"..."
A faint silence remained in the room.
My eyes stayed locked on hers as she raised her glass of red wine and took a sip.
The wine swirled gently in the glass as she set it down, the dim light catching the deep crimson hue.
Her lips curved slightly before parting to speak, her black hair slipping down her shoulders and revealing a faint scar near the corner of her eyebrow.
She didn't seem to care if I noticed it.
With an almost lazy motion, she reached for a single sheet of paper on the table in front of her.
"Aestrea Moon. Twenty years old," she began. "Parents died the day he was born. He grew up in a small orphanage."
She glanced at me briefly, then continued reading.
"Showed exceptional intelligence, so he was selected for advanced education. Excelled in every class, highest grades possible—until sixteen. That's when the Royal Eternum Academy rejected him. Quite the tragedy, really."
