"So you're just going to do nothing?" Ysmeine's voice was shaking with anger. "You'll just sit there and let them destroy him to protect your secret?"

The tension was thick. Lysara stayed quiet, looking back and forth between the two holograms.

Athea's cold authority seemed to fracture, her posture slumping with a weariness that felt ancient. When she spoke, her voice was low, stripped of its usual command, and laced with a pain that silenced Ysmeine's rage.

"Protect my secret?" Athea's voice was a bitter retort. "That secret, Ysmeine, is the only thing that has kept him alive for eighteen years. Are you trying to say my radio silence was anything other than his only shield?"

She leaned forward, her eyes locking onto Ysmeine's with a desperate intensity.

"Every message I didn't send, every call I didn't make, that was his protection. Any trail, any connection, would have led my family straight to him. And they would have erased him without a second thought. My 'doing nothing' and cutting off contact with you at times, has been a constant, agonizing battle to keep him breathing."

Athea's words hung in the air, heavy and irrefutable. The fight drained from Ysmeine's face, replaced by the dawning horror of the truth.

"You wanted him to be more than a secret," Athea finished, her voice cracking with a weariness that cut deeper than anger. "You wanted him trained. This is the cost of that, Ysmeine. The moment he stepped out of the shadows, he became a target."

"Well, it doesn't change the fact!" Ysmeine's voice broke—not from sadness, but from pure rage. "You don't even know your own son! You've never ever requested to meet him, even once. I know you can't meet him in person, it's risky, but why can't you initiate a single Holo- call? Just to see his face?"

Heavy silence. Lysara watched, actually interested now. Athea's perfect mask was still there, but the ice in her eyes had melted.

"That doesn't matter. He is still my son, Ysmeine," she said, and every word was full of pain and anger. "Don't you dare tell me I…. don't love him. You have no idea what it has cost me to stay away. You got to hold him, to raise him. My sacrifice was letting you do that."

The Princess looked at Lysara. The mask was back, the authority absolute." Old friend," she said, her voice once again a command wrapped in velvet. "Watch him closely. Any other problems come straight to me. No one else."

The feed cut. Athea's image disappeared, leaving empty space.

Ysmeine stood there staring at where Athea had been. Then she let out a breath and her shoulders dropped under all that anger and concern for her baby boy.

"She'll let him burn to save her crown," she whispered, voice still carrying that anger.

"That's what makes her a great princess, Ysmeine." Lysara leaned back "And a terrible mother."

Ysmeine's head shot up, eyes blazing again. "And you, Lysara? You're just her loyal dog, watching him bleed for her secrets?"

Lysara's smile didn't change, but her eyes went hard. "Careful, Ysmeine. I'm nobody's dog. I'm not helping him, because of her."

She added, "I could have easily aligned with the other council members without any consequences. Hell, half of them want him to be treated as a threat. I didn't help because I'm loyal to Athea or because I'm afraid of her. I did it because it was the right thing to do. That boy deserves a chance."

Ysmeine's anger softened, replaced by something like gratitude. "Thank you, Lysara. I appreciate that and he does too."

"You're welcome."

The feed cut, and Ysmeine was alone. The silence filled her room completely.

After the meeting with Lysara and Ysmeine, Athea sat in her private observatory.

The air in the room was still and cool, smelling faintly of old starlight and ozone.

A single glass of amber liqueur sat untouched on her obsidian desk as she stared out at the cosmos, the star-charts shifting with silent, lazy grace.

Her posture was majestic and flawless as ever but the tension in her shoulders was a story in itself.

A soft hiss from the door didn't make her turn. She knew who it was.

She exhaled slowly, the sound sharp in the vast chamber.

Across the polished floor, Lady Calyra had just walked in, her elegant eyes studying her sister as if trying to figure out exactly what she was thinking. But it was pointless.

"Honestly, Athea, you look like you're plotting how to destabilize a minor galaxy,"she commented in a smooth, amused voice. Her silver royal dress whispered against the floor.

She moved directly to Athea's private bar, pouring herself a generous measure of the same glowing liqueur. "Or, you know, just contemplating a plan, how to meet the only male prince without getting discovered by Viora." She joked.

Athea finally turned, her perfect mask of composure firmly in place, though her blue eyes were stormy. "He's not a prince, Cal. You know the rules—males don't get titles here. Not in this Queendom or anywhere else."

Calyra scoffed. "Oh, please. He's totally a prince. Have you seen his cheekbones? Those are royal cheekbones." She took a sip, grinning. "So, how'd it go with his mom? Spill."

Athea's eyes narrowed, the warmth in the room dropping several degrees. "She is his caretaker, Calyra. Not his mother."

Calyra let out a low, throaty chuckle, swirling the liqueur in her glass. The amber liquid caught the light, casting dancing patterns on the wall. "Oh, is that what he calls her? Funny."

She took a deliberate step closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial purr.

"Because I've read your messages with her, heard how Ysmeine speaks of him… and I've seen the pictures you showed me. Just from the way he looks at her, it's obvious — 'caretaker' is the most ridiculously understated title I've ever heard. He looks at her like she hung the moons in the sky."

A muscle in Athea's jaw twitched. "This isn't about sentiment. Ysmeine has done her duty."

"Her duty?" Calyra's laugh was sharp this time, devoid of its earlier humor. She set her glass down on the desk with a soft click. "Athea, darling, she's raised him. She gets to be 'Mom.' The woman who patches his scrapes, listens to his ridiculous stories, and probably has to put up with his teenage moods." Her eyes glittered with a dangerous light as she leaned forward. "And what are you? The ghost in the machine who signs the checks."

Athea flinched, the insult landing with the precision of a master assassin's blade. "I am the one keeping him alive!" she hissed, her voice a low, furious whisper. "Every decision I make is a calculated risk to ensure he sees another day!"

"By collecting pictures of him like some secret admirer?" Calyra shot back, her voice mercilessly soft. "Do you still ask for them? So you still watch his life through a borrowed lens, too afraid to even speak his name aloud in this palace. Tell me, sister, does it burn? Knowing she gets to hold him, to hear his laughter, while you get a sterile data file once a month?"

That was it. The final, perfect strike.

Athea's perfect mask shattered. Her hands trembled where they rested on the desk. She looked away, her gaze fixing on the cold, empty expanse of the cosmos outside her window.

When she finally spoke, her voice was raw, stripped of all its royal authority. "She has the luxury of being his mother," she whispered, the words thick with a jealousy so profound it was almost a physical ache. "I have the burden of ensuring he lives long enough to resent me for it."

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