of earth and flowering citrus.

Ilaria was sitting at the tea table, cradling the porcelain mug of steamed coffee to warm her hands.

They had come here together.

At the near edge, Levan lingered by the windows as he always did, his gaze resting somewhere beyond the glass where the light pooled brightest. Ilaria did not interrupt. She had learned the shape of this silence and knew he needed a moment to just bask in the presence that once filled this place.

When he finally turned, it was with the faintest exhale, as though he had closed a door only he could see. His eyes softened when they found her at the tea table. She always looked like this in the mornings. The light loved her shamelessly, and she looked like something the sun had decided to keep.

He had noticed it long ago and never stopped noticing. How mornings made her gentler somehow, as if the day had not yet asked anything of her; as if she belonged more to the quiet than to the noise she always was. No matter how brightly she burned by day, it was in these unguarded moments that she rooted herself deepest in him.

He had not known the solarium could feel like this again. Alive, but not restless. Warm, but without ache. For years it had been a preserved space, carefully maintained yet untouched in spirit. A place that remembered his mother too well to accept anyone else. The chair by the table had always been hers in his mind, even when it stood empty.

And now Ilaria sat there, the room gathered around her like it had been waiting, wholly at ease. The sight struck him with a finality he did not resist. Perhaps this was never meant to be a replacement, but a continuation. Something gentle carried forward and not erased.

He crossed the solarium in unhurried steps, the light catching in his hair as he came to a stop behind her. His hand came around the back of her shoulders and to her chin, guiding her face up with a touch so gentle it barely qualified as a motion at all. His thumb brushed idly along her jaw, a thoughtless caress he did not seem aware he was giving.

“Will you be alright here by yourself?” He asked.

Ilaria looked up at him and nodded, a small, decisive movement that made her look impossibly earnest. “I’ll be fine,” she beamed. “I have the sun, the plants, and my husband to think about.”

Levan’s lips twitched, because of course she would.

“I won’t be long,” he promised. Duty tugged at him even now, but he did not sound resentful, just resigned. He lifted his other hand, cupping both of her cheeks now. “Don’t get into trouble, alright? Just enjoy the morning.”

She smiled up at him. “Okay~”

Levan bent slightly, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead that earned him a satisfied hum from his wife. His gaze drifted to the neatly arranged delicacies on the cake stand; on the tiny macarons she had baked yesterday that still looked too perfect to eat.

“Stay as long as you like,” he murmured, returning his eyes to her. “I’ll have someone bring more pastries later.”

Ilaria’s nose scrunched in mock indignation. “You’re spoiling me, you know… at this rate, I’ll get fat.”

“I’d rather you be full and happy,” he said simply, moving to peck her lips next. “So eat well. That’s an order.”

She smiled softly, warmth curling in her chest at his casual tenderness. Levan straightened then, already half elsewhere, though his hand squeezed her shoulder once before letting go. When he left, the solarium settled again.

But the princess was not left alone for long.

The final click of the solarium door drew Ilaria’s attention before the sound had even fully registered. She turned, expecting a stray breeze, but found a familiar figure instead.

​”Good morning, Your Highness,” Kathryn greeted, her bow as fluid and practiced as a heartbeat.

​”Kathryn! You’re here!” Ilaria’s face lit up, that unguarded brightness she reserved only for those she truly trusted. She began to rise, but Kathryn waved her back with a soft, knowing look. “I didn’t expect you so soon. I thought I’d be left to my own devices for a while longer.”

​”The prince was… insistent,” Kathryn said delicately, moving toward the table with hands folded. “He asked that I keep you company while he tends to the Council. I found I couldn’t very well refuse a man who looked so relieved to have someone to stand guard in his stead.”

​Ilaria laughed, the sound bright against the quiet stone. “I’m glad you didn’t. It’s a relief to speak with someone without having to weigh every syllable.” She gestured toward the steaming coffee and the spread of sweets. “Sit, please. I was just letting the morning settle.”

​Kathryn lowered herself into the chair opposite, her eyes sweeping over the table with a quiet, approving nod. The solarium felt particularly alive today, not just maintained, but lived-in. “And so you should. This light suits you, princess. That cup looks far too lonely without a second to match it.”

​Ilaria tilted her head, a playful smirk tugging at her lips as she took a slow sip. “If you insist, I suppose I could allow a little company while I indulge.”

​”You’re far too kind,” Kathryn said with a soft chuckle. She reached for the cake stand, her fingers tracing the edge of a porcelain plate before she began to arrange the macarons. Her movements slowed as she looked around the room

For years, this room had only ever held one presence in the early hours. A boy grown into a man who came alone, who stood quietly among the plants with his hands clasped behind his back as if waiting for someone who would never quite arrive.

Kathryn had watched him linger in the mornings, speaking little, touching nothing, letting the light fall over him the way it once had over his mother. Some days he stayed only a few minutes. Other days, long enough for the light to shift. But he always came alone.

“He always preferred the mornings here. It reminds him of simpler times.” She met Ilaria’s eyes then, her gaze steady and warm, touched with something like comfort. “Honestly? Seeing you here with him…” A small smile graced her lips as she offered her a small tart. “It suits him so much.”

​Ilaria accepted the sweet tentatively, her thumb brushing the flaky crust. The compliment had landed somewhere tender and left her unsure where to place it to the point that she did not know how to respond for a moment.

“I—” she began, then laughed softly under her breath, almost embarrassed. “I don’t think I’ve done anything special. I just… sit here.”

Kathryn’s smile only deepened.

Ilaria’s eyes drifted to the sunlit window where he had stood only moments ago, her expression softening. “But I like it here,” she admitted more quietly. “It feels… peaceful. Like the kind of place where you can breathe properly.”

​A quiet tenderness unfurled in her chest, steady and warm as she thought of her husband. “And if it makes things better for him, even a little, then I’m glad.”

She looked back at Kathryn, blushing faintly. “I don’t want to take anything away from what this place was to him,” she added earnestly. “I just want to be here with him when he wants company.”

​Kathryn regarded her for a long moment, a look of understanding crossing her face. “That’s exactly why it works,” she said gently. “He’s always needed someone who could sit beside him without demanding more than he has to give.” She offered a small, knowing smile. “You give him that.”

​The words hung in the air, heavy with truth. Ilaria’s hand stilled over her plate, her gaze dropping to the chair beneath her — the Queen’s chair. It struck her then that she had not hesitated when Levan asked her to sit. She had not felt like a trespasser in a ghost’s sanctuary.

​How quiet the change had been, she thought. I didn’t even hear it happen.

“You’re right,” Ilaria said, her voice finding a new, lyrical steadiness. She looked around the solarium, no longer seeing a gallery of shadows or a museum of the past, but a sanctuary where she was finally permitted to root herself. “He is… very gentle with me.”

Kathryn leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial hum that made the vast room feel small and private. “For him, princess, being ’gentle’ isn’t a choice, it is a reflex. Even when the weight of the crown threatens to bend him double, he remains soft for you. He may not always have the words, but he has the eyes of a hawk for the things he loves. He misses nothing.”

“I think I understand now,” Ilaria murmured, tilting her head as she watched a dust mote dance in a sunbeam. “Why he guards the gates so fiercely… why he studies every shadow. Even mine.”

Kathryn placed the final tart onto the tiered stand with a soft clink of porcelain. “The prince doesn’t keep the world out because he lacks heart, but because he remembers too well the cost of being caught without a shield. But now…” she sighed, her voice turning quieter than ever, “he has someone worth losing his shield for.”

A comfortable silence settled between them, matched only by the lazy stretch of the morning. Outside, the light shimmered across the waxy leaves, scattering gold over the ancient stone.

Snap.

The sound was incredibly faint, just the dry crack of a twig breaking underfoot, but in the quiet solarium, it was enough to make Ilaria’s head snap toward the open windows.

Outside, the waxy leaves of a large citrus bush were trembling, swaying far too violently to be the work of the gentle morning breeze. Deep within the gaps of the branches, a dark shape shifted, lingering just long enough for the feeling of being watched to wash over her like cold water.

“Princess?” Kathryn asked, her voice instantly losing its relaxed cadence. “Is something wrong?”

But by the time Ilaria stood up to look closer, the foliage had stilled, leaving nothing behind but the quiet, mocking rustle of nature.

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