By the time I left the garden, the sun had fully risen. Servants moved through the halls with datapads tucked to their chests, speaking in low voices that stopped or shifted the second I passed. The polished floor reflected the tall windows in pale strips of light. I walked through them one after another, hands folded behind my back.
There was a part I did not like admitting, even to myself. I could say I was worried about my schedule, or my lessons, or the practical changes that came with him becoming king. Those were all true. But they were not the full truth. What if I got less of him now? A crown meant duty. Duty meant time. My father had never been lazy a day in his life, and becoming king had not made him less serious. If anything, it had only given him more to carry.
I turned a corner and passed two court messengers speaking with one of the palace clerks. All three bowed when they noticed me. The older messenger did it smoothly. The younger nearly fumbled the datapad under his arm. "Princess." I gave them a nod and kept walking. The route to my father's office took me through the more formal wing of the palace. Tapestries that probably cost more than a few villages hung along the walls. At the far end of the gallery, the guards outside his office were new.
Not new faces exactly. I had seen one of them before, though I could not place where. The other glanced at me, then bowed. "Princess."
"Is my father occupied?" The man answered carefully. "His Majesty is in conference, Princess, though he gave standing instruction that you were to be admitted when you came."
"Thank you." One guard touched the panel beside the door. The seal gave a soft tone, then the door slid open for me to pass through. The office beyond smelled faintly of old leather and tea. My father sat behind a wide desk near the center of the room, one elbow resting on the arm of his chair, the other hand holding a tablet angled toward the light. He was not alone. Two men stood opposite him with their backs half-turned to the door, both dressed in formal courtwear.
My father looked up first, and the change in his face was small, but I saw it. He set the tablet down. "Liora." Both men turned at once and bowed. I stepped farther into the room and stopped near the edge of the thick carpet. "Am I interrupting?" My father's mouth shifted slightly, the nearest thing to amusement he would allow in front of officials. "You are improving my day, dear." One of the men froze for half a second, probably because he had not expected the king to say anything like that. I tried not to smile too obviously. "I can come back later."
"No." He turned his attention to the men in front of him. "That will be all for now. You have your instructions." The older of the two bowed more deeply. "Yes, my lord." The younger followed a beat later, clutching his tablet. They both left quickly, and the door sealed behind them with another low hiss. Quiet settled over the office at once. I looked around while I waited for him to speak.
The room itself had changed less than I expected. More active screens. More sealed packets were stacked neatly along one side of the table. More marked maps floating dimly in one corner. But it was still his office. Still orderly. A pot of tea sat near his left hand, steaming faintly. My father leaned back slightly in his chair and studied me. "Well?" I crossed the rest of the room and stopped in front of his desk. "I wanted to see you."
He looked at me for a moment, then set the stylus in his hand down beside the tablet. "Then sit." I took the chair opposite him. Up close, he did not look tired as I had expected. If anything, he looked more settled than he had in some of the months before. It suited him. "Is there something on your mind? You have that look about you."
I looked down at my hands for a second, then back at him. "Aunt Jenza said you'd be busy."
"Indeed, but I know that is not the reason you came today." I glanced at the table to one side, where four sealed message cylinders sat in a neat row beside two blinking datapads. His eyes flicked toward the same table, then back to me. "Come now, child. Speak your mind freely."
I hesitated. "I was thinking," I said slowly, "that this is probably going to become a problem for my lessons." He said nothing at first. I watched his face carefully. He only sat there, looking at me in that stillness that meant he was waiting for me to continue. "You're king now," I said. "You have more to do. More people need your time. More meetings." I looked around the room again. "You cannot ignore the planet because I want to spend time with you, Father."
A brief pause. Then, quietly, "Do you believe I would not make time for you?" I shifted in the chair. My father folded his hands together on the desk. "Come here." I stood and came around the side of the desk. He reached out and rested one hand lightly against my shoulder, guiding me to stand where I faced the broad window behind his chair. The city stretched beyond it. Traffic moving. Sunlight on rooftops. From this height, the people below were too small to make out. My father stood beside me, not looming, but close enough that I could feel his presence without having to look.
"A ruler's duties are many," he said. "That is true." His voice was calm, the same one he used when teaching me forms or correcting a stance. "So are a father's." I kept my eyes on the city. He continued, "If being king requires me to neglect you, then I am not ruling as I should."
"You are not wrong to see that things have changed," he said. "They have. There will be days when duty takes me elsewhere, and hours I cannot so freely claim as my own. But if you have come here expecting me to say that your education, your training, or your place in my life must be made lesser because I wear a crown…" He let the silence hang between us for a moment. "Then you have judged me poorly."
That stung to hear. Not because he was being cruel. Because he was right. "I didn't mean—"
He lifted a hand and brushed a loose strand of hair from my face. "I know what you meant." I glanced up at him. His expression had softened, if only slightly. "You are allowed to fear change, Liora," he said. "You are not required to be at peace with it."
I looked away before my face could betray me. Below us, traffic shifted across the upper lanes as a long transport curved toward the western quarter. "I just…" I stopped, not wanting to fumble with my words. He waited. "I know the world matters more than our time together." He was quiet for a moment. "Do not think so little of yourself in my presence."
I turned to face him fully. His hand had fallen from my shoulder, but his attention remained fixed on me. "You speak as though I have set you against the world, as though I must choose between them." His gaze did not waver. "When you are the very reason I would make this world better."
He went on. "The world is not some distant thing set against you. It is made of duties, of bonds, of lives entrusted to one's care." His expression did not change, but his voice softened. "You are not outside those things, Liora. You are one of the first of them." My father looked back toward the city. "You are my daughter. I will not have you believe that duty demands the loss of all one loves until nothing remains but obligation. That is how men become hollow."
I did not say anything. I did not trust my voice enough for that. I could feel tears slipping down my face. He did not comment on them. He only took out a handkerchief and wiped my face with the same calm care as before. Then he moved back to his chair and drew me up onto his lap. He picked up his teacup, drank once, and set it down again. "You did not come here only to worry over lesson schedules." I almost laughed despite myself. "No."
"Good." His tone stayed dry. "I have had my fill this morning of people circling simple matters as though clarity were a form of treason." That did make me smile. "Well?" he asked. I took a breath. "Aunt Jenza told me about my allowance." One of his brows rose slightly. "Ah."
"She said it was mine to use reasonably." I mimicked her expression as best I could while I spoke. That got a smile out of him. "She did." I narrowed my eyes. "You knew." He nodded. "Your aunt seldom alters the financial structure of your life without speaking to me first." I folded my hands together in front of me. "I want to use some of it for something useful."
"I expected as much." He sounded so maddeningly unsurprised that I had to stop myself from glaring. "For what?" he asked. I thought about easing into it. Then I remembered who I was talking to. So I said, "I want a droid teacher." His face did not change. "A droid teacher," he repeated.
"Yes."
"And why?"
I lifted my chin a little. "Because I want to learn to make droids."
"That is not the reason," he said. "Surely you know I know you better than that." I looked down toward the edge of his desk. "There is a great deal I want to do," I said quietly, "and because of my age, I cannot." That got his full attention in a different way than before. I kept going before I lost my nerve. "I know I am young. I know there are places I cannot go alone, people I cannot simply approach, and things I am not permitted to do by myself. I understand that because of my position as your daughter, I will be limited. But if I learn to build droids, then I do not have to wait helplessly for all of it to change." I looked at him properly now. "I can still do something."
He said nothing, and the room felt very still. I made myself go on carefully, not too fast. "I want to make four of them eventually. My own design, if possible." His brow lifted again. "Four."
"Yes."
"For what purpose?" I took a deep breath before speaking again. "To be my hands and ears." He did not interrupt. "There are people I want to help," I said. "Things I may need to know. Situations I may need to affect. I cannot do much of that myself right now. Not properly. Not at my age. But droids could go where I cannot. Carry messages, watch, listen, and help."
I stopped there, and Father watched me for a long moment. He was not angry, but he was not amused either. His face had gone still in that particular way it did when he was deciding whether something before him was dangerous, foolish, or merely young. "Change the galaxy," he said at last.
"Yes," I admitted, because there was no point retreating now. "That is the ambition of the very young." Heat crept up my neck. "I would not begin with the galaxy."
"No?" he asked mildly.
"No."
"What then? A corridor? A vineyard? A district office? One customs checkpoint at a time?" I looked up at him. To my surprise, there was the faintest trace of humor in his eyes. He was teasing me. "I am serious," I said.
"I know." He leaned back slightly, one hand resting against the arm of the chair. "You have decided, then, that because your body is small, your reach must become mechanical." That was, annoyingly, a better way of putting it than I had managed myself. "Yes," I said.
"And you mean to choose the shape of that reach yourself."
"Yes."
His gaze stayed on my face. "And if I tell you that the world is not altered by hopeful designs?" It was not mockery, only the truth laid down plainly. "I know it is not that simple," I said.
"Do you?"
"Yes." He was quiet for a moment. Then, instead of continuing where I expected, he said, "When I was young, I thought skill was a form of freedom." I blinked. That was not where I had thought this was going. He glanced toward the narrow display case along the wall, where older machine parts and dismantled components sat in careful arrangement like relics from a more honest kind of life. "A blade," he said. "A starship. A form. A field of study. I thought that if one understood a thing deeply enough, one stepped outside the reach of other people's expectations." He looked back at me.
"It was not entirely false. Skill does offer freedom." His voice remained calm. "But it does not remove consequence." He was not dismissing what I wanted. He was warning me what it could become if I got it. "I understand," I said.
"No," he said. "You agree because you believe it will help you. That is not the same thing." I almost winced. He set his cup down and let the silence breathe for a moment. Then he said, "It is not wrong to want tools. It is not wrong to want capability. And it is certainly not wrong to dislike the helplessness of childhood." His expression softened by a shade. "What would be dangerous is learning too early to confuse reach with judgment." I looked at him. He went on more quietly, "If you build only because machines can go where you cannot and do what you cannot yet do, then you may begin by learning the wrong lesson."
"What lesson?" I asked.
"That distance makes a thing easier to answer for." I sat very still. I had not thought of that, and he was right. Given enough time, I could become numb to things simply because they were not happening in front of me. "I don't want that," I said.
"I know." I looked down at my hands. After a moment, I asked, "So what would you want me to learn first?" That pleased him more than my agreement had before. "That making a thing well matters before using it grandly," he said. "You must learn that even help has consequences beyond the hand that offers it."
He stared at me as if his eyes could see into my very soul, then breathed out softly. "Why four?" he asked. I blinked. That was not the question I had expected next. "Because one can fail," I said slowly. "Four can be split into pairs, used together, or rotated while one is being repaired."
The slight flicker in his eyes caught my attention. "You have thought about this."
"Yes," I admitted. "Longer than since breakfast?" His eyes searched mine. "Yes." He rose from the chair, placing me gently on it, and then crossed to the display case, hands clasped behind his back. I slipped down from his chair and stood as well, though more slowly. He looked at one of the old components behind glass before speaking again. "If I grant this request, you will begin properly," he said. "Maintenance. Architecture. Limitations. Memory systems. Safety protocols. Failure points. You will learn from the ground up before you indulge yourself." He turned back toward the desk. I followed, and when he sat again, I took the chair opposite him this time.
"You spoke to Jenza first," he said.
"Yes."
"And she supported the request."
"She did," I said carefully. "You are angry?"
His brows rose. "At what?"
"At me wanting more than court lessons." The shift in him then was small, but immediate. "If anyone has suggested to you that your life is meant to be confined to decoration," he said, "I would like a name." I almost smiled and shook my head. "No one said it. I know you would not want that for me," I said.
"No," he said simply. "I would not." The tea had gone quiet now, no more steam rising from the pot. He reached for the cup, found it cooler than he wanted, and set it back down again without drinking. But it reminded me that his day really was full, that I had interrupted it, that the stack of sealed messages on the side table was not decorative. "You really are busy," I said.
"I am," he said, and I looked at him. "And you still made time." He held my gaze for a beat. "Did you think I would not?" I could have lied and said no. Instead, I told the truth. "I thought maybe you would try," I said. "But that it would become harder." Something in his expression shifted. Not wounded. Not exactly. But touched. "There will be days when it is harder," he said. "I will not insult you by pretending otherwise."
I looked down at the worn corner of his desk, where years of use had thinned the polish. "If it does become harder," I said, "for the Force lessons, or lightsaber practice… I understand."
"I am not certain you do." I frowned. "What does that mean?"
"It means," he said, "that you are already preparing to make yourself smaller before anyone has asked it of you." I opened my mouth to argue and then shut it again. He watched my face and, mercifully, did not press the point with any satisfaction. "There may come a point," he said, "when parts of your education are shared. Not because I value them less. Because some things may come up, and a child in your position should not be shaped by only one hand when several are wiser. That would not be a loss."
I looked away for a moment. It made sense. Of course it did. I just did not like it very much. He read enough of that from my face to say, more gently, "You are not being set aside." I glanced back at him. "I know," I muttered. The door panel gave a soft blink, then signaled an incoming request. Neither of us looked at it immediately.
He reached to the control beside his desk and said, without looking away from me, "Hold all messages for ten more minutes." A clipped voice answered, "Yes, my lord." The light went dark. I looked down before he could read too much of that on my face. "All right," I said, because my voice needed somewhere to go. "Then if you are not planning to throw me into decorative nonsense, and you are not replacing my lessons, and you do not entirely hate the droid idea—"
"I did not say I did not hate the droid idea." I blinked. That was unmistakably amusement now, dry and brief. "It is not the desire to learn that concerns me," he said. "It is the speed with which you wish to use what you learn."
"Liora," he said, and his voice had shifted, softer now, meant to be heard rather than argued with, "I do not object to your ambition. I object only to the thought of your heart hardening around it too early. That you would hurry yourself out of childhood in order to prove that you can be useful."
He rested one hand flat against the desk. "There will be enough in life that teaches you to act at a distance. Enough that asks you to become efficient. I will not help that process along before I must." I swallowed. "I understand," I said quietly.
"I know you mean to help," he said.
"I do."