enjoyebooks CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 32
POV: Evangeline
Maximilian’s letter comes with the bread, tucked beside the knife as if he were any ordinary correspondent. I recognize his handwriting instantly and feel my shoulders loosen.
I break the seal. “We are coming,” I read. “Georgina insisted. Expect us by midday. Hide the paperwork from Sebastian before I arrive. Yours, Max.”
A laugh slips out.
“Good news, Your Majesty?” the maid asks.
“Prince Maximilian and Princess Georgina are visiting,” I say. “With their daughters. Today.”
She smiles. “How wonderful. The King will be pleased.”
I do not answer. I am not sure he will notice enough to be anything at all.
By noon we are waiting in the courtyard. Marc stands straight and solemn on my right; Adrian bounces on my left.
“Will the princesses remember us?” Adrian asks.
“They were younger,” Marc says. “Perhaps not.”
“They will,” I tell them.
Astorian carriages roll through the gates. The door swings open and Maximilian steps down, cloak sweeping, grin wide.
“Your Majesty,” he calls. “You look exhausted.”
“That is not how one greets a queen,” I say, but I am smiling.
“I came as your friend, not as a diplomat,” he answers. He bows briefly, then pulls me into a warm embrace. “Too pale, too thin, eyes too tired,” he murmurs. “Yes. Exhausted.”
“Max,” I warn.
Behind him, Georgina descends. Two identical girls cling to her hands until they spot my sons.
“Marc! Adrian!” Elena cries, running forward. “You grew!”
Viviana hurries beside her. “And your hair is messy,” she tells Adrian.
He grins. “Yours too.”
Marc inclines his head. “Welcome.”
Georgina reaches me and hugs me tightly. “You should have called us sooner,” she whispers. “Your letters sounded thin.”
“I did not want to complain,” I say. “We have peace. A kingdom. Our children.”
“And still?” she asks.
“And still,” I admit.
Max glances around. “Where is our glorious king? Hiding under a stack of decrees?”
“In the council chamber,” I say. “There was some urgency. There is always some urgency.”
He snorts. “More urgent than greeting friends who almost died beside him?”
“I invited you,” I remind him. “He only said he would try to join us.”
“Ah,” Max says. “The royal word for ‘no.’”
Elena has seized Adrian’s hand. “We brought a new game! It has pirates and river spirits and shouting.”
Viviana tugs Marc’s sleeve. “And nobody dies. Mama forbids any dying.”
“That is reassuring,” I say. “You may play in the inner gardens. Stay where the guards can see you. If anyone returns soaked, the game ends forever.”
“Yes, Mama,” the boys chorus.
The four of them race off, laughter trailing behind. For a moment the sound smooths the ache in my chest.
Inside, servants hurry to collect cloaks and trunks. In the sitting room, tea waits on low tables. Georgina presses me onto a cushioned chair.
“Sit,” she commands. “If you pour for me, I will tell your staff their queen has forgotten how to be served.”
Max drops into a chair opposite. “So,” he says. “How often does Sebastian smile these days, and how often does he try to marry the council?”
I wrap my hands around the cup. “He is busy,” I begin.
“Everyone is busy,” Max replies. “Try again.”
“He wakes before dawn and sleeps after midnight,” I say. “He eats when somebody reminds him. He spends more time with maps than with his sons. When he is home, his thoughts stay in the council room. Sometimes I speak and I am not sure he hears me.”
Georgina’s brows knit. “Does he seek you out at all? Or only when the day is over and there is nothing left of him to give?”
“There are moments,” I say. “When the boys are sick, when the pressure eases, when we are alone and he remembers to laugh. But lately those moments are rare.”
Max swears softly. “He spent years searching every corner of the world for you,” he says. “Now that you are here, he forgets to look up from his paperwork.”
“He carries the kingdom,” I say. “If I push, I fear I will just be another weight.”
“You are not a weight,” Georgina says, taking my hand. “You are the reason he can carry anything.”
“He loves you,” Max adds. “He talks about you when politics allow him to breathe. He just forgets how it felt to almost lose you.”
“Some days,” I confess, “I feel more like a symbol than a wife. The serene queen, the perfect mother. The servants talk about us as if we are a picture on the wall.”
“Then we will crack the frame,” Georgina says. “Remind him the picture is alive.”
“How?” I ask.
“By being here,” she answers. “By letting him see your face next to ours and realizing he has not just disappointed you, but us as well.”
Max smirks. “Terrifies me, that woman.”
A shout suddenly reaches us. A child’s voice. High. Panicked.
“Did you hear that?” I ask.
Another sound follows. A shriek, then the crash of something.
Max is already rising. “Children.”
My heart stutters. “Marc. Adrian.”
“Elena and Viviana,” Georgina breathes.
We run. Skirts gathered, boots pounding against stone, servants flattening themselves to the walls. The noise grows louder with each turn—shouting, crying, the scrape of furniture.
“Please,” I whisper. “Let them be all right.”
We reach the children’s wing. A maid stands in the corridor, wringing her hands. “Your Majesty, I tried to separate them—”
“Move,” I say, pushing past.
We burst into the playroom.
Chaos. Toys everywhere, a table on its side, cushions torn. Elena crouches in a corner, sobbing, braids half undone. Viviana stands in front of her sister like a tiny soldier, arms spread wide.
And in the middle of the room, my sons are not simply arguing over a toy.
Marc and Adrian are on the floor, fists flying, teeth bared, each of them fighting as if the other were not his brother but an enemy he has finally been allowed to attack.