The whispers started immediately.

"She can’t read it?"

"Of course she can’t."

"She wasn’t raised as one of us."

Valdren sat perfectly still in his chair, watching her with quiet satisfaction.

Alina took a deep breathe and looked down at the paper again. The symbols were unfamiliar but some looked quite similar to modern Arcasedian. She tried to focus on the words she recognized, connecting them together to understand the meaning of the sentences.

"This appears to be part of a treaty record," she said, lifing her head up. "I recognize references to inheritance after marriage alliances... but I cannot read the whole passage. The dialect is older than the modern Arcasedian I learned."

Silence fell. Then an elderly scholar sitting in the back row cleared his throat.

"At least she could read this much."

"A future royal should not merely survive our traditions," Valdren said smoothly. "She should embody them."

After that, the questions became harder.

"What is the correct order of precedence during a royal wedding attended by the Eastern Principalities?" An elderly scholar asked.

"The host monarch’s family leads, followed by..."

"Incorrect," another scholar interrupted her. "The Eastern delegation must be acknowledged first in matters involving trade alliances."

Another question followed before she could even understand the explanation of the last answer.

"What were the lesser-known clauses of the 1279 border treaty regarding river navigation rights and seasonal flooding?"

Alina thought about it. She remembered reading about it last night.

"It granted seasonal access during winter flooding to both kingdoms while restricting military transport across the southern river routes," she answered whatever she could remember.

The scholar scoffed at her answer.

"Close, but incomplete. You forgot the merchant taxation amendments added later," he smiled. "A royal claimant cannot afford incomplete knowledge."

Another question followed instantly. Then another and another. Soon, her head started to ache and her mind went completely numb.

By the time the examination ended, her shoulder was aching badly from sitting for so long. But she still stood up from her chair with dignity. She bowed to the scholars, and walked out calmly.

Austin was waiting for her right outside the chamber. The second she stepped outside, he pushed off the wall and walked towards her.

"How bad was it?" he asked as they started walking down the corridor.

Alina smiled.

"I think I offended an entire generation of dead royals today."

Austin’s lips twitched slightly, but the worry in his eyes was still visible.

Without saying anything else, he slowed his steps to match her pace as they walked down the corridor together.

Back inside her chambers, Alina finally let herself relax. She sat in front of the mirror, trying to loosen the stiff fabric around her injured shoulder.

Laura had been unusually quiet ever since the examination ended. She didn’t even ask how the examination went. She had heard from the nobles who were little sympathetic to Alina but couldn’t admit it publicly.

She noticed how exhausted Alina was but was still joking. She felt guilty as she realized how much Alina had been forced to endure without ever truly knowing the mother she was suffering for.

"What is it, Laura?" Alina asked, turning towards her. "You’ve been staring at me strangely since we walked in."

Laura was about to say something but then she stopped.

"Wait a minute," she said instead, and walked out of the chamber.

When she returned minutes later, she was carrying a small wooden box wrapped in an old piece of cloth. Her hands trembled a little as she put it carefully in Alina’s lap.

"Your mother wanted you to have these someday," she said.

Alina frowned in confusion. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

"What is this?"

Laura opened the box, and Alina’s eyes widened in surprise. Inside there were dozens of old letters, carefully preserved and tied with ribbons.

"She... she wrote these?" Alina muttered.

Laura nodded.

Alina picked up the first letter with her trembling hands and opened it. Her eyes slowly moved across the letter as she began to read it aloud.

"Alina refused to sleep again last night. She cries every time I leave the room, then laughs like silver bells the second I come back."

Alina smiled through the tears filling in her eyes.

"Today she grabbed my hair so hard I thought she would pull it out by the roots. She also tried to eat flower petals from the garden. I think she gets her stubbornness from me."

"She sounds so happy... so real," she whispered. "I never imagined her like this."

Austin sat quietly beside her, listening to her.

"Sometimes I watch her sleeping and pray Arcasedia never reaches her."

Her breathing hitched as she read the next line.

"If she ever asks about me someday, tell her I loved her more than I feared the world."

The line broke her. A sob escaped her mouth before she could stop it. She pressed the letter tightly against her chest as tears ran down her face freely.

Austin immediately moved closer and pulled her into his arms. She buried her face in his shoulder, crying quietly like all the years of missing her mother had finally caught up to her.

"She loved me so much," she whispered between sobs.

After a while, Alina wiped her eyes and picked up slightly new letters. The tone of the letters had changed drastically. The warmth from the earlier letters was gone. Even the handwriting looked rushed now.

"I think someone has begun asking questions about us," one letter said. "The last messenger never arrived. Do not send any letter for some time. I am scared."

The room suddenly became thick with tension. Then Alina finally opened the last letter.

"If anything happens to me, keep Alina far away from..."

The sentence had ended abruptly.

"What is she talking about?" Austin asked immediately.

Laura cleared her throat before speaking.

"Even after she ran away, we kept writing to each other through trusted messengers and travelling merchants. Then one messenger disappeared suddenly. After that, Lady Isadora became very scared."

Alina’s fingers tightened around the letter she was holding.

"A few months later, her health suddenly began to decline." Laura paused. "She believed someone from the court had discovered where she was."