[Lavinia's POV—Imperial Palace—Training Ground]
Eleania.
Why… why in the name of all the saints would she apply to be my lady-in-waiting?
I blinked. Once. Twice. As if that might somehow make the name vanish from the parchment. But it didn't. The letters stayed—black ink curling with elegant malice, mocking me from the page.
My fingers tightened until the parchment crackled in protest. The air in the ground seemed to thicken, pressing hard against my ribs, making each breath feel like it cost something.
"What name did you say again?"
Osric's voice cut through the silence, low but edged.
I looked at him. His face was a strange mask—surprise first, then something darker seeping through. Anger. Not the loud, roaring kind. The deep, coiled kind. The kind that burned quietly and dangerously.
He stepped closer, his hand outstretched, palm steady even as the tendons in his wrist were taut. He took the parchment from my hand without a word.
His eyes moved over the letters.
Once.
