The commission's work was a leaky vessel they were constantly bailing, but it floated. The opera house plans entered a tedious phase of cost analysis, which Lord Greymont seemed to relish as a form of bureaucratic torture. The day-to-day of royal life resumed its relentless pace.
It was in the nursery that the next tremor hit. Not from outside enemies, but from within the fragile structure they were building.
Isla, their pragmatic, fierce-hearted daughter, had been unusually quiet since their return. Her promised saltwater tank now held a few hardy anemones and a disgruntled crab, but she spent less time observing it and more time curled in a window seat with a book. One evening, after a long commission session, Hadrian went to say goodnight.
He found her not reading, but staring out at the darkening sky, her small face set in a frown.
"Penny for your thoughts, starfish," he said, using her old nickname.
She didn't turn. "Nanny says you and Mother almost didn't come back."
The words were a punch to the gut.He knelt beside her seat. "What do you mean, Isla?"
"She was talking to the cook. She said the voyage was a 'last-ditch effort' and that everyone was surprised you both got on the same ship without… without killing each other." Isla's voice was small, but precise, a scalpel of innocence. "She said it was a good thing Uncle Rian was there to smooth things over before you left."
Hadrian felt a cold fury towards the careless nanny, but it was secondary to the ache in his daughter's question. The perfect facade had protected the children from the void. Its dismantling was exposing them to unsettling truths.
"Isla," he said carefully, taking her hand. "Your mother and I… we were very lost for a while. Not on maps, but… here." He touched his chest. "We forgot how to talk about the hard things. The voyage was very hard. But we were on the same ship because we wanted to find our way back to each other. And we did."
"Because of Uncle Rian?" The question was razor-sharp.
"No," Hadrian said, the truth absolute. "In spite of everything, including our own stubbornness. Uncle Rian is a good friend, but he couldn't fix what was between us. Only your mother and I could do that. And we are. It's… messy. And slow. But we are."
Isla finally looked at him, her eyes, so like Seraphina's, boring into his. "Leo says you argue about mud now."
A surprised laugh burst from him."We do. Passionately. About very important mud."
"Is that better than not talking?"
The wisdom of the question stole his breath."Yes, my brilliant girl. It is infinitely better."
She considered this, then nodded, seemingly satisfied. "Okay. But you should tell Nanny to be quiet. Her 'last ditch' is my parents."
Later, when he recounted the conversation to Seraphina in the quiet of their bedroom, she paled, then sank onto the edge of the bed, her head in her hands. "My God. What are we doing to them? They hear everything. They sense everything."
"They sensed the silence too, Sera," he said, sitting beside her. "Isla asked me, right before we left, if we would argue. They knew. This… this messiness, this arguing about mud… it's honesty. It's noise. And noise is life. The silence was the damage."
She leaned into him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder—a gesture so natural yet so long-forgotten it made his heart clench. "I'm so tired of the damage."
"I know."He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close. "But we're repairing it. Even the nursery walls."
They sat like that for a long time, not as prince and princess, not as chairman and advisor, but as two parents, terrified and determined, holding each other up in the unquiet dark. The romantic void had echoes, they were learning. It reverberated in the fears of their children. But the sound of their reconciliation—the murmured conversations, the honest answers, even the weary embrace—was a new sound in the house, slowly drowning out the old, terrible quiet