raised as a weapon

Chapter Two:THE VOICE

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Octavia does not walk alone.

She moves through the inner chambers with the ease of someone who has never been questioned. Doors open before she reaches them. People straighten, bow, fall silent. Power follows her like a second shadow.

I stay two steps behind.

Close enough to react.

Far enough to be ignored.

"This will be temporary," Octavia says without looking at me. "Trust is earned."

"I understand."

She nods once, already finished with the conversation.

We enter a council room lined with dark wood and glass. Long table. High-backed chairs. The kind of room where decisions are made quietly and consequences are loud.

Someone is already there.

She stands near the window, hands folded behind her back. Her posture is calm. Controlled. Older than Octavia, but not fragile. Gray streaks her hair, though I can't tell if it's age or choice. Her face is partially turned away.

"Advisor," Octavia says. "I hope we're not late."

"No," the woman replies. "You're precisely on time."

Her voice cuts through me.

Not sharp.

Not loud.

Familiar.

The room does not spin. My breath does not hitch. My body does not betray me.

Inside, something fractures.

That cadence.

That pause before the final word.

The way she speaks like silence is listening.

I have heard that voice in the dark.

In pain.

In stories told like truth.

My mother.

She turns.

Her eyes pass over me without recognition - or with too much of it. I can't tell. Her face is composed, altered just enough to be believable. Survival written cleanly over old scars.

She does not say my name.

Good.

"This is Rowan," Octavia says. "My new bodyguard."

The word new lands wrong.

The woman - my mother - inclines her head. Just slightly. Respectful. Distant.

"Then I hope you're competent," she says.

The way she says hope gives her away.

I bow. Lower than necessary.

"I'll do my duty," I reply.

Her gaze sharpens for a fraction of a second.

Gone.

Octavia moves to the head of the table, already shifting into command. "We'll begin."

As they speak - about expansion, about alliances, about control - I stand still and listen to a woman who taught me how to survive advise the empire that destroyed us.

She speaks of restraint like strategy.

Of sacrifice like currency.

Of power like something that must be held carefully, or it cuts back.

Octavia listens closely.

Trusts her.

That is the most dangerous part.

I don't look at her again. I don't allow myself to.

If I do, I might remember her hands shaking the night she sent me away.

Or the way she told me to live when living meant becoming something else.

When the meeting ends, Octavia rises. "Walk with me."

I turn with her.

Behind us, my mother's voice follows - calm, precise.

"Choose your guards carefully," she says to Octavia. "The ones closest to you matter most."

Octavia smiles. "I know."

I do not.

I keep walking.

Because now I understand something I never planned for.

The empire did not just take everything from us.

It kept her.

And revenge, I realize too late, was never meant to be simple.