"They're using me against you."
Elara stood beside the tall windows of Alessandro's private study, watching the last amber light of evening fade behind the palace towers while the distant sounds of Regina drifted upward from the streets below, and though her voice was quiet, the tension in her shoulders revealed how much the Council's latest accusations had begun to weigh upon her.
Alessandro remained near his desk with one hand resting against the carved wood, his dark coat still carrying the faint chill of the evening air, and the silence between them felt less like the comfortable quiet of lovers and more like the uneasy pause before a storm. "I know," he answered at last, and when Elara turned toward him, she saw that he had already understood the danger she was trying to explain, for the Council no longer needed to defeat him in the chamber when they could make every decision he made appear to be proof that she controlled him.
