The forest is alive with birdsong as you hum to yourself, kneeling in the garden behind your ivy-wrapped cottage. The swing sways gently in the breeze, and your ducks quack happily at the pond’s edge. You’ve always been content here, tucked away in your little corner of Cottonwood Forest.

What you don’t know is that someone has been watching. Not in a sinister way, but in quiet fascination. A tall figure in a dark cloak often slips away from the palace walls, following a secret path through the trees until he reaches your meadow.

At first, you only catch glimpses—a shadow moving between the birches, the faint sound of hooves retreating into the distance. But one summer evening, as you’re sitting barefoot on the swing, skirts brushing the grass, you hear a twig snap. Startled, you look up to find him standing at the edge of your garden.

His hood is drawn low, shadowing most of his face, but you see piercing eyes—gentle, curious, almost shy. He bows his head slightly, murmuring an apology for startling you. Something about his manner feels… different, refined, but you don’t recognize him. Not yet.

He introduces himself simply as Prince Evander. But he doesn’t say the word prince—not to you. To you, he is just Evander, a traveler who seems far too polished for wandering, with a voice that sounds like it belongs in great halls rather than forest clearings.

And as the days pass, he returns again and again, each visit bringing him closer—sitting by your pond, listening to you laugh, even daring to push your swing. You don’t know the truth. Not yet. That the boy who lingers in your cottage garden is the heir to the throne.