The sun rose over the sleepy village of Gardenia with the enthusiasm of a mildly hungover rooster. Golden light spilled lazily through the mist, the air smelling of damp earth, woodsmoke, and goat-related tragedy.
Nathaniel awoke with a start, hay clinging to his hair, and one of Delma's cats asleep on his chest. He blinked at the rafters overhead, trying to recall why his heartbeat was hammering against his ribs like he'd narrowly escaped death.
Then he remembered.
The cloaks.
The scroll.
The emotional whiplash of Vivica looking like a queen of spies.
He sat up, nearly dislodging the cat (who swatted him for the offense), and promptly slammed his head into the barn beam above.
"Great," he muttered, rubbing his skull. "First espionage, now mild concussion. What a vacation."
He shuffled out of the barn, attempting casual nonchalance, which was difficult considering he looked like he'd wrestled a bale of hay and lost.
The old couple had already set out breakfast beneath a vine-covered pergola—fresh bread, goat cheese, and something suspiciously resembling preserved pears. And seated at the wooden table, as regal as an empress on exile, was Vivica… who happened to lodge at Delma and Huxley's humble cottage.
Vivica of the Impenetrable Silence.
Vivica of the Midnight Meetings.
Vivica who now calmly sipped herbal tea like she hadn't just commanded two dark-cloaked titans beneath the moon hours earlier.
Nathaniel plastered a smile on his face. "Morning! Lovely weather. Very… sunny. Moon's gone, haha."
Vivica glanced at him once.
No smirk. No glare. No sign of anything at all.
Just a flat, neutral nod.
He sat gingerly across from her, trying very hard not to flinch under her gaze. "Sleep well?" he asked, voice an octave too high.
"I always sleep well," she replied.
"Right. Of course you do. Of course. You… would."
He grabbed a slice of bread and immediately bit into it, hoping chewing would prevent more stupid from escaping his mouth.
Vivica calmly buttered her own bread with the precision of someone who could probably kill a man with a butter knife and make it look like an accident. "You woke up last night," she said casually.
Nathaniel choked.
"W-woke up? Me? Nooo, nope, not me, haha, I slept like a very unconscious—uh, conscious—uh, tired person." He coughed into his tea. "Dreamed of ducks again. You know how it is."
Vivica stared at him.
He couldn't tell if she was judging him, amused, or plotting his silent assassination.
Probably all three.
"...I see," she said at last, taking another sip of tea.
Nathaniel cleared his throat. "And you? Did you—I mean—you seem like the kind of person who—um—never leaves the house after dark because of... you know. Goat bandits. And curfews. Right?"
She blinked once. "Goat bandits?"
"Common problem," he answered solemnly.
Another pause. Vivica chewed her bread slowly.
Nathaniel was sweating through his shirt.
Finally, she set her teacup down and tilted her head slightly. "You look tired."
"Well, I—" he caught himself. "I mean, yes. I am. Just tired. From being so… not awake last night."
Her expression didn't change.
He thought he caught a flicker of amusement in her eyes—just a flicker—but it was gone so fast he might have imagined it.
"I have errands to run," she said, standing.
"Right. Yes. Errands. Herbal ones."
She adjusted her cloak. "Don't follow me."
"Wouldn't dream of it," he said with a nervous chuckle. "Not unless you need a bodyguard. Or an emotional support idiot."
She paused in the doorway. "You're not as subtle as you think you are."
And with that, she vanished down the path between the dew-slick hedgerows, leaving only the faint scent of dried herbs and devastating mystery.
Nathaniel slumped in his seat, chewing slowly.
"Cool, cool, cool," he muttered to himself. "So she knows. She definitely knows."
The goat from yesterday wandered past and glared at him, as if to say… you're doomed, princeling.
And Nathaniel couldn't argue.
Because Vivica wasn't just unreadable.
She was unreadable and in charge of something dangerous… perhaps.
And unfortunately for him—
Nathaniel was terminally, irrevocably, annoyingly curious.
Which meant he was going to follow her.
Eventually.
Quietly.
Discreetly.
Like a complete idiot.
**
The morning mist had barely burned off when Nathaniel began his… operation.
He wore a hooded cloak he borrowed from the barn (technically it was a potato sack with sleeves, but imagination was key), and he kept to the shadows like a cat burglar with a limp.
Vivica had left shortly after breakfast, heading toward the eastern edge of the village with a satchel over one shoulder, her cloak billowing behind her like she knew she belonged in a portrait titled A Lady With Dangerous Secrets and Better Things to Do Than Talk to You.
Nathaniel followed at a distance.
By hiding.
Badly.
He ducked behind carts, trees, a very startled cow, and at one point attempted to blend in with a laundry line by pretending to be a particularly handsome bedsheet.
To no one's surprise except possibly his own, Vivica never once looked over her shoulder.
She didn't have to.
She just knew.
Still, Nathaniel persisted. Because he was nosy. Because he was worried. And because… damn it, I was fascinated in a way that had nothing to do with secrets or scrolls and everything to do with the way her voice had dropped last night when giving orders, or how her eyes hadn't flickered with doubt, only command.
Yes. I got scared.
And got this weird tingly-feeling on my fucking chest.
Ah—is this… love?
So I just… needed to know more of her.
Eventually, Vivica stopped by a small flower-shop and picked up a bouquet of white roses and lavender, before she veered off the main road and down a narrow trail half-swallowed by time. The trees pressed closer here, as if nature itself conspired to keep the place secret. The birds quieted. The wind turned reverent.
Nathaniel followed at a distance, crouched low, his "cloak" snagging on every bramble. He was not built for stealth, and the woods seemed to know it.
The trail ended at a moss-covered gate.
Beyond it, an old graveyard slept beneath a canopy of birch trees. No iron fences. No marble angels. Just weather-worn stones, sunken slightly into the earth, as if the names themselves were growing tired of being remembered.
Vivica moved with the kind of quiet that didn't ask for permission. She stopped at a small grave tucked beneath a weeping willow. Its stone was simple… worn at the edges, half-swallowed by ivy, but carefully tended. A single name etched into the surface:
Vivian.
No last name, and nothing follows.
Vivica knelt. Not with drama. Not with ceremony. Just... with familiarity. Like someone visiting an old friend, and she placed down the bouquet gently.
Nathaniel held his breath behind the twisted trunk of an elm. He could hear nothing but the rustle of leaves and the steady hum of the earth.
She didn't pray.
She traced the name slowly with her fingertips. Not reverent.
Remembering.
Then, she straightened—slow and deliberate—as if drawing strength from the earth beneath her boots. Her shoulders squared. Chin lifted. Eyes closed.
She drew in a deep breath, steady and silent, like someone sealing old grief back into a box she knew too well.
Nathaniel didn't move.
He couldn't. He just watched—half-awed, half-terrified—as if any sound might shatter the moment.
But of course, a twig cracked beneath his boot like a gunshot.
SNAP!
Vivica didn't jolt.
She stood.
Smooth as ever. Like she'd expected the forest to spit out a prince eventually.
Nathaniel froze mid-step. Mid-breath. "SHIT!"
She turned.
Her eyes found him instantly. There was no surprise.
Just inevitability. And the faint sigh of someone whose patience had just expired.
She approached, slow and certain, until she stood directly in front of him. The birch trees cast her in slatted light, and for a second, she looked like a ghost herself — one with perfectly arched brows and very little tolerance for men in stolen cloaks.
"You're wearing a potato sack," she said.
"It's... fashion," Nathaniel muttered.
A beat.
"I'm experimenting," he added, with less confidence.
Vivica stared at him. Long enough to confirm that, no, it was not working.
"You knew you were following me to a graveyard, didn't you?"
"I thought it might be a secret altar!" he blurted. "Or a shrine. Or a tree with mysterious runes—"
"It's my mother's grave," she said, flatly.
Nathan's mouth opened. Then closed.
Vivica didn't look angry. Or sad. Just... guarded. Like a door that hadn't been locked, but hadn't been opened in years.
"I didn't know," he said, quietly now.
"No," she replied. "You wouldn't."
A long silence.
Then Vivica glanced back at the grave, her voice quieter, gentler—not soft, just... less armored. "You must've heard the stories."
Nathaniel shifted his weight, suddenly hyperaware of how loud everything he did felt in her presence. "I—I didn't really pay attention to that sort of thing. Truly."
She looked at him. Just looked.
He rubbed the back of his neck. "Okay. Fine. Once. At a banquet. After Belle's extravagant debutante. Someone was rambling about the vanished Duchess of the North. I didn't stick around for the scandalous bits. Not a fan of gossip."
Vivica didn't reply right away. Her gaze lingered on the moss-covered headstone.
"Mother gave up everything," she said at last. "Her title. Her name. Her husband. Her marriage. The empire's weight. All of it." A breath. "Just to be…"
She faltered. The silence stretched.
Then, quietly, firmly, "…a mother. Here."
She didn't say anything else. She didn't need to.
The forest seemed to hush around them in reverence. And Nathaniel, for once, didn't crack a joke.
He just stood beside her.
And understood a little more than he had the day before.
Vivica glanced at him. Her expression softened by a fraction. Just enough to reveal the effort it took to keep it so still.
"Why are you here, Nathan?"
He swallowed. "Because I saw you last night. And I realized I don't know who you are. And that bothers me."
"That you don't know?"
"That I want to."
She blinked.
Something unreadable passed over her face—like a cloud over glass.
"I'm not someone you should want to know," she said.
He didn't look away. "Too late."
Another silence. This one felt different. Heavier. Not tense—just full. Like the space between two breaths that don't want to become a goodbye.
She turned, brushing past him without another word.
Then paused.
"You may as well walk with me," she said. "You'll only step in something and get stuck if I leave you."
Nathan's mouth twitched. "So... you're saying you care."
"I'm saying I can't afford to bury an Imperial Prince in a bog on top of everything else today."
But she didn't tell him to shut up. Or leave.
And she let him catch up.
They walked together through the hush of the forest, their footsteps quiet on the moss. Her hands stayed at her sides, but not clenched. Her pace slowed enough to match his.
And Nathan—stupid cloak, pounding heart, and all—realized something that made his chest ache in the strangest way.
She wasn't letting him in.
But she wasn't shutting him out anymore, either.
Well, after two months of him being an absolute nuisance to her, that is…