The court continued on, full of smiles and pleasantries, masks and whispers. Everything looked the same on the surface, the polished floors, the gold embroidery, the measured dances, but Seraphina no longer viewed it through the lens of innocence.
She moved through the palace like someone who had learned how the walls listened. She smiled when expected. She greeted familiar faces. She joined conversations she didn't care about and laughed at jokes she didn't find funny. But her mind stayed sharp, focused. Every name. Every pause. Every shift in tone was a clue.
That version of herself who once clung to tradition was gone. In her place stood someone hardened. Someone who understood that surviving the court meant playing a long game.
The Crown Prince was away, locked in negotiations with the border kings. His absence shifted the balance in the palace. Attention was scattered. Influence drifted. For Seraphina, it was the opening she needed.
She started small. Compliments to minor nobles. Friendly questions to overlooked stewards. Advice offered without expectation. A helping hand to a frazzled lady at the dressmaker's. She never asked for anything in return. But people remembered who stood beside them when no one else did.
Evelyne noticed.
"Cousin," she said one afternoon, intercepting Seraphina at the fountain, all charm and painted ease. "You must attend the charity auction. It would be a shame for House D'Lorien to seem indifferent."
The words were sweet. The warning behind them wasn't.
Seraphina smiled and nodded. "House D'Lorien is honored to contribute."
That evening, she watched the moonlight slide over the windows of her study and thought back to the garden. To Caelan's voice in the quiet.
"You need people loyal to you, not the court. Start with those who owe your house. Bring them in slowly. Don't make a spectacle."
He had said it without judgment. Just facts. And she had listened.
Now, her team was in place. No longer forming, functioning.
Lyria uncovered a discrepancy in the palace expense records. She handed over a list of falsified repair bills with casual disinterest, as if it were a weather report.
Amara observed two minor nobles quietly shifting their alliances. She whispered her observations over breakfast, then slipped away before anyone noticed her at the table.
Dorian found a letter rerouted from her estate and brought it to her personally. He said nothing, but his jaw was tight. Seraphina read the note and knew someone was testing her boundaries.
Siran trailed the courier who had rerouted the letter. He left three names on her desk that evening, none of them were new, but one belonged to someone she had recently forgiven.
Watching them work didn't just give her confidence. It gave her clarity.
She was no longer building a foundation. She was preparing for a siege.
At night, she reviewed her records. Not just ledgers. People. Histories. Debts. Connections. Everything Caelan had warned her to understand.
She remembered standing beside him in the garden, the way the air had felt sharp and honest.
But more than his words, it was his presence that lingered.
There was something about the way Caelan looked at her, direct, steady, like she was the only thing in the world worth focusing on. And she liked it. She liked how grounded he seemed, how trustworthy and calm. The quiet wolf of the north, always observing, never posturing.
There had been moments when their arms had brushed while walking side by side, and she hadn't pulled away. Sometimes she wanted those small touches to linger, to be intentional.
She remembered one afternoon clearly. They were walking through the older garden path, one overgrown and half-forgotten. Moss covered the stones, slick from the rain the night before. Her foot slipped.
Before she could fall, Caelan caught her. His arms locked around her waist, quick and firm. The motion was instinctive, but when she landed against him, time seemed to freeze.
From Caelan's point of view, it was a split-second reaction, reach, brace, protect. But once he had her, once she was in his arms, something shifted. She was warm. Close. The press of her against him was startling in its intimacy. He could feel her breath, short and shallow against his neck, and for a moment, he didn't dare move.
She looked up at him, eyes wide, lips parted just slightly. And gods, she was beautiful. Not in the way courtiers often praised, but in the way she stood steady in storms, in the way she hadn't recoiled from him. There was a pause where neither of them moved. Her fingers brushed his chest for balance, and the contact sent a pulse through his body he didn't expect.
He knew he should let go. Say something dry or dismissive. Reestablish distance.
But he didn't.
He didn't want to.
And she didn't pull away.
They stood like that longer than necessary, his hand still firm at the curve of her back, hers lightly resting on his coat. When she finally stepped away, it wasn't out of discomfort. It was with reluctance.
She smoothed her skirt, as if to gather herself. He cleared his throat, trying not to reach for her again.
They continued walking. But the air had changed.
Neither said anything about it.
They didn't have to.
She could still feel the pressure of his hand long after they parted.
And she had not forgotten how it felt to be seen like that. Like he knew exactly who she was becoming, and didn't flinch.
They proceeded with what they were talking about before she fell.
"He'll think you're just preparing for your role. A duchess in training."
He had been right. Alaric hadn't questioned her new efficiency. He assumed it was ambition. She let him.
They met weekly now, at the edge of the city, in the abandoned manor Caelan had found. Nestled at the foot of the hills, the estate had no official name and no records tying it to her. The tunnel they used to get there was hidden at the back of the estate grounds, a relic from a time before her family had built upward. It wound beneath the trees and opened near a river.
No one checked there. No one listened.
There, Seraphina listened.
Lyria mapped out fiscal shifts. Amara tracked language and sentiment. Dorian guarded the door. Siran stood in the shadow.
This was her team. Her quiet rebellion.
And the court, so used to chaos and grandstanding, barely noticed the movement beneath its own floors.
They still called her polite. Predictable. Fragile.
She let them.
But every small debt she collected, every truth uncovered, every favor repaid with silence, was a step.
And soon, when the moment came, she would be ready.
Not just to survive.
To return.
And Seraphina D'Lorien would not return meekly.
She would rise.
But just as the plan began to settle, another thread threatened to unravel it.
It happened in the court gardens, just off the southern walk. Caelan had finished his sword drills with the city garrison that morning and had taken the longer path through the hedges, wiping a cloth across the cut above his brow. The injury wasn't deep, but it stung, and he'd pulled off his mask for a moment to press the cloth tighter.
He thought the path was clear. Most courtiers weren't up this early.
But Evelyne was.
She turned the corner abruptly, intending to intercept a steward, or perhaps stir another rumor—and stopped short. Her eyes locked on him. On his face.
Caelan froze.
The air between them held.
Her hand twitched at her side. Her expression didn't shift much, but her eyes widened, just slightly. Recognition. And something else, calculation.
He didn't speak.
Neither did she. Not yet.