# Chapter 32
The King's own health began its quiet decline that same winter, though he insisted, for weeks, that it was nothing beyond the natural fatigue of advancing age.
Elena noticed first — the same instinct that had once caught the slight limp in a palace courtyard now catching something far more serious in the slowness of her father's movements, the pauses he took now between sentences that had once flowed effortlessly.
"You're hiding something," she said finally, cornering him in his study.
The King smiled, tired but unsurprised. "I raised a daughter entirely too observant for my own comfort."
"Papa."
He sighed, gesturing for her to sit.
"My heart," he said simply. "The doctors have known for some months. I asked them to wait before telling your mother, and you, and certainly your brother, who has more than enough weighing on him already."
"You can't keep doing this," Elena said, her voice breaking slightly. "Keeping secrets to protect us. It never protects anyone. It only means we lose the chance to spend the time we have left honestly."
The King reached for her hand, his grip weaker than she remembered, but no less warm.
"You're right," he said. "I learned that lesson rather late in life. I intend not to repeat the mistake."
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That evening, the full family gathered — the King, the Queen, Marcus in his chair by the window, Elena and Angelo beside him — and for the first time, no one in the room carried a secret larger than the ones already, painfully, shared.
"We don't know how much time any of us have," the King said, looking at each of them in turn. "None of us ever truly do. But I find I would rather spend whatever remains honestly, together, than protected and alone."
Marcus reached for his father's hand.
"Then let's spend it well," he said.
No one in the room disagreed.