Chapter 166 - Princess Elowen

Chapter 166: 166 - Princess Elowen

Adrien was supposed to leave Sylvarin in two days.

He had already started thinking about what needed his attention first once he returned to Greymoor, though there were still a few things left to deal with before he could actually leave.

He had no complaint about the place itself. He had slipped into its rhythms quickly enough that mornings in the guest wing, meals with Amelia, and the constant bustle of officials in the royal corridors had grown familiar, and that familiarity made leaving all too easy to put off.

He and Amelia were returning from one of the smaller gardens when an attendant approached and asked whether they had time to see Princess Elowen.

Adrien glanced at Amelia before answering.

"We do. Did she say what this was about?"

"Only that she wanted to speak with both of you somewhere quiet."

The attendant led them to a reading room above one of the inner courtyards. Elowen was already there, several documents fanned across a low table, though none looked grand enough to need a princess’s attention.

She rose when they entered.

"I hope I’m not interrupting. Everyone keeps saying you’re leaving soon, so I wanted to catch you first."

"Nothing important," Amelia said. "You asked for us?"

Elowen nodded and waited until the attendant had gone before sitting again.

"I wanted to talk before Adrien goes. Not to say thank you again, I already did that. I just don’t want everyone to only ever talk to me about what happened."

Adrien took the chair opposite her while Amelia sat beside him.

"Then what did you want to talk about?"

Elowen ran a thumb along the edge of the papers.

"I’ve started sitting in on some of Father’s smaller meetings. Not the big councils, and I’m mostly supposed to stay quiet, but afterward he lets me read the reports and ask him whatever I want."

Amelia’s face warmed.

"That sounds like something you asked for."

"It was. I used to think I knew everything about the kingdom because I had tutors and maps and history books. I knew which houses ruled where, how taxes worked, where the army was. I thought that was how decisions got made."

She paused, then turned to Adrien.

"Then I got taken, and people I’d never even met tried to use me to make two kingdoms fight before anyone knew what really happened. After that, a lot of what my tutors taught me felt like only half the lesson."

Adrien knew what she meant. Knowing how a system ought to work was one thing, and watching how easily someone could twist the people inside it was another.

"What changed for you after that?"

"I stopped thinking the right people always find out first. If Sylvamir had gotten angry fast enough, somebody else would have decided what happened between us and Valleroy."

Elowen frowned down at the reports, her feet not quite reaching the floor.

"I hate that somebody could use me like that while I didn’t understand anything that was going on. So now I’m trying to learn the parts my tutors skipped."

Amelia nodded toward the documents.

"Internal reports?"

"Some. Trade arguments, border reports, letters from the governors, old diplomatic papers. Most of them are really boring, and I have to ask what half the words mean. Father still picks what I’m allowed to see, but at least he doesn’t pretend none of it exists anymore."

Adrien saw her differently than he had when they first reached the capital. Elowen was still a child, and Laurent kept firm limits on how much he placed on her shoulders, yet her voice had changed. The workings of the kingdom were no longer something distant that adults handled behind closed doors.

"You’ll probably learn more from those reports than from another year of court lessons."

"That’s what I’m hoping. They’re more interesting than etiquette lessons, anyway."

She slid one of the folders aside, then paused as if something had just come back to her.

"Oh, I almost forgot. There was something about you."

Adrien’s attention sharpened, though Elowen didn’t seem worried.

"Since you got here, some of Father’s officials have been digging through old records about House Clairmont. I think it’s because they wanted to check the old agreements before writing anything new."

"That would make sense," Adrien said. "Clairmont hasn’t had much reason to deal directly with Sylvamir for a while."

"That’s what I thought too. But your father’s name kept showing up."

Adrien went still for half a second.

"Alaric?"

"Yes. Not on every page, but a lot more than I expected. Meetings, letters, some old papers about diplomatic business. I only noticed because I knew the name right away."

Amelia shifted in her chair toward Adrien, then put the obvious question to Elowen.

"Did the records say what he was doing here?"

"Not in anything they let me read. Most of it was boring stuff. Dates, references, archive numbers. I asked one of the officials why they were spending so long on it, and he said they were trying to piece together some old contacts."

Adrien leaned back.

"Did he say why?"

"No. He just said parts of the records were missing and that Father wanted them to keep looking."

That was enough to catch Adrien’s interest. Alaric dealing with Sylvamir wasn’t strange by itself.

House Clairmont had once carried enough weight that meetings with another kingdom would have been routine, and Vael had already made it clear he had known Adrien’s father personally. The gaps in the records were what nagged at him.

Amelia was already a step ahead.

"My grandfather knew Alaric. If those contacts involved Sylvamir and Elyndor at the same time, there may be more than one archive with copies."

Elowen dipped her head.

"Maybe that’s why they’re checking everything now. I just thought you should know before you left."

"I’m glad you told me."

Adrien meant it, though he kept his thoughts from racing ahead. Missing records could mean poor preservation, sealed files, transfers between administrations, or a dozen other dull explanations. Still, his father’s name had a habit of making dull explanations hard to trust.

Elowen changed the subject after that, asking when they planned to leave and whether Amelia meant to travel with him for part of the journey home. The talk drifted onto easier ground, and by the time they left the reading room, the afternoon light was already thinning.

Adrien walked beside Amelia down the corridor without a word for a while. He had expected his last days in Sylvarin to be spent on packing, farewells and deciding what needed his attention first in Greymoor. Now there was one more thing he wanted answered before he went home.