Chapter 242: Guesswork
August Dawnoro had been inford that his son brought his step-daughter ho because she felt unwell.
It hadn’t seed like a big deal at first. Sienna’s participation in the conference wasn’t for any major role. Just attendance, observation, the kind of exposure that looked good on records but didn’t carry real weight. A great opportunity for a young girl, an experience to broaden her horizons.
Nothing to worry about.
He finished his work for the day, reports, correspondence, the endless machinery of running a house that answered to no one but itself, and learned that Sienna had woken. He made his way to her room, as was his habit when any of his children were unwell, and found a scene that stopped him cold.
Sienna was crying.
The last ti he saw her cry was when she was still a little girl who had scraped her knee. This was different. This was real crying, the kind that shook her whole body, that left her gasping for breath, that she pressed into her mother’s arms as if trying to hide from the world itself.
Ines held her, murmuring soothing sounds, but her eyes when she looked up at August held the sa confusion he felt.
"What happened?" He kept his voice soft, gentle. The voice he used with children.
Sienna wouldn’t speak. Just shook her head, pressed deeper into her mother’s embrace.
But when she finally did speak, when Ines managed to coax the words out of her, it was a single na.
Cecilia Araceli.
The anger in his daughter’s eyes.
The hatred.
August had never seen that expression on Sienna’s face. Never. She was such a sweet girl, always smiling, always eager to please. To see her make that face...
Sothing shifted in his chest.
He wasn’t close to Sienna. Not truly. He had always been honest about that, with himself, with her, with Ines. But he had tried. Always tried. He had made the Dawnoro her ho, had given her his na, had welcod her into his family as if she were his own blood.
When she had finally accepted Dawnoro as her surna, sothing had soothed inside him. A piece of guilt, perhaps. A sense that he had done right by this girl who deserved nothing less than a father’s love.
He had married Ines with an agreent. Clear terms, honestly stated. She would have the authority and title of the lady of the house, but they would not conceive a child together. Arkai was his one and only heir, a promise he had made to his late first wife, Belinda, and a promise he would never break.
He always felt he owed sothing to Ines. To her daughter. He couldn’t treat them equally, not in the ways that mattered most to a house like the Dawnoros. But the best he could give was respect. Love. Attention.
So seeing Sienna, his Sienna, the little girl he had raised as his own, scowled with tears streaming down her face, hatred burning in her young eyes...
He was mad.
Who had done this to her? What had done this?
The mont she gave him a na, he began investigating.
Cecilia Araceli.
A student. Just a student. A commoner orphan, raised in a clinic, discovered to have unique magical talent and enrolled in the Athenaeum on full scholarship.
This lowly girl was causing all this?
August contacted his son in the morning. The response ca not from Arkai, but from Roarke, his right-hand man, his shadow, his voice when he couldn’t speak himself. Arkai was on his way to the conference. As Student Council President, he needed to be present, to host, to represent.
August decided not to bother him further.
But he dug deeper.
And quickly, more erged.
Best friend of the empire’s princess. Entangled with the son of the Edengold Family. Entangled with a mysterious transfer student who had beaten Arzhen Vasiliev to a pulp.
She scread trouble.
But at the sa ti, she was also famous. Famous for her competence. Her record-breaking exam scores. Her last magic initiation, completed remotely while simultaneously acing her finals.
Perhaps... just perhaps, she was a dangerous individual. Soone who might threaten his daughter. Bully her. Hurt her.
Then one more detail surfaced.
A "prank
Reviews
All reviews (0)