Chapter Thirty-One: Shadows Closing In

The morning after their secret night together, Sophia woke with an unusual heaviness in her chest. Not regret—she had banished that word after giving herself to him—but something quieter, subtler, like a shadow stretching across a sunlit room.

The house felt different. She noticed it first in the way the corridors echoed more sharply, the way the silence was too measured, too careful. People still moved about—assistants carrying files, staff setting trays for breakfast—but their voices were pitched low, their laughter stifled, their footsteps softer, as though unwilling to draw attention.

Sophia had lived in power long enough to recognize this change. Whispers had begun.

When she entered the dining hall, the faint scrape of cutlery and murmured conversations immediately dimmed. A young intern flushed crimson and looked down at her plate. One of the secretaries—usually effusive with chatter about her children—kept her gaze fixed on her toast, as if eye