Chapter 347. Don’t Let Me Hide From My Own Life

William didn’t hesitate. He reached out, catching her gaze and holding it with a fierce, unwavering intensity.

He wanted her to see the conviction in his eyes, to feel the solidity of his resolve.

"You won’t," he promised, his voice dropping to a low, steel-edged register that brooked no argument. "I’m not going anywhere, Kaela."

"Whatever it is... whatever lies, whatever ultimatums, whatever impossible choices he throws at you, we’ll face it together."

The carriage rolled to a smooth, final stop at the base of the palace’s monumental entrance stairs. The engine of the carriage died, leaving behind a silence so sudden and profound it felt like a physical weight pressing against their eardrums.

As the door swung open, the crisp afternoon air rushed in, carrying with it the faint, expensive scent of jasmine from the gardens and something else: the metallic, ancient smell of old stone and power.

A senior palace attendant stepped forward to greet them. His formal robes were immaculate, silk whispering against the stone as he moved, and his face was a mask of practiced, unreadable neutrality, the kind of expression earned by decades of delivering secrets that could topple empires.

"Princess Kaela... Instructor Wade..." He offered a bow so deep and precise it seemed almost mechanical. "His Majesty King Theron is waiting for you both in the private audience chamber."

"If you would please follow me."

There was no invitation in his tone, only a command wrapped in courtesy. Kaela turned to William.

For three heartbeats, neither of them spoke.

In that silent exchange, a lifetime of gratitude and unspoken understanding passed between them, a promise that no matter how cold the marble became, they would not be separated.

Then, with a sharp inhale that sounded like steel sliding against leather, Kaela squared her shoulders. She drew herself up to her full height, the princess replacing the girl, and began her ascent up the grand stone steps.

William fell into step immediately beside her. He didn’t just walk; he moved with the measured, deliberate gait of a guardian.

He positioned himself half a step behind and to her side, his eyes never resting on one thing for too long.

The attendant led them through a labyrinth of increasingly opulent corridors. Each hall was more breathtaking than the last, designed to make any visitor feel small, insignificant, and temporary.

Tall, arched windows admitted streaming shafts of warm afternoon light that cut across polished marble floors like golden blades. Along the walls, portraits of past monarchs watched them with solemn, painted eyes, ancestors who seemed to judge every footfall, every breath.

William didn’t see the art; he saw the architecture of war. His mind worked like a tactical display, involuntarily cataloging exits, noting the blind spots behind marble pillars, measuring the distance between the guards stationed at every twenty paces, and calculating the quickest route to a weapon if the air suddenly turned hostile.

Old habits, the instincts carved into his bones by years of survival, refused to die, no matter how peaceful the world claimed to be.

"You’ve gone very quiet," Kaela murmured.

Her voice was low, intended only for him, but in the echoing hallway, it sounded dangerously fragile. She glanced sideways at him, her eyes searching his profile.

"Occupational habit," William replied, his voice gravelly and low. He didn’t break his stride. "I like knowing where the doors are."

Kaela let out a breath that was half laugh, half sigh, though there was no humor in it. "That’s either very reassuring or very concerning, Instructor Wade."

"I genuinely can’t decide which."

"Let’s go with reassuring," William said, his gaze snapping to the heavy oak doors ahead as the attendant reached for the brass handles.

His hand instinctively twitched toward the hilt of his blade, a silent readiness. "I’d rather know the doors are there and never need them than need them and discover they’re locked when it’s already too late."

Kaela managed a small, genuine smile at that, a fleeting flash of light in the gathering gloom of her anxiety. For a heartbeat, the oppressive weight of the palace seemed to lift slightly, eased by the familiar, steady presence of the man walking beside her.

As they passed a wide, arched window that offered a sweeping view of one of the inner formal gardens, Kaela slowed her pace, her gaze drifting toward the courtyard below.

A pair of gardeners were working silently, their movements methodical as they tended to a bed of deep blue flowers that seemed to glow like sapphires against the green.

"I used to hide in that exact garden whenever visiting dignitaries got too tedious," she said quietly, her voice carrying a wistful nostalgia. "There’s a small stone bench tucked behind the fountain, almost completely swallowed by the hedges."

"I probably spent half my childhood there, curled up with a book, desperately avoiding another three hours of etiquette lessons."

"Sounds like a perfect hiding spot," William replied, his eyes scanning the courtyard below not for beauty but for potential ambush points.

"The best," Kaela agreed, though her smile faded as quickly as it had appeared. "I might show it to you sometime."

"If things go well enough that we actually have time for... normal things."

"I’d like that," William said, and the sincerity in his voice was absolute.

He wasn’t just offering politeness; he was offering a promise of normalcy in a world that was rapidly becoming anything but.

But as the attendant led them deeper into the private wing, the atmosphere shifted. The air grew colder, the corridors narrower, the opulence feeling less like grandeur and more like a gilded cage.

William could feel the change in Kaela beside him. Her breathing became measured and shallow.

Her spine straightened with a painful precision, and that fragile vulnerability from the carriage ride was being forcibly hammered back into a mask of royal neutrality. She was bracing herself, steeling her nerves like a soldier preparing for a siege.

Finally, they reached the end of the hall.

The attendant stopped before a set of towering, ornately carved double doors made of ancient oak and reinforced with blackened steel. Two palace soldiers stood flanking the entrance, their faces impassive behind polished visors, their hands resting on the pommels of their swords.

"His Majesty is waiting just beyond," the attendant said, bowing low before stepping aside.

His voice held something almost like pity. "I wish you both well."

Kaela stopped dead in front of the doors. For several seconds, she simply stared at the carved wood as if she could see through it to the storm waiting on the other side.

William noticed her hand curl briefly at her side, a sharp, instinctive twitch toward a sword hilt that wasn’t there. It was a soldier’s reflex, a desperate reach for a weapon when faced with an enemy you cannot cut down.

She stood there, fighting a war within herself. William watched the last traces of the uncertain girl vanish, replaced by something harder, something forged in the fires of necessity.

"Whatever’s on the other side of that door," she said, her voice so quiet it was almost swallowed by the vastness of the hallway.

She didn’t look at him, but he could feel the intensity of her need. "I need you to promise me something... Something real."

"Anything," William said, his voice dropping to that low, unshakable register.

"Don’t let me run," she whispered, finally turning her eyes to his. "Whatever it turns out to be, however badly I want to shatter, however badly I want to just turn around and sprint back out those gates, don’t let me."

"I need to face it... I need to hear every word, every lie, every terrible truth."

"Don’t let me hide from my own life."

William stepped closer, closing the distance between them until he could feel the heat of her resolve. He met her gaze with the steady, unwavering focus of a man who had walked through hell and come out the other side.

"I promise," he said, each word weighted with iron. "I’ll be right beside you."

"I won’t let you flinch, and I won’t let either of us walk away until every question has been answered."

"Whatever happens in there, we face it together."

Kaela nodded once, a sharp, decisive movement. She took a slow, deliberate breath, the kind used to steady a blade before a killing stroke, and reached for the handles.

She refused the guards’ offer to open them, demanding to claim this confrontation on her own terms.

The heavy doors groaned as they swung open, revealing a chamber bathed in the amber glow of a low-burning hearth and the fading afternoon light streaming through tall windows.

At the far end of the room, seated in a chair that looked more like a throne of burden than one of power, King Theron rose slowly.

His face was lined with an exhaustion that went deeper than mere sleeplessness; it was the look of a man who had been carrying the weight of a crumbling world on his shoulders. His eyes met Kaela’s with a gravity that sent a cold shiver down William’s spine.

The silence in the room was deafening, charged with the electricity of unspoken disasters. William felt his muscles tense, his mind already calculating every possible threat.

Whatever lay in wait in this room, it wasn’t just news; it was a detonation. And it was about to change everything.