Lady Agnes's words carried a dramatic flourish, a hint of theatricality that prickled Viana's already heightened suspicion.
This was a performance, certainly, but for what audience?
Agnes spoke of the whispers in the drawing rooms, the thinly veiled pity from those who had once fawned over her, showered her with compliments, now their gazes held a new, uncomfortable curiosity.
She spoke of the subtle distance her former friends now kept, their invitations growing fewer, their smiles colder. She sighed, her gaze drifting off into the ancient trees that lined the path.
"They look at me differently now, as if I am a broken thing, a discarded toy, left out in the rain to rust. All these years of preparation, of hoping, of being groomed for the highest position in the empire, for the very role you now claim… it means nothing now. My world, my entire world, it has been utterly overturned, shattered into a thousand pieces."
