–Tyrona–
I glared at my father and his cluster of dim-witted advisors as if their mere presence was an offense to my intelligence. They sat there puffing their cigars, tapping their pens, and exchanging those pitiful looks of "strategy," as though this empire we've been clawing for could be handled like a classroom debate. They knew nothing. Nothing of what I knew. Nothing of what I had hidden from them.
One detail I had deliberately kept to myself, one I savored like a sweet secret pressed against my tongue, was Livana's weapon—the so-called device capable of tipping nations into chaos. If handled properly, it could trigger nothing less than a world war. If handled poorly, it could turn its wielder into a god among insects. Alejandro had whispered to me, with that infuriatingly calm voice of his, that if anything ever happened to him, I must seize it.
