The silence after Elias's words didn't last long.
"Well, well," a smooth voice came from the doorway. "I thought only I was accused of keeping secrets."
The children whipped around. King Renard leaned against the frame, arms crossed, a faint smirk tugging his lips. Behind him, Queen Seliora glided in, her veil lifted just enough to reveal an amused curve to her mouth.
"You were listening?!" Elen protested.
"Of course," Seliora said serenely. "Your voices carry like bells. Half the palace probably heard."
Leya flushed crimson. "That's—that's private!"
Renard chuckled, stepping closer, his eyes flicking knowingly between Elias and the children. "Private or not, I can't blame you. Possessiveness runs in the family."
Seliora hummed in agreement, her hand brushing his arm. "And yet," she said softly, "we lose to them. Entirely."
Renard's gaze lingered on Lucien, who stood defiantly close to Elias, then at Elen and Leya, both bristling like cornered cats. He gave a small sigh, shaking his head. "I thought I was possessive. Turns out I'm nothing compared to three children who glare at every girl near you like executioners."
Elias, calm as ever, simply closed his eyes. "You should not encourage them."
But Renard only laughed. "Encourage? Elias, I envy them."
---
By the next morning, Elias was already prepared to leave. His letter—sent by pigeon two days earlier—would have reached Nia by now. The children clung to him longer than usual, demanding promises he didn't give, while Renard muttered something about "taking half his soul away" with this departure.
Still, Elias's will was unshaken. With a gesture, the transport spell folded light around him, and in the blink of an eye, he was gone.
---
Far away, in a quiet estate on the kingdom's eastern border.
Nia sat at her father's bedside, smoothing the sheets with trembling hands. Her eyes were bright, too bright, as if fire had been stoked behind them. The letter lay open on her lap—his handwriting, his name.
"He's coming," she whispered, leaning close to the still form of her father. "Father… he's coming. Elias is really coming."
The man lay motionless, his breaths shallow. But as she grasped his hand, she felt it—a twitch of his finger.
Her breath caught. "Doctor! Doctor!" she shouted, her voice cracking. The household erupted in hurried steps, physicians rushing in, but Nia stayed where she was, clutching that hand as if it were a lifeline.
Her cheeks were flushed, her body restless. She caught sight of her reflection in the polished silver mirror—hair hastily combed, dress chosen too quickly, lips bitten red from nerves. She looked beautiful, but she didn't care about beauty in the ordinary sense. She cared about him seeing her.
Her heart thundered in her chest. What if he thinks I've changed? What if he doesn't look at me? The thought made her bite her lip harder. Then, just as quickly, a dangerous little smile tugged her mouth. No… he will. He must. He's mine.
---
The air shimmered.
Elias stepped into the estate, his figure materializing from light. His eyes swept the chaos—servants rushing, physicians crowding, the sound of Nia's voice cutting sharp through it all.
Then she saw him.
Her breath stopped.
"Elias!"
Before she could think, she was already running. Her skirts caught on the polished floor, but she didn't care. She collided into him with all her strength, arms wrapping around his neck. For one breathless instant, she buried her face against him, the warmth of his presence breaking through years of solitude.
Then, as if realizing what she'd done, she froze. Heat rushed to her cheeks. She pulled back just enough to see his face, eyes wide, lips trembling between a shy smile and something far more dangerous.
"I—I didn't mean to—" she stammered, voice breaking into a nervous laugh.
But her arms didn't let go.
Not even for a second.
---
Elias's arms settled lightly against her back, neither rejecting nor returning her desperate grip. When her trembling slowed, he stepped past her, his gaze turning toward the bed.
The man lying there was gaunt, his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. Elias moved closer, his steps quiet, measured, as though even the sound of his boots might disturb the fragile thread that bound life to the body.
"Sir," he said softly, his voice carrying a weight it rarely held.
The eyelids twitched. The hand on the coverlet stirred weakly, a finger shifting against the sheet.
Nia gasped. "Father—! You see? He hears you!" She clasped his hand again, her eyes wide and wet.
The doctors hurried forward, murmuring to one another as they examined him. At last, one bowed slightly to Elias and Nia. "There is hope, my lady. His nerves are responding. The medicine can be taken to the next stage now that there is reaction. But… it will take time."
Nia's lips trembled between a laugh and a sob. She pressed her forehead to her father's hand. "Did you hear that, Father? You're coming back to me. You'll see Elias with your own eyes again."
Elias remained still, watching the faint stir of breath in the man's chest. He could sense it too—the struggle of a will that hadn't fully surrendered. Something unspoken pressed at the edge of the silence, as though the man wanted to speak but was still shackled to weakness. Elias did not push. Hope was enough—for now.
He stepped back, his calm eyes shifting to Nia. "He will recover."
She turned to him, her face lit with a smile so bright it almost hurt to look at. "Because you're here," she said without hesitation, as though it were absolute truth.
Elias didn't answer.
---
Later, when the physicians had withdrawn and the servants quieted, the two of them sat together in the chamber's outer hall. The moonlight fell across Nia's veil of hair as she leaned closer, her eyes shining with restless happiness.
"Three years," she breathed. "Three years without you, Elias. Do you know how empty it felt? Every day I thought of you. Every night I wished you were here." Her fingers twisted together in her lap, restless. "And now—now you're here, and Father will wake again. It's like… everything I prayed for at once."
Elias regarded her with his usual stillness. "What did you do, in those years?"
The question opened her like floodgates. She told him of the estate's struggles, of keeping retainers loyal, of the constant fear that her father would slip away in his sleep. She spoke of sleepless nights bent over ledgers, of standing in council chambers where men twice her age dismissed her words, of swallowing fury and smiling coldly until they bent to her will.
"But none of it mattered," she admitted finally, her voice soft. "Because I didn't have you. I kept thinking—what would Elias do? What would he say? That's how I endured."
Her hand, without thinking, brushed against his sleeve.
"And you?" she asked, her eyes searching his face with sharp, almost desperate intensity. "What did you do all this time away from me?"
Elias looked past her, out the window where the night sky stretched deep and endless. His voice was steady. "I trained. I fought. I survived."
Nia's lips curved in a small, breathless laugh. "Of course you did." She leaned closer, her gaze unblinking, drinking him in as though to memorize every line of his face.
He let her look. His own thoughts drifted back to the bed behind them—the faint twitch of fingers, the struggle hidden beneath shallow breaths. He wants to speak. He will. In time.
For now, Elias allowed himself a rare thing. He let the calmness of her smile, and the fragile hope filling the house, settle into the silence.
---