Chapter 44

Third Person’s POV

It had been nearly a full day since the Queen collapsed.

And she still hadn’t opened her eyes.

The palace no longer whispered. It held its breath.

Moonlight streamed weakly through the tall windows of Lena’s room, pale and cold against the silk curtains.

The room smelled faintly of medicine and fear. Servants moved quietly, as though even the smallest sound might shatter something fragile.

Lena lay unmoving against the white sheets, her hair fanned across the pillow. Too still. Too silent.

Duke Christian stood near the foot of the bed, rigid as stone. His hands were clasped behind his back, but the tightness in his jaw betrayed him.

“Well?” he demanded, his voice low but edged with strain.

Dr. Fahlada didn’t look up immediately. She adjusted the Queen’s wrist in her palm, checking her pulse for the hundredth time. “Her vitals are steady,” she said carefully. “Breathing normal. Heart stable. No signs of fever. No poison detected.”

“Then why,” the Duke pressed, stepping closer, “is she not waking?”

Silence lingered for a beat too long.

Daliah stood at Lena’s side, fingers wrapped around the edge of the mattress as if anchoring herself. Dark circles shadowed her eyes. She hadn’t left the room.

“She should have stirred by now,” Daliah whispered, brushing a stray strand of hair from Lena’s forehead. “Even if it were exhaustion… she should have responded.”

Dr. Fahlada let out a slow, weary sigh, the kind that came from someone who had reached the edge of her knowledge.

“I’ve checked for everything.” She folded her hands together, resignation threading through her voice. “If we are to know what happened… it will have to come from Her Majesty herself.”

Daliah’s throat tightened. “So we just wait?”

“It is all we can do.”

The words settled like dust. Silence swallowed the chamber whole.

Duke Christian stood rigid near the window, staring at nothing, holding himself together through sheer will.

And then—

A faint sound.

So soft it might have been mistaken for the wind.

Daliah’s head snapped up. “Did you hear—”

There it was again. A murmur.

Dr. Fahlada turned sharply toward the bed.

Lena’s lips had moved.

Duke Christian’s composure shattered.

He was at her side in an instant, dropping to one knee beside the bed. “Lena?” His voice cracked, all title and authority gone. “Lena, can you hear me?”

Her fingers twitched weakly against the sheets.

She murmured again, the words slurred and fragile, slipping through barely parted lips.

Christian brushed a trembling hand against his daughter’s hair. “Lena. It’s Father. You’re safe. Open your eyes.”

But her lashes did not lift.

Instead, her brow furrowed faintly, as though she were trapped in some distant place. Her lips moved again, forming a single name.

“…Matthew…”

The room went still.

The name slipped from Lena’s lips like a fragile thread.

The reaction was immediate. Christian’s hand froze around hers. Dr. Fahlada’s shoulders sagged as a quiet sorrow passed over her face. Daliah’s lips trembled, and her eyes glistened with the weight of helplessness.

For a long second, no one spoke. The only sound in the chamber was the faint rustle of sheets as Lena shifted restlessly against the mattress, her brows drawn together as if caught in something unseen.

Daliah was the first to find her voice. “It’s happening again, isn’t it?” she whispered.

Christian didn’t answer right away. He couldn’t seem to look away from his daughter’s face. The strength he wore so effortlessly was gone, stripped down to something raw and paternal.

“I had hoped,” he said quietly, “that it wouldn’t.”

Dr. Fahlada moved closer to the bed, observing Lena’s breathing, the tension in her jaw. “The trigger must have been severe,” she murmured. “This episode is probably deeper than the last.”

Matthew.

Even thinking the name felt like pressing on a bruise that had never healed.

His death had carved something out of Lena that had never grown back. In the months that followed, the grief had not simply made her mournful—it had made her unravel.

Panic attacks had come without warning. Her body would shake, her breath would turn shallow and desperate, and then she would collapse as though the weight of his memory had physically crushed her.

And when she woke, she would remember nothing of her breakdown.

Her mind erased the storm before she could consciously face it.

She did not know she still carried this wound.

Only the three of them did.

Daliah stepped closer to the bed. “She was doing better,” she said, her voice breaking despite her effort to stay composed. “She hadn’t had a relapse in years.”

“She was suppressing it,” Fahlada replied gently. “Suppression is not healing.”

Christian exhaled sharply, running a hand over his face before gripping the edge of the mattress. “What could have triggered it now?”

—

Duke Christian stepped out of Lena’s room, exhaling as though the weight of the past hours clung to his shoulders. The hallway stretched before him, quiet except for the soft scrape of his boots against the polished floor.

But then, Cristian’s steps faltered.

His gaze fell on a small figure huddled against the far end of the hall. Head tucked into her arms, knees drawn close to her chest, she hadn’t moved all day.

Miu.

The way she sat there, still and tense, made the air feel heavier, charged with unspoken fear.

Daliah’s voice came from behind him, trembling just slightly. “She… hasn’t left that spot all day, Sir.”

Christian didn’t turn. He could feel Daliah there, could hear the worry in her tone, but all he did was tighten his jaw.

His eyes flicked back to Miu, noting the pale line of her face, the faint rise and fall of her body, the quiet desperation in the slump of her shoulders.

Miu had been asking to see the Queen since morning. She had pleaded, almost begged, but his orders had been strict—no one, not even her, could enter Lena’s room.

Christian’s fingers clenched at his sides. For a long moment, no one spoke. Then he finally said, low and measured, “Let her be.”

That was all.

He turned away, each step deliberate, leaving Miu huddled against the wall like a shadow, her quiet sorrow filling the space he’d just vacated.

Daliah lingered a heartbeat longer, her eyes soft with worry, before following Christian silently.

—

It was well past midnight when Lena’s eyelids trembled, a fragile quiver that broke the heavy stillness of the room.

Her eyes opened slowly, deliberately, as if even blinking required an effort she hadn’t yet reclaimed.

A single tear slipped from the corner of her eye, tracing a cold, silent path down her cheek.

Her gaze was fixed on the ceiling above, blank yet impossibly sharp, as though she were seeing everything and nothing at once.

For the first time, the fog that had blanketed her mind lifted. Memories that she would suppress washed over her in unrelenting clarity.

She remembered everything. Every detail of that moment before she lost consciousness.

Dr. Fahlada, who had been keeping vigil nearby, stirred at the subtle movement. Her posture tightened slightly with a mix of relief and trepidation when she saw those familiar eyes open.

“Your Majesty…” Fahlada whispered, moving closer. Her voice carried the weight of hours spent watching and waiting.

Lena’s lips parted, but no coherent words came. Instead, a soft, trembling murmur escaped.

“I mourned him… for so long…”

Her voice cracked, fragile as porcelain, carrying with it the raw, unbearable weight of years she had tried to contain.

Fahlada’s hand hovered, unsure whether to reach out or simply witness. She knew that this moment, though silent, was monumental.

Lena wasn’t just awake—she was remembering. And remembering was the first step toward confronting the sorrow she had carried alone for far too long.

Lena’s gaze didn’t move from the ceiling. Her body remained pressed against the sheets, taut with memory, with longing, with pain. Every muscle seemed to hum with the resonance of what she found out.