The palace was unusually quiet that morning. Not the usual serene calm of royal halls, but a tense, watchful kind, like the walls themselves were listening.
King Aldren sat in his private study, documents spread before him, the crest of several major corporations stamped across the pages. He wasn't reading, he was studying and calculating. The morning reports had been troubling, and he needed clarity before presenting anything to his wife.
The door opened softly and Queen Liora stepped in, elegant as ever, dressed in a pale gold robe. Her hair, still loose from sleep, fell around her shoulders like a dark river. But her eyes keen, sharp, restless and immediately sought his.
"You're awake early," she said, though her gaze had already landed on the documents. "What's happened?"
Aldren hesitated only a moment before handing her the top file. She read in silence.
When she finished, she lifted her eyes.
"This is not a coincidence."
"No," the King agreed. "It isn't."
For weeks now, the Alaric family had dominated international headlines, their influence, their deals, their social moves. But in the past few days, quietly, subtly, their empire had begun to shake. Shareholders withdrawing, a foreign partner pulling out, a shipment delayed by an anonymous interference, a scandalous rumor circulating just enough to cause discomfort, but not enough to trace.
Small hits, strategic hits. Hits only someone very powerful and very precise could execute.
"So," Liora murmured, folding the file closed, "someone is targeting the Alarics."
"And hiding it exceptionally well."
She leaned back, thoughtful. "Have they made enemies recently?"
Aldren gave a dry laugh. "Liora, they've made enemies since the day they were born."
She didn't smile.
"And yet," she said slowly, tapping one manicured finger on the folder, "only one name appears repeatedly across these movements… buried, subtle, but present."
She looked up.
"Nara."
Aldren nodded. "Our analysts traced the earliest trigger to an unauthorized inquiry made by the Alarics themselves. Before the interference started, they hired someone to dig into a woman named Nara."
"Why?" she whispered.
There was no answer, not yet.
Liora stood, pacing a few slow steps as she processed, then she paused. Her eyes sharp, regal, and yet trembling ever so slightly, fixed on the solitary photograph attached to the final report. A young woman with a calm expression, a gaze that was steady, unafraid.
Liora's breath hitched, barely, but enough for the King to notice.
"What is it?" he asked gently.
She didn't answer immediately, instead, she reached out, fingertips brushing the photo as if afraid it might disappear. There was something, an echo, a pull she couldn't explain, a memory she didn't recognize.
Finally, she whispered,
"She looks familiar."
Aldren stared at her. "You're certain?"
"No," Liora said softly, eyes still glued to the photo. "But, something about her. Something I can't place."
A long silence stretched between them. Then the Queen lifted her chin, expression hardening into authority.
"Find out everything about her."
Aldren nodded once. "I'll have a team start discreetly...."
"No."
Her voice cut through the room quiet but absolute.
"This is not for the council. Not for the generals and not for the world to know."
She handed him the photo, her gaze unwavering. "We look into her ourselves."
Aldren studied her expression. The Queen rarely gave orders from instinct. She was rational and calculated. A strategist before anything else, but this....this was different.
"Liora…" he said carefully, "you think she could be..."
"I don't know," she cut in immediately.
"But I feel something. And I haven't felt anything like this since....."
She stopped, both of them knew the unfinished sentence: Since our daughter disappeared.
The King exhaled slowly, closing the file.
"Very well," he said. "We start with Nara."
"And quietly," Liora added. "No public movements. No alerts to other nations. The last thing we need is speculation."
"Agreed."
But before he could continue, the Queen stepped closer, placing a hand on the back of his chair.
"Aldren… if the Alarics are targeting her, and someone else is protecting her with this level of precision…"
Her eyes hardened.
"…then this girl is in far more danger than she realizes."
The King's expression darkened.
"I'll increase surveillance immediately."
"No," Liora said again, voice fierce.
"She must not know we're watching. Not until we understand who she is and why someone would risk a war to shield her."
A war. And they both knew what that meant.
A soft breeze rattled the tall windows as the Queen whispered too softly for anyone but her husband to hear
"Let's find the truth… before the world finds her."
---
Nara adjusted her tote bag on her shoulder as she stepped out of a small grocery store, humming under her breath. The evening breeze brushed past her as she walked down the busy street toward her apartment.
She didn't know that the Queen had paused over her picture for too long, or that the King had ordered the kind of discreet operation usually reserved for global threats. Or that Keigh, miles away, was tightening the security around her without saying a word.
Nara just carried her groceries home, completely unaware that her existence had become the center of interest for a kingdom searching for answers, a vengeful elite family planning her downfall, a corporate giant determined to shield her at any cost. And she was the only one still living her life as if nothing had changed because to her, nothing had, but to the world?
Everything had begun to shift, the storm had chosen its center and Nara didn't even feel the wind.