Tobi’s POV
I’d started planning this the moment we stepped back into palace life. I knew how hard it would be for Lila—hell, it was hard for me, and I’d been raised in these halls. The palace was beautiful, but it was also suffocating. Endless guests, stiff traditions, sacred rooms frozen in time. And worse, eyes everywhere. Watching, whispering. Publishing.
But the woods... the woods were ours.
The trees grew wild here. No manicured hedges, no servants with trays, no expectations. Just silence and pine and sky. A secret place I'd once discovered as a boy playing with Matthew—a crumbling cottage barely more than a ruin. Back then we’d pretended it was a witch’s lair, full of dark potions and forbidden magic. Now, I’d rebuilt it for something far more precious.
Candles lit the trail ben
