"Papa…"
"I failed you. Failed to protect you. Failed to see the threat right in front of me."
He squeezes my hand with whatever strength remains.
"Where is Cesar now?"
I don't answer directly. I glance at Nico. Our eyes meet across Papa's room. In his, I see the promise. Whoever comes for me next will meet the same end as Cesar. Papa follows my look, understanding passing between the dying king and the soldier. In our world, blood demands blood. Papa understands this arithmetic. In our world, certain questions have certain answers.
Papa nods once. That's all.
"What I said, about you killing your mother's memory. Christ, mija, that was the cruelest thing I've ever done." Papa's voice cracks. "My dying wish was for you to obey the man trying to destroy you."
"You didn't know."
"I should have." The patriarch's pride fractures. "I should have seen."
He looks at me then. Really looks. Not assessing an heir or evaluating a disappointment. Just seeing his daughter.
"Let me finish. I don't have time for things I should have said years ago."
I wait, tears pressing hard.
He pulls me closer with surprising strength.
"I am proud of you, mija. I should have said it every day. I'm proud."
The words I've waited my whole life to hear. "Proud." Not disappointed, not resigned, not accepting me despite my failures. Proud. The word breaks something inside me that's been holding too tight for too long. A lifetime of trying to earn this, of destroying myself when I couldn't, and he's saying it now when I'm covered in today's violence and truth.
I break.
Not controlled crying. Not tears managed and hidden. The ugly, gasping grief of a daughter who's waited her whole life to hear those words.
I put my head on his chest, bony, fragile, but still holding me, and cry.
His hand on my hair, weak but there.
I don't know how long I cry. Long enough for the afternoon light to shift gold through the windows. Long enough for all those years of hurt to finally break free.
"The empire," Papa says when my tears slow. "When I'm gone, and I'm going, mija, it's yours. Not some outsider's. Not Gabriel's. Yours."
"I'm not ready…" The protest rises automatically. The party girl, the disaster, the woman who needed Nico to save her from drowning. But Papa's eyes stop me. He's not giving me this because I'm all that's left. He's giving it to me because I jumped. Because I swam. Because I survived what Cesar did and came here to tell the truth.
"You're ready. You've been ready. You just needed someone to stop telling you otherwise."
The weight settles on my shoulders. Heavy but right. Something earned.
"One more thing." His grip tightens. "The Rosetti in the doorway."
I glance at Nico.
"He climbed down a cliff for you? Did what needed doing with Cesar?"
"Yes."
Papa nods, the assessment of a man who's evaluated dangerous men all his life.
"Good. Keep him."
