Sera and Lira bowed their heads, relieved and wary at once.
Valerie rose and walked toward the window. From there, the capital stretched out in all its grandeur beautiful, cruel, and filled with traps.
She understood now.
If Ivanka Kosler fought with her father's power, then Valerie could not survive on dignity alone.
She had to learn to stand on the same ground beneath the shadow of the name Duke Morvex.
And for the first time, Valerie was no longer thinking only of how to endure.
She began to think of how not to lose.
That afternoon, Valerie once again stood behind the tall window of Morvex Castle.
She watched Demian's back as he moved away his dark cloak fluttering in the wind, his stride swift and purposeful. He did not glance upward, did not leave even a brief message. Since yesterday since the night before, even they had not truly met. Demian came and went like a shadow, physically present yet absent from her life.
Valerie was not angry. She was simply… aware.
