CHAPTER 58: WHAT THE MORNING LEFT BEHIND

Levan returned to his sleeping chamber once the sun had climbed high enough to pale the curtains. The air still held the faint chill of dawn, but his head felt clearer. He had washed away what remained of the night. Everything, from the haze, the self-reproach, the strange heaviness that had refused to leave his chest...

And then he tried to put himself back in order. No matter how much he was still reeling from the death of that woman and his guilt towards his wife, there were still a dozen things waiting for him outside these walls. Lots of letters; lots of reports. A kingdom that did not rest.

He pushed the door open, expecting silence to finally settle in his chambers. He had imagined that the small, domestic order of the morning would be a balm. He imagined too that she would have taken his cue, to retreat to her room to mend and sleep off the sorrow, and that the palace would resume its steady, indifferent spin.

But she was still there.

Ilaria stood by the edge of the sofa, her hair loose from its pins, the silk of her gown creased, the fabric holding the memory of movement. Her slippers peeked beneath the hem; the picture of someone caught between sleep and morning.

She had not been ready for him, had not anticipated his need to contain the world for a while last night. But she had been present, waiting, and the sight of it struck him with a sudden, humiliating tenderness.

She looked up when he entered, eyes wide, no longer brimming with the tears she had shed. "...Are you okay now?" Was the first thing she asked.

He might have trained himself to answer every threat with steel, but he had not trained himself for this soft enquiry. Yet, instead of the measured dismissal he rehearsed in the hollow of his mind, something sharper cut through. It bore neither cruelty nor contempt, only a raw practicality that wore the shape of reprimand.

"You shouldn’t still be here," he said, his voice roughened from disuse as he closed the door to his sleeping chamber.

Her fingers fidgeted against each other as she stood up. "I wanted to see if you were all right."

He let out a quiet breath. "You should’ve gone back to your room."

"...I know," she said carefully. "I just couldn’t yet."

He said nothing for a while. Then, instead of arguing, he crossed the room to pour himself a cup of water and drank it to soothe his sore throat. The sound filled the space between them.

When he finally turned back to her, his tone had shifted. The edge from earlier was gone; the stiffness replaced by something steadier. "I’ll have someone send your breakfast, so you don’t have to go to the kitchens today," he told her. "I’ll be gone for a while, so don’t linger here."

Her head lifted at that, hesitant. "Gone?"

"Mm, just to settle a few things," he nodded, placing the glass back down and walked to her. "I’ll tell your maids to fetch you later and take you back to your chamber."

It was not a request, but it was not cold either. His voice had returned to its usual calm, faintly gruff, but undoubtedly whole again. It was the sound of him she recognized, and the relief that flickered through her chest almost startled her.

"Ah— alright," she said quickly, nodding once, then the second time, as if to prove to him that she would not disobey.

He watched her longer still. Her hair still held a few stubborn tangles; her cheeks bore the faint map of sleep and the morning’s tears. His hand moved before he could talk himself out of it, fingers finding the pins at the crown of her head to ease them free, then smoothing stray strands until her hair lay obedient and neat again.

When he finally looked down, his gaze was softer somehow as he searched her eyes. "Don’t let it sit in you," he murmured, his thumb brushing the side of her face where a tear had dried. "Don’t rent that hollow any more space than it needs. What happened earlier was mine to botch. I will answer for it. But you mustn’t replay it until it eats you."

Ilaria’s lashes fluttered as she stared at him, at the man who could sound so calm yet carry the weight of remorse behind every word. She had not expected him to speak gently, not after all that had passed. "...Okay," she whispered and managed a small smile.

His gaze lingered a moment longer, tracing the faint curve of her lips, barely a smile, but enough to soften something in him. As if he was satisfied, his thumb brushed over it once, a quiet, fleeting touch, before he drew back and turned away.

"Eat properly," he said over his shoulder, the words gentler than they sounded.

And though she only nodded again as she watched him retreat behind the doors, her heart had already eased. The morning had its rhythm again, but more importantly, his voice had its weight again.

He was back to being Levan, though maybe...slightly softer.

When he left, the room did not feel empty; it only felt paused. The air still carried the warmth of his breath and the faint trace of his voice lingering where he last stood. She should have gone too, her maids would be arriving later. But as she waited on the sofa, her gaze caught something on the desk by the window.

The morning light trembled against something tucked beneath a stack of papers, an edge of parchment browned by time. She only meant to straighten it, yet when she drew it free, her hand stopped.

It was a letter. The wax seal was cracked at its edge but unbroken. The name written across it in soft, precise strokes.When she turned it over, the ink had already faded, but the scrawl at the back still breathed faintly through the years:

A letter from Queen Illyra Serenthine Veyraen to her third son.

The script was hurried, almost tender, the way one might label something too dear to lose. Ilaria’s thumb lingered over the word’third’, a small, unassuming thing that suddenly made the air around her feel different.

She had seen that name before, carved beneath the portrait in the west hall, the woman everyone spoke of in lowered voices, as though even her memory could stir ghosts.

Ilaria did not mean to pry, yet her fingers hesitated, tracing the seal as if it could answer the questions that haunted her husband’s silence.

Why had he never opened it? Why keep it here, within reach, and never touch it?

Before the thought could finish, a gentle knock stirred her back to herself. Her maid’s soft voice carried through the door. She was asked to return to her chamber, and that breakfast was waiting.

Thus the letter went back beneath the papers, precisely where it had been as she decided not to disturb his belongings and privacy, though her pulse took longer to quiet.

~×~

The first thing she did after returning to her chamber was, as always, to bathe.

The water was warm and still, scented with rosemary and a hint of milk. Ilaria sank into it with a sigh, her skin prickling at the touch of calm. The maid had gone to fetch a towel; leaving the room in silence, filled only by the slow drip from the edge of the tub and the muted rhythm of her own breathing.

She leaned back and let her head rest against the porcelain as she let any thoughts that disturbed her go mute, obediently listening to her husband’s advice. Her hair spread around her like something pale and weightless, the scent of the bath bomb blooming around her in faint swirls.

It should have been peaceful. It almost was.

Until the silence bent.

At first, it was only hum, low and shapeless, trembling beneath the surface of the water. Then it shifted into something even bolder — words. Too soft to her ears. Too wet for her skin. And too close for her comfort.

"Ilaria."

Her eyes opened sharply. The ceiling was there. The light had not changed. But the sound was not gone; it pressed against her from inside the water as though it was trying to drown her. Her own reflection staring up at her from below, mouth parted, eyes unblinking.

"The crown...Queen...death..."

It was happening again.

But before it could escalate into something horrific, the door opened, the sound of her maid calling for her pulling her back to the present. Only then did the water feel still again. Ilaria sat up with a gasp, breath breaking, heart hammering, the scent of rosemary suddenly felt sharp and wrong.

The maid hurried to her side, unaware of the way the bathwater still trembled behind her as if something had just slipped away unseen.

The maid fussed with the towel, murmuring small, practical things about warmth and drying, while Ilaria wrapped herself in linen and tried to breathe through the tremor that still clung to her skin. Her fingers found the opal at her throat and lingered there, seeking the old comfort of her mother’s voice that had once promised safety.

The stone felt ordinary and human under her palm, not an anchor, only a small, cool circle of light against a chest that wanted to believe the world could be ordered and kind.

She dressed with mechanical care as she stared at herself in the mirror, every movement a plea for normalcy. The letter’s folded edge tugged at the corner of her mind, a secret kept in somebody else’s drawer, and the bath’s thin echo of speech slid behind her ribs like a second heartbeat.

Whoever had spoken her name through water had carried no malice; it was more like the sound carrying knowledge. Knowledge that certain things in this palace breathed in the dark and named their favourites before they were meant to be known.

At the threshold, the corridor lanterns threw a staccato of gold along the floorboards. Ilaria hesitated, listening for any remainder of the voice, any proof that the world had not merely been cruel in jest. Nothing answered but the distant clink of trays and the measured footfalls of servants attending to mornings.

There are rooms in royal houses that keep their grief close, she thought. Some doors open for a last time and never admit sunlight again. She laid the thought down like a small offering and shook her head. She told herself it had been nothing but the Blithe trying to manipulate her again.

But her reflection in the mirror did not blink when she did. And for the briefest second, it smiled.