Imani found her father in the western records chamber, where he often disappeared when court was over and politics still needed tending.
The room smelled of dust, wax, and old leather.Her father stood at the central table beneath a hanging lamp, bent over an unfurled map with one hand braced beside it.
He did not look up when she entered.
"You have been hovering in the doorway for nearly a minute," he said.
"Either speak or commit to spying properly."
Imani exhaled through her nose and stepped inside. "You always know when it's me."
"Because guilt walks louder than confidence." He lifted his gaze at last, one brow rising.
"What have you done?"
"Nothing."
"That is never how these conversations begin when someone has done nothing."
Despite herself, Imani smiled faintly. Then it faded.
Her father straightened.
The humor left his face almost immediately.
"What is it?"
Imani crossed her arms, then uncrossed them. "It's Zaina."
His expression shifted to sharpened attention.
"What about her?"
"She…" Imani hesitated.
"She isn't acting normally."
Her father snorted softly. "That narrows it down very little."
Imani gave him a look. "I'm serious."
"She barely sleeps," Imani said.
"She keeps pacing. She won't stop reading those old forbidden texts she hides beneath her bed. She keeps asking questions no one can answer. She hardly listens when I speak anymore because she's always thinking about the forest."
His brow furrowed. "Obsessing over recent events is not unusual. The entire kingdom is unsettled."
"No," Imani said. "This is different."
Her father studied her face.
"How different?"
Imani swallowed.
Then lowered her voice.
"She says she saw something."
The room seemed to tighten around them.
"What something?"
"She says…" Imani hesitated again, suddenly unsure whether saying it aloud would make it real.
"She says she saw the Leopard."
Silence.
Her father did not blink.
Then very carefully, he asked,
"Exactly what did she say?"
Imani shifted uneasily. "That she saw it in the forest. Watching her."
His jaw tightened.
"And you believe her?"
"No," Imani said too quickly. Then softer—"I don't know."
She looked down.
"It was dark. She had snuck into the forest alone. She was frightened. Maybe it was a shadow. Maybe fear made it look larger than it was."
"Maybe," her father said.
But his voice held no comfort.
Imani frowned. "You don't think so."
He moved away from the table slowly, hands clasping behind his back as he paced once across the room.
"Does anyone else know of this?"
"No."
"Did she tell the King?"
"No."
"The Queen?"
"I don't think so."
He stopped pacing.
Good, his face seemed to say.
Imani's stomach tightened.
"You're scaring me."
Her father looked at her then, not as the Hand of the King, but as her father.
"There are stories," he said carefully, "older than what children are taught in their lessons. Stories the court prefers remain buried."
Imani stared.
"What stories?"
"The kind that begin when old things wake."
A chill moved through her.
He sighed, softer now.
"Listen to me carefully, Imani. Zaina carries burdens you cannot fully understand."
"She's my friend."
"Yes," he said gently.
"And because she is your friend, you must understand this: power isolates people. Especially power promised to them before they are old enough to choose it."
Imani looked down.
He continued.
"She is heir to a throne she does not want. Watched by a kingdom that judges her every breath. Pressed beneath expectations heavy enough to break lesser people."
His voice darkened slightly.
"And now she believes the oldest forbidden spirit in our history may have shown itself to her."
Imani swallowed hard.
"What if it did?"
He held her gaze.
"Then she will become more dangerous than she realizes."
The words landed like stones.
"She would never hurt anyone," Imani whispered.
"No," he said. "Not willingly."
He stepped closer.
"But obsession does not begin with evil intentions, child. It begins with certainty. With believing you alone see what others cannot. With believing rules no longer apply because destiny has chosen you."
Imani's throat tightened.
He rested a hand lightly on her shoulder.
"If Zaina believes she has been chosen for something…" he said, "then she may begin making reckless choices to prove it."
Imani thought of the pacing. The books. The distant look in Zaina's eyes whenever the forest was mentioned.
Her silence answered for her.
Her father's voice softened further.
"I need you to watch her."
She blinked. "Watch her?"
"If she attempts to leave again—tell me."
Imani stiffened.
"She'll hate me."
"She may," he said.
The bluntness startled her.
"But better her anger than her death."
Imani looked away.
"She trusts me."
"Then keep that trust," he replied. "Do not confront her. Do not accuse her. Simply watch."
The room felt smaller now.
He squeezed her shoulder once.
"Can you do that?"
Imani hesitated.
Then nodded.
"Yes."
"Good."
He stepped back.
"You may go."
She turned toward the door, then paused.
"Father?"
"Yes?"
"If she really did see something…" Imani asked, "what happens?"
He did not answer at first.
His gaze drifted toward the dark window beyond the shelves, where the forest stretched unseen beyond palace walls.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low enough to nearly vanish beneath the lamp's crackle.
"If the Leopard walks again," he said, "then history has begun repeating itself."
Imani stood frozen.
Then she left.
The door shut softly behind her.
Her father remained where he was, staring into the dark.
And for the first time in many years,
the Hand of the King looked afraid.