Cleora turned to Jolthar, her expression still serene, but behind her eyes, a storm raged.
A flicker of something raw and unguarded surfaced, and for the first time, she spoke without her usual composed demeanour.
"Ever since then, my father never spoke to me the same way again," she began, her voice steady, yet laced with an old wound that had never quite healed.
"He thought I was impure. He didn't even look at me. All he could think about was that damned box, that precious item he had sent me to retrieve. When I returned, he didn't see his daughter—he saw a failed transaction, a tarnished name."
Jolthar remained silent, watching her closely. He had seen many people break, had seen their masks crumble under the weight of their own suffering, but Cleora stood tall, even as she recounted her past. There was something chilling in the way she spoke, as though she had buried her pain so deeply that she had long since stopped feeling it.
