CHAPTER 60: THE PRINCE WHO NO LONGER BOWED

Confused and disturbed by the Swan Divina’s words, the Dowager stepped out of the tower, her steps unsteady on the ancient stone. The early morning sun cast long shadows through the cloistered arches, and standing in one of them was the last person she wished to see.

Leroy.

Tall. Unmoved. His mask gleamed faintly in the sunlight, obscuring all but the sharp glint of green eyes that watched her from the shade.

"Am I unwelcome?" he asked, voice even, unreadable.

The Dowager halted, her breath catching for the briefest moment before she composed herself. "That depends. Were you invited?"

He gave no answer. Just silence... cool, weighty silence. Behind the mask, his gaze held her.

She inhaled deeply, as though exhaling might rid her of whatever ghost had just gripped her ribs. "You didn’t visit me after your return," she said finally, almost softly. "I waited."

Leroy lowered his head, not quite a bow. But the gesture stopped just shy of reverence. Then he turned his face away.

The Dowager’s lips curled into a smile, a graceful smile, poised and practiced. But it trembled at the edges, as if it were stitched too tightly to the skin.

"You should go to the Eastern Plains," she said. "Take your wife. You’ve returned from war. A change of scenery might help you... to remember gentler things."

His response came, sharp and fast.

"The Eastern Plains are crawling with rebels. If I step foot there, I’ll be called a traitor. Perhaps even hanged." He tilted his head, mock-thoughtful. "Have I not lost enough for this Kingdom? Will it end only when my head rolls on the ground?"

Her hand, halfway raised to his masked cheek, faltered. Then fell.

Behind him, Cedric stiffened. The young knight’s eyes flicked between them, trying to read what passed beneath their words. Leroy had always been measured, respectful, especially toward the Dowager. This indifference, this barbed tongue, was new. Unsettling.

Leroy didn’t look at his companion. His eyes remained fixed on the woman before him. The woman who had once held the empire’s fate in her palm. The woman who still moved pieces in silence.

"You didn’t come for me," the Dowager said at last, her eyes landing on the tower. "You came for her."

At that, a flicker passed through Leroy’s gaze, something ancient and pained. "I was told the Swan Divina sees no visitors without an invite," he said. "Yet here you are... Visiting her after a protest outside her doors."

The Dowager’s voice turned to velvet. "We have history," she said, lips lifting in a faint curve. "But you... Not all doors are opened by knocking."

"Then I’ll break this one," Leroy said, lips curling into a smirk. "Am I allowed to do at least that? Or do I need your permission for this, too?"

"Be blessed, Leroy." Her lips quivered, though she masked it with a faint, brittle smile. She patted his arm softly, as if trying to remind him of civility, and walked away without another word.

Cedric lingered a few steps behind, silent as stone but burning with questions.

He didn’t understand Leroy anymore.

This wasn’t the prince who used to laugh under his breath after duels, or who once spent sleepless nights with Zara. That man, sharp, loyal, quietly aching for something he’d never name, seemed to have vanished somewhere after their return.

Now, Leroy moved like someone wearing his own skin wrong. Distant. Cold. Unreadable. He wasn’t spending time with Zara anymore. Not even when she was sick. Not even when she cried.

And now, of all places, he was here.

In the Red-light District. Standing at the threshold of the Swan Divina’s tower, waiting for a seer who was said to accept no visitors.

Cedric’s gaze followed the Dowager’s retreat, her silken robes whispering down the stairs like the echo of a secret.

Something was happening. Something older than crowns or war. He could feel it deep in his bones, in the tension in Leroy’s jaw, in the quiet violence threaded through his words to the Dowager, in the fact that the boy who once obeyed... no longer bowed.

-----

Inside the pearl-lit chamber, still cloaked in incense and silence, the attendant approached the seated figure at the heart of the circular room. Her footsteps barely whispered across the smooth marble.

"You were harsh on her today," she said softly.

The Divina reclined against the curved back of her chair, exhaling a faint, amused breath. "Mm... she’s a tough shell to crack. She’s still not telling me what she’s hiding."

The attendant reached forward and began to carefully lift the veil from the Divina’s face. "And love..." she murmured, hesitating as she spoke the word. "I didn’t think the Dowager still believed in it."

The Divina’s lips which were painted the shade of the darkest of red, curled into a wry smile. Her brows arched, elegant and expressive. "I’ve heard the stories. How she loved her husband more than her own skin. And yet, what did she get? Rumors. Bastards. Betrayal. Never his love. She turned herself into a monster, just to keep the throne safe from the children her husband scattered like coins on a tavern floor." She looked past the air, almost mournfully. "I pity her. And... I understand her, too."

For someone who grew up hearing the fantasy of love taming a beast, she might have wanted a tamed beast for herself. But beasts couldn’t be tamed, certainly, not by love.

The attendant, clad in white, a stark contrast to the shadows clinging to the chamber walls, knelt before her. She looked up, her face shadowed with worry. "And you, Milady..." she whispered, voice tight with something unspoken. "Do you think she’ll kill you?"

The veil slipped fully from the Divina’s head. The purple crystal lamps above flickered, then caught her face in full glow.

Lorraine.

Eyes like sea-glass gleamed beneath the shimmer of prophecy. Her face, both too young and too weary for her age, held the beauty of someone carved by sorrow and survival.

Here was no myth, no untouchable saint. Just a woman, fragile and burning beneath a crown no one could see.