Chapter 12: Sleeping in the Clouds
The hum of the engines was a lullaby. The cabin lights had been dimmed to a twilight blue, casting long shadows across the sprawled forms of Malia and Kai, both lost to deep, motionless sleep. Leilani’s seat was fully reclined into a narrow bed, a blanket tucked around her. Will’s was angled to face hers, close enough that their hands, loosely entwined on the armrest between them, didn’t have to stretch.
He hadn’t let go. Even in the drifting haze before sleep, his thumb moved in slow, absent circles over her knuckle, over the wood of her ring.
“You’re still thinking,” he whispered. His voice was gravelly with fatigue, stripped of any royal polish.
“Aren’t you?”
“Trying not to.” He shifted, wincing as his stiff shoulder protested. The uniform, even absent, seemed to have left its impression on his posture. “My brain just keeps replaying the Archbishop’s voice. Like a skipping record.”
She smiled in the dark. “Mine’s the drum. The pahu. I can still feel it here.” She moved their joined hands to rest just below her sternum.
He was quiet for a long moment. The plane gave a slight shudder, hitting a patch of turbulence, and his fingers tightened instinctively. “It’s different,” he finally said. “The sound. It wasn’t just music. It was a… a claim. In that space. It changed the air.”
“That was the point,” she murmured. Her eyes were closed. She could see the choir loft, the concentrated faces of the musicians she’d flown in, the way the sound had swallowed the Gothic silence whole.
“It was brilliant,” he said, simple and sure. “And it terrified about six dozen protocol officers.” A low chuckle vibrated through him. “Grandmama’s equerry looked like he was going to have an aneurysm.”
Leilani laughed softly, the sound absorbed by the blanket. “Good.”
Another silence, comfortable this time. The turbulence smoothed out. She was hovering on the edge of a dream, images of stone abbey and floral carpets melting into the scent of wet earth and ginger. She felt him lean over the gap between their beds. His lips pressed against her forehead, a dry, warm touch that lingered.
“Sleep, kuʻuipo,” he breathed, the Hawaiian word awkward but tender in his English mouth. My sweetheart. He’d been practicing.
His arms, as best he could in the confined space, wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her slightly toward him. It wasn’t entirely comfortable—an elbow dug into her side, the armrest between them was removed—but the possession in it, the need for physical contact, was absolute. She nuzzled into the hollow of his neck, breathing in the clean, tired scent of his skin, free now of cologne or palace linen soap.
Their breathing slowed, synced. The last thought she had was of the tiara, packed away in its leather case in the overhead locker. A declaration, he’d called it. The weight of it felt less like a crown now and more like a compass stone, pulling her true east, towards the dawn they were chasing.
The jolt of the landing gear deploying shocked her awake like a plunge into cold water. Her heart hammered, a disorienting thrill of alarm. For a second, she didn’t know where she was. The blue twilight, the oppressive quiet, Will’s heavy arm across her.
Then the pilot’s smooth voice came overhead. “Cabin crew, prepare for landing.”
Will stirred, his arm tightening before he blinked awake. His eyes, bleary and close, found hers. A slow, confused smile dawned. “Oh. Right.”
Around them, the cabin came to life. Malia was already upright, furiously neatening her hair with her fingers. Kai was stretching, his spine cracking audibly. “Welcome to the circus,” he yawned, looking out the window at the blur of gray tarmac and brilliant green hills.
The plane touched down with a squeal of rubber and a roar of reverse thrust. They were here.
The humidity hit them the second the door opened, a solid, fragrant wall that made the plane’s canned air seem like a forgotten memory. It wasn’t just heat; it was the smell of plumeria and damp soil, of salt and warm pavement after a brief rain. Leilani inhaled so deeply it made her lightheaded. Home.
The staircase was rolled up. From the ground, a small, official-looking cluster of people waited. But standing apart, right at the foot of the stairs, was a tall, broad-shouldered man in a crisp aloha shirt and dark slacks: her Uncle Kanoa, her mother’s brother. His face was a mask of serene authority, but his eyes were bright with emotion.
They disembarked, the order subtly shifting. Will, drilled in protocol, moved to let her go first. But Uncle Kanoa’s gaze was fixed on her. This was her landing. She descended the steps, the humid air wrapping around her legs, her simple clothes feeling suddenly right.
“E Leilani e,” Uncle Kanoa said, his voice thick. He opened his arms.
She walked into his hug, the familiar, safe scent of him—soap and kukui nut oil—overwhelming her. He held her hard, then pulled back, his large hands on her shoulders. His eyes scanned her face, then dropped to the koa wood ring. He gave a single, approving nod.
“You look tired,” he said.
“I am.”
“Good. Means you felt it.” He then turned his attention to Will, who had descended behind her. His expression became more measured, politely appraising. “Prince William. Welcome to our home.”
“Sir,” Will said, extending a hand. “Thank you for having us. Please, it’s Will.”
Uncle Kanoa took the hand, his grip firm. “Will. The family is waiting at the house. But first…” He gestured to the small official group. A woman in a smart suit stepped forward, a hesitant smile on her face. The Governor’s aide. There were brief handshakes, a murmured welcome. A young woman presented Leilani with a stunning double-tier lei of pikake and maile. The scent was dizzying.
As the woman lifted it over Leilani’s head, Leilani caught the flash of a camera from behind a distant chain-link fence. A lone paparazzo with a long lens. The walled paradise wasn’t so walled.
Will stiffened almost imperceptibly beside her, his public smile clicking into place. Leilani felt a spike of irritation, sharp and hot. This was her airport, her dirt. The aide was still talking about an informal reception at the palace later in the week.
“We’re looking forward to some quiet family time first,” Leilani said, her voice cutting through the aide’s sentence with a pleasant, final tone she’d learned from the best. She saw Will glance at her, surprised.
Uncle Kanoa’s mouth twitched. “The car is this way.”
They moved. The official party peeled off. The SUV was a massive, dark thing with local plates. Kai dove into the front seat. Malia, Leilani, and Will slid into the back. The doors shut, sealing them in cool, conditioned air that now felt artificial.
As they pulled away from the private hangar, Leilani watched the familiar landscape scroll by—the razor-edged green of the Koʻolaus, the sprawling haphazard buildings of Kalihi, the flamboyant red blooms of ʻōhiʻa lehua trees. It was all so vividly, painfully itself. She was seeing it through two sets of eyes: her own, and Will’s. She saw him watching, silent, taking in the density of the green, the sheer verticality of the cliffs, the bright, unapologetic clutter of local life.
“It’s… lush,” he said finally.
“It’s a lot,” Kai said from the front, not turning around. “Takes a minute. Don’t worry, we’re not going straight to the palace. You get a day to acclimate at the house.”
“The house” was Uncle Kanoa’s place in Mānoa Valley, a large, open-walled home nestled against the rain-forested cliffs. As they turned up the steep, narrow road, the sounds of the city faded, replaced by the chatter of myna birds and the distant rush of a stream.
The car hadn’t even fully stopped in the driveway before the front door burst open. A tidal wave of cousins, aunts, and uncles spilled out, talking and laughing all at once. Leilani was swallowed before her feet hit the pavement. There were more hugs, kisses, playful shoves. She was poked and admired, her ring examined, her hair touched. “You look married!” her younger cousin Noa exclaimed, and everyone laughed.
Will stood by the car door, a polite, slightly stunned smile on his face. The energy was chaotic, affectionate, and utterly without deference. A small boy of about five darted from the crowd and wrapped himself around Will’s leg, staring up at him. “You the prince?”
Will looked down. “Uh. Yes.”
“You got a sword?”
“Not… with me.”
“Bummer,” the boy said, and detached himself, running off.
Uncle Kanoa rescued him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Come. Food. Then you sleep.”
The house was loud, full of overlapping conversations, the clatter of dishes from the kitchen, the smell of kalua pig and fresh pineapple. Will was pulled gently into the flow, introduced to a dozen names he’d never remember, handed a plate piled high with food. He sat on a lanai couch, plate on his knees, listening. Leilani watched him from across the room, talking with an aunt. He was trying. He nodded, asked questions about the food, laughed when Kai told a joke. But she could see the slight glassiness in his eyes, the careful control of his movements. He was processing, hard.
After lunch, the fatigue won. Uncle Kanoa led them to a separate guest hale, a small cottage behind the main house surrounded by giant ferns. It was quiet. The only sound was the rain beginning to patter on the broad leaves outside.
Inside was simple: a large bed with a plain white coverlet, open windows screened against insects. Their suitcases had been placed neatly by the door.
The door closed. The lock of the world clicked shut.
For a long moment, they just stood in the middle of the cool, shadowy room. The roar of the family, the engine drone, the choir and the crowds—it all condensed into this silent, green pressure.
Will let out a breath that was almost a sob. He sank onto the edge of the bed, his head dropping into his hands. “Bloody hell.”
Leilani sat beside him, her shoulder against his. “Yeah.”
“That was…”
“A lot.”
“They’re wonderful,” he said quickly, lifting his head. “They are. It’s just…”
“It’s not a palace receiving line,” she finished. “It’s a living thing. It’s messy.”
He nodded, rubbing his eyes. “I like messy. I do. I just need to learn the rules for this particular mess.”
“There are none,” she said, leaning into him. “That’s the point.”
He put his arm around her, pulling her down until they were lying sideways on the coverlet, still in their travel-wrinkled clothes. The rain grew heavier, a steady drumming on the roof. It was the first true privacy they’d had since the balcony, since before the wedding.
Will traced the line of her jaw. “Your uncle. He looked at me like he was deciding whether I was worthy of the family silver.”
“He was.”
“And?”
“You got the guest hale. Not the couch in the main house. So you passed.”
He laughed quietly, the tension in his body beginning to seep away. His gaze was intense, searching her face. “Are you okay? Truly?”
She thought about the question. The weight of the aquamarines in a locked case. The feel of the soil here, so different from English earth. The sound of her name in her family’s voices. “I will be,” she said. “Now that we’re here. Now that we’ve stopped.”
He kissed her then, a slow, deep kiss of shared exhaustion and profound relief. It was a landing. It was an anchor dropped.
They slept through the afternoon as the rain swept through the valley. Not the fitful, cradled sleep of the plane, but a deep, drugged collapse in a real bed, limbs tangled, breath mingling, the outside world reduced to the scent of wet fern and the cooling air.
Leilani woke at dusk. The rain had stopped. Will was still asleep, one arm thrown heavily across her waist. In the violet light, she could see the familiar contours of the wooden beams overhead, the shadow of a gecko clinging motionless to the screen.
From the main house, she heard the faint, resonant thump of a slack-key guitar starting up, and the rise of easy laughter.
Home.
She closed her eyes again, listening. Not to the guitar, but to the deeper silence of the valley holding them, and to the new, steady rhythm of the heart beating against her back.
Not to the guitar, but to the deeper silence of the valley holding them, and to the new, steady rhythm of the heart beating against her back.
The next few days dissolved into a warm blur of rain and sunlight and food. They slept late. They walked the muddy trails behind the house, Will’s sneakers getting ruined, Leilani pointing out kalo patches and wild guava. He asked questions. About the land, the history, the wrongs. He listened, his brow furrowed, his hand never leaving hers. They avoided the news. They ignored their phones.
Kai watched it all from a distance, his earlier prickliness softening into a guarded assessment. One afternoon, he found Will alone on the lanai, staring at the relentless green. “It gets in your blood, yeah?” Kai said, handing him a cold beer.
Will took it, condensation wetting his palm. “It’s already there. I just didn’t know it was missing.”
On the fourth evening, Uncle Kanoa cleared his throat after dinner. The family chatter quieted. “Tomorrow,” he said, looking between Leilani and Will. “You go to the Palace. They’ve cleared it for you. For the rest of your stay. Just you. The staff will leave at sunset.”
A current of understanding passed through the room. This wasn’t a tour. It was a vigil.
Leilani felt the air change. The ‘Iolani Palace wasn’t just a museum to them; it was a living wound, a site of surrender. Her stomach tightened. Will, sensing the shift, simply nodded. “Thank you.”
The following sunset found their car passing through the iron gates. The Palace stood against the coral sky, its pillars stark and proud. The last of the docents bowed slightly, handed Leilani a heavy old key, and departed. The lock turned with a definitive clunk. Silence descended, deeper than any they’d known.
They were alone in the throne room.
Their footsteps echoed on the polished koa floor. The portraits of the Hawaiian monarchs watched them. The weight was immediate, a pressing, mournful gravity. Leilani led Will up the grand koa staircase, their hands linked like a lifeline. The room prepared for them was spacious, antique, a four-poster bed dressed in fine white linen. It felt less like a bedroom and more like a sacred chamber.
A soft knock came just as the last light faded.
Kai stood there, but he was transformed. He wore a formal kīhei of dark kapa cloth. In his arms, he carried something massive, wrapped in a protective covering of black tapa. His face was solemn, stripped of all its casual humor. “Lei,” he said, his voice formal. “Will. Come.”
They followed him back down to the grand hall. The family had gathered in the shadows—Uncle Kanoa, Malia, a handful of revered elders. No one spoke. Candles had been lit, their flames throwing trembling light on the portraits of King Kalākaua and Queen Lili‘uokalani.
Kai moved to the center of the room. He laid the bundle on a wide koa table. With precise, reverent movements, he unfolded the tapa. The feather cloak emerged.
It was a mantle of profound power. Thousands of tiny, golden ‘ō‘ō and crimson ‘i‘iwi feathers, each one a spark of captured sunset, woven into a solid, shimmering weight of history and sovereignty. The cloak of Lili‘uokalani.
The air left Leilani’s lungs.
Kai lifted the cloak. It was heavier than it looked, a dense, radiant burden. He turned to Will. His gaze was piercing, unyielding. “This has never been placed on the shoulders of a non-Hawaiian. Not since the Queen was taken from these rooms.” He paused, letting the centuries of silence press in. “You come from a line of takers. You stand in a place of taking.”
Will stood motionless, his face pale in the candlelight, his eyes fixed on the cloak. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t look away.
“Do you come to take?” Kai’s voice was low, a challenge that vibrated in the wood.
“No,” Will said. The word was clear, absolute.
“What do you come to do?”
Will’s eyes found Leilani’s across the space. He saw the tears tracking silent paths down her cheeks, saw the reflection of the feathers in her blue eyes. He looked back at Kai, at the cloak, at the assembled weight of her bloodline. “I come to exist beside her.”
A murmur, soft as a sigh, moved through the family.
Kai stepped forward. “Then bear the weight.”
He lifted the cloak. The incredible, delicate mass of it settled onto Will’s shoulders. The golden feathers shimmered against the simple cotton of his shirt. Will’s knees buckled slightly under the physical and historical heft, just a fraction, before he straightened. His shoulders squared beneath the legacy of a captive queen.
He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he looked not at Kai, but at Leilani. And into the silent, charged air of the palace, he offered the only word that fit.
“EŌ.”
I exist.
The sound was a whisper, but it rang off the beams. Leilani’s hand flew to her mouth. A shiver, collective and profound, passed through every person in the hall. In that utterance, he did not claim her lineage. He acknowledged his own presence within its orbit, a new star pulled into the constellation of their survival.
Kai nodded, once. The ceremony was over. The family began to melt back into the shadows, leaving them alone in the candlelight. Uncle Kanoa paused, touching Leilani’s arm. “Sleep well, Princess,” he said softly.
The title, in this place, was not English. It was Hawaiian. It was a restitution.
They returned to their room, the cloak now carefully re-wrapped and left on the koa table downstairs, a silent witness. Will’s body thrummed with a strange, electric energy. He stood at the window, looking over the dark grounds where the Queen had been imprisoned.
“I felt it,” he said, his back to her. “The confiscation. It was in the air. In the weight.” He turned. His eyes were bright, unsettled. “That wasn’t an honor. It was an inoculation.”
Leilani crossed the room. She took his face in her hands. His skin was cool. “Now you know,” she whispered. “Now you carry it, too.”
He pulled her to him, his embrace fierce, almost desperate. They didn’t speak again. They let the silence of the palace, now a different silence—not empty, but densely populated with ghosts and new promises—settle around them.
In the morning, sunlight streamed into the room, catching the dust motes dancing over the antique furniture. The world outside continued. Tourists would soon line up at the gates. The press would speculate on the “private honeymoon retreat.”
But here, in these rooms, a line had been crossed. Leilani, at twenty, was the first Hawaiian princess, not just by blood but also by marriage, to reside in ‘Iolani Palace since Lili‘uokalani herself. And William, now twenty-one, the Duke of Cambridge, had shoulders that still remembered the phantom weight of golden feathers, a whisper of eŌ lingering in his bones like a vow.
And William, now twenty-one, the Duke of Cambridge, had shoulders that still remembered the phantom weight of golden feathers, a whisper of eŌ lingering in his bones like a vow. The silence after the family left was different. It was a held breath. The palace around them was no longer a museum but a vessel, and they were now living within its haunted hull.
Will turned from the window. The formality had burned away. Something feral and raw had taken its place.
“Come here,” he said. His voice was rough.
Leilani didn’t move. She watched him, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs. The space between them crackled. This wasn’t the balcony. This wasn’t a plane seat. This was a threshold.
He crossed the room in three strides. His hands came up, not to cradle her face, but to fist in the fabric of her sundress at her shoulders. The cotton strained. “I need you,” he growled, the words hot against her mouth. “Not the princess. Not the descendant. You. Right fucking now.”
“Then take me,” she breathed, the challenge sparking in her ice-blue eyes.
He kissed her. It was all teeth and claiming pressure, a direct, starving counterpoint to the ceremony’s chaste vows. His tongue thrust into her mouth, a possessive invasion that made her moan into him. His hands slid down, grabbing her ass through the dress, hauling her body flush against the rigid line of his erection. She could feel every inch of him, hard and demanding even through their clothes.
He walked her backward toward the massive koa bed, their mouths still locked, a clumsy, desperate stumble. The backs of her knees hit the edge. He broke the kiss, his breathing ragged. “This dress. Off.” It wasn’t a request. He turned her roughly, his fingers finding the zipper at the back. He yanked it down. The sound was violent in the quiet room.
The dress pooled at her feet. She stood in just her plain cotton underwear, the humid night air cool on her skin. He spun her back to face him, his eyes dark, devouring her. He palmed her breast through her bra, his thumb scraping over her nipple. She arched into the touch, a sharp gasp escaping her.
“You are so fucking beautiful,” he muttered, fumbling with the clasp of her bra. It gave way. Her breasts spilled into his hands. He bent his head, his mouth closing over one taut peak, sucking hard, his tongue lashing it. Pleasure, sharp and bright, shot straight to her core. She tangled her hands in his hair, holding him there.
He switched to the other breast, biting gently, then soothing with his tongue. His hand slid down her stomach, past the waistband of her underwear, his fingers seeking the wet heat between her legs. He found it. She was soaked. “Christ, Leilani,” he groaned against her skin, his fingers sliding through her slick folds. He pushed one finger inside her, then another, curling them. “So wet for me. Is this for me? Or for the palace?”
“For you,” she panted, riding his hand. “Always for you.”
He withdrew his fingers, bringing them to his mouth, sucking them clean without breaking eye contact. The obscenity of it, in that stately room, made her cunt clench with empty need. “My turn,” she said, her own voice husky.
She pushed his shirt up. He ripped it over his head himself, buttons pinging off the wooden floor. Her hands went to his belt, unbuckling it with clumsy haste. She unbuttoned his trousers, shoved them and his boxers down over his hips. His cock sprang free, thick and flushed, the tip glistening. She wrapped her hand around him, stroking firmly from root to tip. He threw his head back, a gutteral curse torn from his throat.
“Bed. Now,” he managed.
They fell onto the cool linen. He loomed over her, settling between her thighs. The broad head of his cock nudged at her entrance. He paused, his body trembling with restraint. Sweat beaded on his forehead. In his eyes was a war—between the gentle boy and the man who’d just borne a queen’s mantle.
“Leilani.” Her name was a prayer and a warning.
She wrapped her legs around his hips, locking her ankles at the small of his back. She lifted her pelvis, taking him an inch inside. The stretch was exquisite, a perfect, burning fullness. “No more waiting, William. Fuck your wife.”
The words shattered him. He drove home in one deep, punishing thrust, burying himself to the hilt inside her. She cried out, a sound of pure shock and searing pleasure. He was everywhere, filling her completely. He stilled, his forehead dropping to hers, both of them panting, adjusting to the shocking intimacy of it.
Then he began to move.
He set a relentless, deep rhythm, pulling almost all the way out before slamming back in. Each thrust was a claiming, an answer to the challenge of the cloak, to the whispers of the palace. The bed rocked, the old joints creaking in time with their gasps.
“Is this what you wanted?” he gritted out, his pace increasing. “To be fucked in your queen’s palace?”
“Yes,” she hissed, meeting him thrust for thrust. “Oh god, yes. Right there.”
He shifted his angle, hitting a spot inside her that made her vision whiten. Her nails dug into the hard muscles of his back, surely drawing half-moons. The pleasure built, a coiling, unbearable tension. She was babbling, filthy, beautiful things. “Don’t stop… so deep… you feel so fucking good.”
He was losing his rhythm, his own control fraying. His hips pistoned into her, a frantic, beautiful chaos. The sound of their skin slapping together, wet and urgent, echoed off the high ceiling. “I’m gonna come,” he warned, his voice strangled. “Where do you want it? Tell me.”
“Inside me,” she demanded, her own climax rushing up to meet her. “Fill me up. I want to feel it.”
With a roar that was part sob, he obeyed. His body locked, plunging as deep as possible as he emptied himself into her in hot, pulsing waves. The feeling of him coming inside her triggered her own release. It crashed over her, a convulsive, blinding wave that tore a scream from her throat, muffled against his shoulder.
They collapsed, a tangled, sweating heap. He was heavy on top of her, still inside her, both of them trembling. The only sounds were their ragged breaths and the distant chirp of coqui frogs.
Slowly, he softened. He slipped out of her, rolling to the side but pulling her with him, keeping her close. His fingers traced idle, sticky patterns on her stomach. The scent of sex and salt and old wood filled the air.
After a long while, he spoke into her hair. “That Oval Office. Three years ago. The Governor and… my grandmother’s ally. Giving this back.” He let out a shaky breath. “I never truly understood what it meant until tonight. Until I felt that cloak. Until I felt you… here.”
She knew what he meant. The political transaction, the symbolic return of the palace to her family’s trust, had been an abstract victory. Now it was a bed. It was sweat on linen. It was his spend leaking from her body onto the sheets of a room that had heard the cries of a captured monarch. It was the most profound reclamation either of them could imagine.
She kissed his chest, over the heartbeat that was slowing to a steady, sure rhythm. “Now it’s ours,” she whispered.
He held her tighter. Outside, the first faint threads of dawn began to bleed into the sky over Honolulu. The palace held its breath no longer. It breathed with them.