"Your daughter... is powerful..." a reader remarked.
"I-Is that so?" her father gasped, eyes wide, joined by her mother’s stunned expression.
Sera, too, was taken aback. She had spent years in her household, neither truly accepted nor entirely rejected. She had learned to defend herself, but never how to respect others.
At least, that way, she survived, no one dared co too close.
"I can’t tell what her Natal Affinity is... but it’s related to a celestial object..."
Will Magic.
Her affinity didn’t allow direct manipulation of elents; instead, Sera could wield a potent ntal influence, bending the will of those around her.
She could subtly guide their thoughts, make them feel drawn to her leadership or even unknowingly follow her desires.
It wasn’t force; it was quiet persuasion, working through trust, charisma, or pressure.
But no one understood it fully, and so, she remained weak, barely tapping into it.
"How about enrolling you at Irasios Academy?" her parents suggested.
The academy, teeming with nobles and nepotism babies?
The very idea disgusted her, but perhaps it could change sothing.
If she attended, maybe her family and siblings would stop looking down on her. Not that she craved their approval, but she couldn’t deny it would be a step toward sothing better.
Much to her surprise, she was accepted into the Artificifier Departnt. Even though she didn’t appear smart, she was secretly an intellectual for such niche.
It wasn’t particularly suited to it based on her Natal Affinity, but Sera’s interest in forging, and knowledge spoke for themselves.
But then...
"Your roommate will be Verena D’Auvergne."
Verena?
VERENA D’AUVERGNE?!
The infamous noblewoman with a history as murky as her reputation?
The one bitchy attitude and sociopathic tendencies that had earned her notoriety in noble circles?
While Sera secretly admired her for embodying everything that was wrong with nobility, she also saw Verena as the quintessential "nepo baby"—everything she despised.
She rebelled, of course.
"I WON’T ACCEPT HER!"
But deep down, she knew she was just like Verena.
No one would accept her for who she was. Yet, unlike Verena, Sera believed her actions were justified, the right thing to do.
She thought she could simply terrify Verena, make her afraid, so she could be left alone in her dorm room.
When the night finally ca, and she heard the door open, she seized the mont.
"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!"
She thought her whining and bratty attitude would scare this woman away.
But no, it didn’t work. Instead, she fell straight into Verena’s web.
The woman she was supposed to hate turned out to be annoyingly kind, funny, insufferably witty, and, worst of all, annoyingly caring.
"No, that must be a lie..."
Sera told herself—nobody could be trusted in high society.
But Verena was persistent.
"Why, do you think I’m beautiful?"
"Jealous, hm?"
Despite being the perfect image of a traditional noblewoman that everyone spoke about, Verena was nothing like that at all.
But no. No one could be trusted. Not her.
And yet, no matter how many tis she tried to convince herself of the lie, of the facade, she couldn’t help but soften. Ti and ti again, she saw how this woman, Verena, would step in to save others.
"You call stupid? You’re just as stupid as I am!"
Why was this woman so clueless?
Why was she making Sera’s heart open up?
It had to be another sche, another path to heartbreak.
After all, Verena was always surrounded by other girls clearly in love with her!
But why did that make Sera so jealous?
Did she want the attention Verena had?
"NO, SHE’S MY BITCH, MY CHIHUAHUA!"
It took her until that mont to realize—she didn’t want Verena’s attention.
She wanted Verena’s attention.
And that scared her.
Every interaction with Verena seed to blur the lines between hate and sothing else—sothing dangerous, sothing tender.
Verena’s words, her teasing, her unbothered attitude, it all word its way into Sera’s heart, making it beat wildly in her chest.
The more she tried to distance herself, the more she found herself pulled back into Verena’s orbit, like a moth to a fla.
She wanted to scream, to deny it, but the truth clung to her like a shadow, unshakable.
She had spent so much of her life rejecting everything. Love, trust, connection because it had always been a lie.
A ga played by a world she couldn’t understand, a world that had only ever shown her the harshest sides of itself.
Her mother, her father, society... they had all let her down in one way or another.
So, she had built walls around her heart, walls so high that not even the sharpest blade could pierce them.
But Verena... Verena was different.
The walls she had so carefully constructed seed to crumble every ti their eyes t, every ti their hands brushed.
Verena, with her easy smile and mocking tone, sohow managed to find cracks in the armor Sera had built over the years. And every ti, Sera felt her resolve weaken.
She hated it.
She hated how easily Verena made her feel things.
She hated how much she found herself caring, even though she swore she wouldn’t.
She hated how, despite her best efforts, she wanted more—more of Verena’s attention, more of her affection, more of her everything.
How could she let herself accept soone like Verena as a friend?
Soone who seed so carefree, so nonchalant, yet completely in control of everyone around her?
Sera had always been the one who controlled situations, who dictated the terms. But with Verena, she was powerless, caught in a web she couldn’t escape, and a part of her didn’t even want to.
But that was the problem, wasn’t it?
She couldn’t admit it to herself, let alone anyone else.
If she did, it would an surrendering everything she had fought so hard to protect.
It would an trusting soone again, opening herself up to the possibility of being hurt once more.
And she couldn’t do that. Not again.
Still, the words echoed in her mind, louder with each passing mont: I want Verena’s attention.
It felt like a betrayal.
To herself, to everything she had believed in.
But it was the truth, and the truth was far more dangerous than any lie she had told herself.
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