The mirror reflected back a perfect version of myself—smooth hair, careful makeup, the portrait of composed femininity my father demanded that looked tragically like my mother. My eyes were hers too, dark and haunted.
I wiped my mouth, and after retrieving my phone from the dresser returned to the bathroom again, checking the time. Fifteen minutes until Amara's call, the only conversation thatdidn't require performance. Shockingly our father hadn’t said anything about the phone Alaric had given me. He had to know it existed. My father had abandoned all pretense about his surveillance and told me right to my face there were cameras hidden throughout the house.
I turned the water on again, letting the sound fill the space, a perfect cover for whatever I didn’t want overheard. Then I stepped away from the door, back against the cool tile, phone clutched tight. Steam began to rise, soft and curling, misting the mirror.
Five more minutes.
I could survive anything for five more minutes. Each one of them dragged by until Amara’s name lit up the screen. Her voice cut through before I could speak. "Selene, the news is everywhere. Kostas's PR team has to be working overtime. The Dominion announced it this morning."
"So, the world knows," I replied.
"Is it true?" The question trembled between accusation and disbelief. "Are you actually going through with this? Last time we talked you’d just been going to dinner with him. Why are you moving so fast?"
It wasn’t really moving much faster than any other Dominion adjacent union; it only seemed that way because it was happening to me. I pressed my fingertips against my closed eyelids, drawing in a slow breath that filled my lungs to capacity before releasing it. Amara should understand better than anyone—my choices were never truly mine. This arranged marriage was my only ticket away from our father's ironclad control.
"What would you have me do instead, Amara? Run? Hide? Take the same exit our mother chose?"
Her silence crackled through the phone like static electricity.
"That wasn't fair," she finally said, voice barely audible.
"Neither is the life I'm living."
"There must be something else—"
"Like what exactly? Father's men watch every doorway. His cameras record my every move. He's bartered me away like a commodity. The closest thing I have to choice is the illusion of having one."
"I could help," she stated almost urgently. "Let me look into Kostas, find out who you're really marrying."
"Don't you dare. He'd notice, and then you'd be in his crosshairs too," I objected, my voice hardening with protective fear.
“At least tell me what he’s like in person,” she pled.
What could I tell her about him? That he was intense? That he was dangerous, something she already knew. That I feared him and yet wanted to run to him all at once?
"He's...not like our father," I settled on saying. "He's straightforward and for some reason, he seems to actually see me."
"See you how?" Amara's voice sharpened with suspicion.
I leaned against the bathroom counter, considering how to explain. "The way Dad looks at me—it's like I'm a thing. A possession. Alaric looks at me like I'm a puzzle he wants to solve."
"That doesn't sound comforting."
"It's not meant to be comforting. It's different, and better than what I have right now."
“This isn’t right. I should be the one forced into marrying him, not you,” she murmured softly.
"It’s because of him I might finally be able to see you again.”
"Selene—."
"Don't worry. No matter what happens, I’ll survive. It's what I do."
Her breath hitched, wrapped in resignation. "I love you, little sister.”
"I know."
We lingered in shared silence, neither willing to sever the connection before her final whisper came, too faint to grasp, before the line went dead, not with finality, but with acceptance.
