His strength, his mind, his ability to command the empire at his feet. The attention he gave her. She wasn't just playing for a seat at his side; she wanted to bear his child, to carry his bloodline into the future. To be the one who shaped the empire alongside him, not as a distant observer, but as his equal.
The game, for her, was not about the throne—it was about love. And love, it seemed, could be just as treacherous as ambition.
Her mother had wished for the same thing. Not out of love, but out of a desire for control. To place a son on the throne who would rule in her stead—a puppet draped in royal finery. But Sephira had only come to learn of this much later after she married the man of her dreams.
But that was never what she wanted.
Her child would not be a pawn.
Her child would be an emperor. A ruler in their own right, shaped by strength, not by the grasping hands of those who lurked in the shadows.
