The rhythm of Rowan's days settled quickly after court.
Morning belonged to the hall—petitioners and nobles, ink drying beneath sand, the scrape of Master Oren's quill marking the steady heartbeat of governance.
Afternoon belonged to the archives—cool corridors of stone and cedar, parchment placed into labeled cases, the quiet authority of categorization.
Night belonged to her.
Alara preferred the hours when the castle softened, when torches burned low and even guards spoke in murmurs. She retreated to her quarters, lit a single taper at her desk, and opened texts not assigned to duty but claimed by curiosity.
Margins filled beneath her hand—observations, cross-references, constellations traced from one era to the next.
Rowan's history did not run in straight lines.
It spiraled.
Three days after the maritime petitions, a summons arrived as she finished sealing the afternoon's transcripts.
"The king requests your presence in his private office," the attendant said.
Alara inclined her head. No surprise touched her expression.
Royal summons were not rare for her post.
As she crossed the corridor toward the western wing, possibilities arranged themselves with practiced ease: clarification on maritime precedents, petitions from famine years, tax revisions from the Second Dynasty, boundary maps of the eastern forest territories.
The needs of a crown were endless.
The king's private office lay beyond carved oak doors guarded by two silent sentries. They opened at her approach.
Inside, the room was lined with maps and celestial charts. A wide desk of dark wood stood near a tall window overlooking the inner courtyard. Candles burned steadily in the fading light.
King Alistair stood behind the desk.
Queen Ellena sat beside him, hands folded with composed precision.
"Your Majesty. Your Grace," Alara said, bowing.
"Keeper," the king replied.
His gaze held hers not as ruler to servant, but as one steward of legacy to another.
"You know the custom," he said.
"I do."
Queen Ellena rose, the green of her gown whispering across the floor. "Caspian has reached his twenty-first year."
Alara met her gaze evenly. "Then it is time."
Each royal, upon reaching that age, was entrusted with the ancient histories—not the polished versions recited at festivals, not the simplified lineages taught in public study, but the sealed record: star-led migrations, prophecies preserved in coded script, founding accounts bound beneath iron and oath.
"I want you to begin his instruction tomorrow night," King Alistair said. "Privately."
"It will be done."
She had anticipated this moment since the prince's twenty-first year turned. Tradition did not allow for vagueness. The timing was exact.
The king studied her a beat longer. "You will determine the order of study."
"I already have," she said.
A flicker—approval, perhaps—crossed his face.
"Then we are agreed."
Alara bowed once more and withdrew.
The restricted archives lay beyond a narrow passage concealed behind a pivoting shelf in the library's eastern wing. Iron hinges groaned softly as she unlocked the door with the slender key worn at her throat beneath her mantle.
Only two possessed matching keys.
The king.
And the Keeper.
The air within was older—drier, denser, as if it remembered breath. The shelves were not as tall here, but thicker, reinforced. Volumes bound in dark leather rested behind latticework panels. Some bore no titles at all.
Alara moved with quiet familiarity and chose three texts.
The Founding Under the Winter Sky.
The Covenant of the First Crown.
On the Choosing of Queens.
At the last she paused, fingertips resting against its spine.
Not yet.
She slid it back into place.
For a first lesson, there would be foundation: Rowan's first king guided by celestial convergence; the battle beneath falling stars; the woman who became queen—not appointed by decree, but revealed by alignment.
That lesson could wait.
Alara gathered the chosen volumes and, lantern extinguished, resealed the chamber.
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Night had settled over the eastern gardens.
Stone paths cut through trimmed hedges and winter-bare trees. Lanterns glowed along the walkways, their light soft against the silver wash of moon. Above, the sky opened wide and unobstructed.
Rowan's true ceiling.
Prince Caspian stood near the reflecting pool at the garden's center. He wore dark blue, less adorned than in court, though fine gold thread at his collar still traced star patterns. No crown. The sword remained at his hip.
"Keeper," he said as she approached.
"Your Highness." She inclined her head and gestured toward a stone bench half sheltered by climbing ivy. He joined her without hesitation.
She set the first volume across her lap and opened it.
"The founding of Rowan," she began, voice measured and clear, "did not begin with conquest. It began with convergence."
His attention fixed on the page.
"On the longest night of winter, beneath a sky unrecorded before or since, the constellations shifted. What had been scattered aligned."
She angled the book so he could see the illustration: a crowned blade beneath crossing stars.
"The first king was not yet king. He was a commander of a fractured people. It was said he followed neither land nor rumor, but light."
Caspian leaned closer to examine the drawing—closer than necessary.
Alara continued without pause.
"He led his followers across the northern plains, guided by the pattern overhead. When the stars halted, so did he. Here. Where Rowan now stands."
A faint breeze stirred, carrying cold stone and distant pine.
"The woman who would become queen stood among those who arrived. She was not declared. She was recognized."
Caspian's shoulder nearly brushed hers as he bent over the text. His focus appeared fixed on the page, yet the space between them narrowed by choice, not accident.
"Recognized how?" he asked.
"By the sky," Alara replied. "The alignment shifted again upon her presence. A secondary convergence—recorded by five witnesses whose accounts remain consistent."
She turned the page.
His hand rested on the bench behind her—close, but not touching. In the winter air, his warmth was perceptible.
She did not move away.
"The first king did not choose his queen," she continued. "He accepted what was revealed."
Silence lingered.
The nearest lantern flickered.
Caspian's voice lowered. "And if the sky does not reveal?"
"It always reveals," she said.
His gaze lifted from the page to her profile.
The closeness was deliberate now. Intentional.
A question held behind his breath.
Alara closed the book gently. "This is only the beginning. Tomorrow we will examine the star maps recorded during the first coronation."
He stood as well, not retreating until the last moment required it.
"Of course," he said.
But something had shifted.
Not impropriety.
Not yet.
Only awareness.
As they parted beneath the vast, listening sky, Alara felt it—subtle as gravity.
A pull.
Unmeasured.