CHAPTER 46: WARM BUN

In the comfort of the solarium that smelled of warm citrus and stale sympathy. A cup of coffee steamed untouched on the tea table.

Levan sat with one elbow pressed into the table, fingers splayed against his temple. His hair, unruly from a sleepless night, fell in dark waves that caught the morning light; his eyes were closed as if shutting out the world might steady it.

He had spent all dawn in council with the Lord of Dorovian over Seraphine’s standing in the palace. The man proved immovable, perhaps because the matter concerned his own daughter. So Levan had left Marion to handle the aftermath because he no longer trusted himself to keep his composure.

The thing that gnawed at him now, however, was smaller in shape and poisonous in its ease. It was a clay jar of brown powder, a single chocolate macaron, and a woman who just last night had been in his tender care to ease the heat from the same damn aphrodisiac.

Two years ago, he had woken dazed in his sleeping chamber with a wine decanter emptied and a slow, sour fog at the edges of his mind. He remembered the confusion. A light-headedness that felt like vertigo and a hunger for something he could not name.

The only person who had been there; the only hand on his arm while the world remade itself for a few dangerous hours had been Seraphine Dorovian. She had been poised, fragrant, and utterly intent on ’tending’ to him until the haze passed. It had been irritating and embarrassing, more than anything.

He had cleared his wine shelves after that night. Entire vintages, a hundred years old and meant for grim occasions, had gone to waste. The loss of dignity had stung, but the loss of wine? It was unforgivable.

He had reasons to call it accident back then. House Dorovian’s banners had been necessary for the southern marches, and Seraphine’s father stood beside the King as both sword and counsel. He was an heir, not a tantrum-thrower; he had kept the crown’s alliances intact rather than gut a house on suspicion.

Anger coiled under his skin, and beneath the anger sat something closer to shame. He had let the past slide so that the present could breathe politics, and in that choice the same avoidable tricks was repeated and his wife had been made vulnerable.

He let out a sigh. Perhaps it sounded so harsh and brimming with annoyance that the handmaiden who was arranging the pastries could not help but raise a brow.

Kathryn regard the prince quietly before resuming with the placement. "You seemed to be in a foul mood, Your Highness," she commented.

Levan did not bother to open his eyes. "Is that what I look like?"

"You look as though the world itself has failed you."

"...In some ways, it has."

"Does it concern the court?"

"It concerns those who believe the court is their stage."

Her hands paused over the tray, lifting her gaze to look at him. "Lady Seraphine?"

Levan’s brow twitched at the name. "Who else?"

Kathryn looked back at the cake stands, lips pressing together. "...I was hoping you’d say the King’s hounds."

"They would have shown more restraint," he scoffed.

Kathryn could only smile at that. Her fingers hovered over the cake stand, straightening a stray pastry as if smoothing a crease in the very air. "You’re letting her sour your temper," she murmured gently, almost maternal. "Don’t give her that victory."

The words landed deeper than he expected. For a second the solarium blurred: the citrus and steam faded and something warmer filled the space, a memory of a woman who had used the same tone to steady him after worse days, making him feel oddly small. But instead of pushing it away, he let the echo sit with him.

Levan’s jaw eased. "I know," he said, and the word was softer than the rest of him allowed. It was not resignation so much as agreement. It was an admission that he had been reminded of something he had preferred not to feel.

Kathryn’s expression softened in return. For an instant the distance between them narrowed into something like refuge.

"You wear that scowl too tightly, Your Highness," she said. "It makes you look the way you did as a boy. When you thought the world would break if the pieces didn’t fit exactly how you wanted."

Levan turned his face half aside, unwilling to let her see that the reminder had struck deeper than intended.

"...I’ve outgrown that," he murmured. But his voice, though steady, carried a shade of something that sounded more like longing than denial.

Opening his eyes, the aftertaste of his own irritation was still sharp when the doorway suddenly warmed with light. He was not looking at anything in particular, until he did.

There she was. The princess, half-hidden by the jamb, hair a little mussed, and cheeks flushed with that irrepressible brightness that always seemed to arrive unannounced and undo him. She held something in both hands: a small, lopsided bun of pastry wrapped in a napkin, as if she had stolen it straight from the kitchen and could not be prouder.

For a breath, the room contracted to the space between them. The scowl he had worn like armour now fully loosened at the edges, as if the sight of her were a quiet, exacting remedy. His hand fell from his temple without him meaning to, attentively regarding her movement as she mouthed something from the distance.

’Can I enter?’ That was what her wide eyes seemed to ask him while being half-hidden behind the doorframe. Levan was not sure what to make of the hesitant brightness on her face, like the sun had just stopped to knock politely before spilling inside.

A guard at her side moved with crisp precision, exchanging some conversation that looked like he was ushering the princess to step inside before swinging the door fully open. He stepped in first, waiting patiently for Ilaria to cross the threshold and continued together towards the prince.

He bowed deeply, in which Ilaria instinctively followed, like her nervousness had caused her to mistake the guard as her instructor. It was almost ridiculous to look at. The guard stepped closer to Levan’s side, his voice low as he relayed the morning’s commotion in a quiet whisper where only the prince could hear.

Levan listened, his expression shadowed, but his gaze kept straying past the guard’s shoulder because just behind him, Ilaria lingered with her hands clasped on the pastry, patient as a guest instead of a wife. She stood small and expectant, waiting until the space was properly offered to her before she would take a single step.

It was such a simple thing — her quiet restraint, yet it pulled at something in his chest.

"I see," he said evenly to the guard, his tone leaving no room for doubt. "Ensure the lady is escorted beyond the palace grounds. The newly appointed representative is expected to arrive by noon."

The guard bowed low, murmured an acknowledgment, and withdrew with measured steps.

Once the guard disappeared, Ilaria took it as her cue to make an entrance. "Good morning~" she chimed, looking at both Kathryn and Levan as if she had come to bring the news that it would be another wonderful day.

Kathryn’s eyes softened in a way only someone who had watched a child grow could. She dipped into a half-bow to Ilaria. "Good morning, princess. You look well."

"You look well too," Ilaria replied with an easy grin. "I’ve had a good sleep last night."

"I’m glad to hear that," Kathryn acknowledged, her tone somewhere between fondness and relief as she teased, "His Highness worries, you know."

Ilaria’s cheeks warmed, startled by the words. Both because she was shy and thought it would be impossible.

Kathryn only chuckled under her breath, smoothing her apron as though she had not just dropped a bomb between them. Then, with a small, conspiratorial smile toward Levan, she added, "I’ll leave you two to your important matters."

The solarium settled into a private kind of quiet after Kathryn slipped away. Levan remained still, listening to the silence press in around him. For a moment, the weight of his thoughts threatened to close the room in on itself until Ilaria stepped forward carefully, holding out the small plate she had been carrying all along.

On it rested a single bun, golden and soft at the edges. It looked warm.

"I made this for you," she said, voice full of hope. "Since you don’t like sweets...I tried to use less sugar this time. Just a little honey, and um— ground nuts instead of flour. It doesn’t taste too heavy." She smiled, studying him nervously before adding in a rush, "I thought maybe you’d like it more that way."

Her words tumbled into the silence, bright and guileless. The bun wobbled a little on the plate as her hands betrayed the tremor she tried to hide, but her eyes shone optimistically, waiting for his reaction.

Levan’s gaze lingered on the plate. It was a generally nice gesture, and expected one from her too, but his tongue moved before his restraint caught up. "I don’t have an appetite."

The silence that followed pressed against the glass walls of the solarium, and he unknowingly clenched his fist. The words tasted bitter the moment they left him.

Ilaria blinked, the hopeful flare in her eyes blunting like a candle in a draft. For a breath she looked as if she might argue, then she gave the smallest, most obedient nod upon noticing the foul mood etched on his face. "Oh. Okay then...I’ll eat it."

Her smile was faint, brave in its smallness. She glanced about the solarium and found no other seat but the one he occupied. No one ever sat on the late Queen’s chair but Levan; no one else would have the nerve. So, without ceremony, she made her way to where a thick branch had broken through the tiles.

There, she perched with her skirts gathered neatly, as if the gnarled wood had always been meant as her place. Without hesitation, she took a bite of the pastry, chewing with little hums of appreciation, thinking how he was missing out for rejecting such sweets.

Levan watched her. The sight, so unguarded, and so utterly without pretense stirred a sudden ache in his chest that made him want to spar just so that someone will hit him right in the head.

Then, she glanced up at him, crumbs still on her lips, and grinned as if she had never noticed the heaviness in the room.

"It’s actually good, you know," she said, holding out the half-eaten pastry with all the innocence of someone offering treasure.

Levan glanced at the bun and closed his eyes in exasperation. If only she knew how many times her brightness had nearly been ruined by the weight of his shadows.