“She’s here to learn,” I said.
He scoffed. “This isn’t a classroom.”
“No,” I replied calmly. “It’s an empire, and she is part of it.”
That silenced the room. She felt it. The weight of those words.
Part of it.
After that, I watched her more than the spreadsheets. Her fingers rested lightly on the table, but her posture remainedstraight. When discussion turned to shipping delays through Marseille ports, she leaned slightly forward, listening carefully.
She absorbs information like someone who has lived in chaos before. When the meeting ended, I dismissed everyone except her.
“You did well.” She blinked, surprised.
“You expected me to fail?” she asked.
“I expect everyone to fail at first.”
“And me?”
“I expect more.”
Silence.
Heavy.
Intentional.
She stepped closer this time.
“You put me at that table to prove something.”
“Yes.”
“To them?”
“To you.”
Her eyes searched mine for something softer than strategy.
She won’t find it yet.
But she will feel it.
Because it’s there.
And I don’t like that.
CHAPTER 9
Memories had a cruel way of returning at the worst possible moments. They didn’t arrive gently or with warning. They crashed into your thoughts like shattered glass, sharp and impossible to ignore. Sera experienced it often when she least expected it, when the house grew too quiet, when she passed certain rooms, when she caught the faint scent of her father’s cologne lingering in places. Those small reminders carried weight. The kind that settled deep in the chest and refused to move.
She used to believe strength meant burying those feelings. Pretending the past couldn’t reach her anymore, but strength, she had learned, was far more complicated than that. Sometimes strength meant simply continuing to breathe when every memory felt like a knife twisting deeper into your ribs.
Standing near the tall windows of her room, Sera watched the wind bend the trees beyond the estate walls. The sky had turned that deep shade of gray that always came before a storm. The kind of storm that rattled windows and made the entire house feel smaller than it was. She wrapped her arms loosely around herself, exhaling slowly. Somewhere down the hall she could hear faint movement of guards changing shifts, quiet footsteps echoing against marble. Life continuing like it always did.
Yet beneath that routine, something else had begun to shift.
