The news of Richard passing the Cambridge University entrance examination hit the Mark household like a celebration and a funeral at once. To the Marks, it meant their daughter was essentially betrothed to a future doctor or lawyer with royal blood.
To Edna, it felt like the first tick of a clock she couldn't stop.
The weeks leading up to his departure were frantic. They spent every moment together, their love fueled by the looming shadow of the Atlantic Ocean that would soon sit between them.
"I've spoken to my father," Richard told her in the privacy of the palace guest house. "He knows our intentions. He has promised to look after your family while I'm away. And once I'm settled in London, once the first term is over... I'll send for you."
He gave her a locket—a heavy, gold piece with his portrait inside. It was a tangible piece of the Amadi legacy, a down payment on a future that felt certain.
But then came the final night. The air was thick, the kind of stillness that precedes a hurricane. The political climate in the country had shifted; there were whispers of blockades, of tensions in the North and East.
"Don't go," Edna pleaded, her hands gripping his shirt. "Something is changing, Richard. I can feel it in the streets. People are looking at each other differently."
"I have to go, Edna. For us. If I stay, I'm just another Prince in a decaying palace. If I go, I become the man who can lead this kingdom into the next century."
They clung to each other with a desperation that bordered on pain. It was that night, in the quiet heat of the guest house, that Graham was conceived—a child of love, yes, but also a child of an impending storm.
When Richard stood at the airport gate the next morning, looking dashing in his travel suit, he didn't see the war coming. He saw a few years of study, a graduation in a black robe, and a triumphant return. He kissed Edna's forehead, whispered "I love you" into the salt of her tears, and walked toward the tarmac.
Edna watched the plane disappear into the clouds. Two weeks later, the first shells fell on the outskirts of the city. A month after that, the postal services were cut.
She realized she was pregnant in a world that was falling apart. She wrote letter after letter, handing them to anyone she thought might get them to a ship, to a plane, to London.
Richard, I am with child.
Richard, the markets are empty.
Richard, your father is asking for you.
None of them reached him. Or perhaps they did, and the comfort of Grace and the safety of London had already begun to erase the memory of the "Lioness" in the dust.
By the time Edna was forced to flee her home with a toddler in her arms, the love she had felt for Richard had curdled. It had turned from a golden flame into a cold, hard diamond of resentment. She realized that Richard hadn't just left for school; he had escaped. And she was left to guard a legacy that was being hunted.
The love was dead, but the ambition it had birthed was only just beginning to grow.