"I heard you left your guards behind," he said after a moment, quiet but not unkind.
Maeve nodded, not turning. "I needed to see the forest. Not what people whispered."
"And?" he asked. "What did you see?"
"A man," she said.
Wasn't she there for the flower? The forest housed many stranded men. Why did this man deserve a mention? He raised an eyebrow, but didn't interrupt. 
"A stranger," she continued, voice steady. "He didn't look like a thief. Didn't act like one either. But he didn't belong there. And I think —" She hesitated. "He knows something about the flower, too"
"You're still chasing her ghost," her father said. His voice wasn't angry. Just... tired. "Your mother's obsession wasn't always healthy."
Maeve turned to face him then. Her amber eyes clashed with the matching set. "It wasn't an obsession."
"It was," he asserted, staring at her. "But it was kindness. And it was grief."
That silenced her.
He stepped beside her, gaze following hers out to the fading sky. "Your mother believed the flower could fix everything — disease, death, despair. She believed she could share that power with people. But power like that, Maeve... It's dangerous. It breeds desperation. Desperation turns people cruel."
She knew that. But she also knew what she had seen in her mother's eyes when she was sick, those last days.
It hadn't been fear.
It had been a regret.
"Would you have stopped her?" Maeve asked.
He didn't answer immediately. "I tried. But she wasn't a woman who could be stopped. You remind me too much of her."
Maeve swallowed. The compliment was a blade in disguise.
"Do you think I'm going too far?" she asked quietly.
"I think," he said, "you're asking how far you can go without breaking the crown's rules. And I think you already know the answer."
She closed her eyes for a moment. "And if I bend them?"
"You'll be our daughter," he admitted, more defeated than proud. "And my heart will break. But I'll still be proud."
The silence that followed was heavy. She leaned into it. Into him. Just for a breath.
"But I will stop you when you need to be." His voice warned. "I make no habit of making the same mistake twice."
She stiffened at the promise. And she straightened again. Back to the mask. Back to the plan.
He watched her, but didn't elaborate. He didn't need to. The quiet continued.
For a moment.
Then another.
And then—a knock.
A sharp one.
Her father stepped back just as a guard opened the door, slightly breathless.
"Your Highnesses," he said, directing his words to the father-daughter duo. His eyes strained in her direction the next instant. His voice unmasked with urgency. "A message arrived for you. No name. No seal. It's... odd."
Maeve reached for it, unfolding the paper. Her fingers stilled.
It was a drawing.
Crude. Childlike. But unmistakable.
A flower. Roots tangled around a crown.
And beneath it, two words:
"You know."
She looked up sharply. Her father was watching her. And the paper. Maeve knew he saw the content. This time, his concern was plain and clear.
Maeve folded the paper again, tucking it out of sight.
"I need to go," she said.
"To where?"
But she was already turning.
Back to her chambers.
Back to the forest.
Because this wasn't over.
Not yet.
~*~*~
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