The aftermath of victory didn’t taste like champagne. It tasted like silence, the kind that filled the empty corners of Aria’s life now that her greatest war was over.
Two days had passed since Regina’s public disgrace. News outlets continued to analyze every second of the footage. Aria had become a reluctant symbol, of strength, of rebirth, of calculated revenge.
In the places no cameras could see, just behind the scenes, she stood in front of her mother’s gravestone. All alone.
The morning breeze blew the strand of hair that had escaped her scarf. She held a bouquet of white lilies in her hand and knelt down slowly.
“I did it, Mom,” she said barely audible. “I broke the chains. I ended the story the way I should have started it. But why does it still feel like something’s missing?”
