Chapter 346. Nobody Gets to Take Those Memories Away From You

Kaela remained motionless, her profile sharp against the fading afternoon light. William could see her processing his words, her mind visibly weighing the possibility of a father who loved her against the reality of a king who could weaponize her.

The tension in the carriage was palpable, the unspoken question of what awaited them at the palace hanging between them like a guillotine blade.

Finally, she let out a long, shuddering breath. "I want to believe you’re right, Instructor Wade."

"God help me, I need to believe you’re right."

The carriage rolled deeper into the heart of the capital, and the world outside began to transform with startling extravagance. The modest wooden cottages and thatched roofs of the outer settlements vanished, replaced by soaring stone facades that seemed to scrape the very sky.

Massive granite buildings lined the thoroughfares, their windows gleaming like watchful eyes. Grand fountains erupted in marble basins at major intersections, spraying arcs of crystal water that caught the sunlight, while towering statues of ancient heroes stood sentinel over the streets, monuments designed to remind every passerby of the kingdom’s enduring power and legacy.

The streets themselves were marvels of engineering: wide, polished stone boulevards carved to impress foreign dignitaries and to facilitate the seamless movement of royal processions.

As they pressed forward, the crowd grew thicker, the air filling with the hum of a city that never truly slept.

As the carriage passed, a remarkable thing happened. The citizens, merchants arranging their wares, laborers carrying heavy loads, and children playing in the gutters all seemed to notice the distinctive royal crest emblazoned on the carriage’s side.

Without prompting, a wave of deference swept through the crowd. People paused, bowing their heads or offering respectful curtsies. It wasn’t the stiff, hollow performance William had witnessed from Prince Alden’s honor guard the previous night; there was something raw and unforced about this.

The respect felt earned, a spontaneous acknowledgment of the bloodline they possessed.

William watched the faces pressed against the windows, noting the warm, genuine smiles directed toward the occupants.

"They actually like you," he observed quietly, surprised by the lack of resentment in their eyes. "There’s a genuine affection here, Kaela."

"That’s not something you can force with a decree."

Kaela watched them with a bittersweet expression.

"My family has spent centuries trying to earn that," she said, her voice carrying a note of quiet pride mixed with exhaustion. "Whatever else proves to be true about the politics, the betrayal, or the schemes... I don’t think that part is fake."

"The people’s loyalty to the crown is real, even when the crown itself feels like it’s crumbling."

They passed through a sprawling public market square, a chaotic symphony of shouting vendors, clattering cart wheels, and the overwhelming aroma of spices, fresh bread, and roasted meats. Kaela suddenly pointed toward a specific bakery stall nestled between two larger buildings.

"I used to sneak out with the stable boys to buy pastries from that exact stand when I was younger," she said, a genuine spark of mischief lighting up her eyes. "In retrospect, our security detail was embarrassingly terrible."

"They somehow let a nine-year-old princess wander off into the middle of a crowded market without noticing."

"My father was absolutely furious when he found out he nearly had the guards reassigned, but then he laughed about it so hard a week later that he made the baker deliver pastries to the palace every week after that."

"Just so I wouldn’t feel the need to risk my life for a cinnamon roll again."

A small laugh escaped William’s throat. "That sounds like a rare moment of genuine humanity in all that palace madness."

"It was," Kaela said, though her voice quickly softened as the memory faded. "It was a good memory."

"And that’s what makes this so painful, Instructor Wade."

"I have so many of them. A lifetime of moments that feel warm and safe."

"I suppose that’s why yesterday hit as hard as it did... My mind keeps trying to use those memories as armor, but they keep shattering against the reality of what’s happening now."

"How do I reconcile the father who brought me pastries with the king who arranged a marriage behind my back like I was nothing more than a piece on a game board?"

The question hung between them, heavy and unanswered. William looked at her, seeing not a princess, but a young woman caught between two irreconcilable truths.

Without thinking, he reached across the narrow space between them and squeezed her hand. His grip was firm, warm, and deliberately steady, a physical anchor in the storm of her uncertainty.

"Whatever the reason turns out to be... whether it’s a grand conspiracy or a desperate necessity, those good memories don’t stop being real," William said, his voice dropping to a low, determined register. "Those moments belonged to you."

"They were yours. Nobody gets to take those away from you, Kaela."

"Not the king, not the court, and certainly not some bad news."

Kaela looked down at their joined hands, then back up at him. For the first time since they had left the academy, the tightness in her shoulders seemed to ease, if only fractionally.

A small, fragile smile touched her lips, a genuine expression of gratitude that reached her eyes.

"Thank you, William," she whispered. "I think... I think I really needed to hear that."

As the carriage began its final ascent toward the palace summit, the horizon was suddenly consumed by the sheer, overwhelming magnitude of the royal seat. William found himself momentarily breathless.

He had seen castles before, but this was something else entirely: a mountain of stone and gold carved into an expression of absolute dominion.

Towering spires, capped in plates of gleaming gold, pierced the sky like the spears of gods, catching the amber light of the dying afternoon sun and scattering it across the landscape in dazzling, prismatic flashes.

On either side of the long, ascending approach road lay sprawling formal gardens of impossible complexity. They were arranged with a meticulous, almost mathematical precision that bordered on the obsessive.

Hedges were trimmed into elaborate, sweeping topiary shapes: great green dragons and flowing waves that seemed to move as the carriage passed. Fountains erupted at regular intervals, throwing fine, glittering sprays of water into the air that created miniature rainbows in their wake.

Everything about the approach screamed of absolute control: every leaf trimmed, every stone placed, every drop of water measured.

"It’s a lot, I know," Kaela said quietly, her voice cutting through William’s awe.

She was watching his face, reading the shock written across his features. "I stopped really seeing it after a while."

"When you grow up inside a monument like this, the grandeur becomes background noise... You get used to the scale until it stops feeling real."

"Though..." A bitter smile touched her lips. "I suppose it is objectively absurd."

"My father once told me that the western wing alone contains more rooms than most entire villages have buildings."

William shook himself out of his trance, glancing at the endless rows of windows passing by. "That’s a genuinely alarming statistic."

"How does anyone ever find their way home?"

"You don’t," she replied with a dry chuckle. "You just learn which corridors belong to which family."

"And wait until we reach the ballroom. It could comfortably hold the entire academy inside it twice over and still have room for a parade."

As they entered the inner sanctum of the palace grounds, rows of palace guards lined the final stretch of the approach. They stood at rigid, formal attention, their armor polished to such a mirror-like shine that the sunlight reflected off them in blinding bursts.

At the moment the carriage drew level with them, they snapped to sharp, synchronized salutes, the sound of steel against leather echoing like a single heartbeat.

William watched them with a hunter’s eye, his instincts immediately cataloging the details. After his unsettling encounter with Prince Alden’s honor guard the previous night, his mind was hypersensitive to deception.

These guards, however, carried themselves differently. Where Alden’s men had been watchful, coiled like vipers ready to strike at any wrong move, these soldiers possessed a relaxed, natural bearing.

Their confidence wasn’t performative; it was foundational. They weren’t bracing for a threat; they were simply occupying their space.

’That’s what normal looks like,’ William thought grimly. ’Whatever was wrong with Alden’s guards yesterday, that tension, that hidden hostility, it wasn’t protocol.’

’It was something else entirely. Something dangerous.’

Kaela let out a long, slow breath as the palace’s massive main gates loomed ahead. The familiar sight of her home seemed to press against her, the weight of centuries of tradition and family secrets threatening to crush her composure.

For a moment, the mask of the confident princess slipped, revealing the raw vulnerability beneath. Her fingers traced the seam of her dress absently, a telltale sign of nerves she rarely showed.

"Whatever we’re about to hear in there," she said, her voice dropping to a soft murmur that barely carried over the rumbling of the wheels. "Whatever truth my father has been hiding behind all this gold and stone..."

"I’m glad I don’t have to hear it alone."

There was a tremor in her voice, not of fear, but of the profound exhaustion that comes from holding oneself together for too long.