But now?
Now, Jesse found herself angry.
Quietly. Deeply. Unreasonably.
Not the kind of anger that boiled over and screamed. No, this was the kind that simmered low—settling in her gut like something curdled and unwanted.
It wasn't just what Valeria said.
It was what it meant.
Lucavion—her Lucavion, the one who had once stood beside her in the mud and blood and given her grit when she'd had none left—that Lucavion had been someone else's too. To this girl. This pink-haired statue of nobility. This walking heirloom of a ruined House.
Jesse had always thought herself the exception. The one person who hadn't been swept away by his riddles and masks, but who saw him. Even if she never voiced it, even if she couldn't articulate what Lucavion meant to her—what that presence, that voice, that infuriating smirk in the dead of night meant—it had been hers.
Hadn't it?
And now, she was realizing…
No.
No.
There had been others. Maybe not many. But they existed. And this one?
