Lumielle had goaded him. She had forced him to play his hand: your dutiful daughter just got poisoned in your stead.
She knew how to play people like a fiddle, only the music that escaped his lips sounded hollow and desecrate. It had become second nature for her to glance at the room, seeing the invisible puppet strings that guided her to tug and snip. The eyes of her father's people only saw her as a pitiful young Princess.
Where was that pity when she had been sent into the Ruby Palace to be abandoned? Where was the pity when their father refused to look at her?
There was none. They only pitied her because she had done something important.
