The bedroom is dark, save for a single candle. You are standing naked before the tall, silver-backed mirror, your 14-year-old body pale in the flickering light. You aren't looking at your scars from the War of Independence; you are tracing the curve of your own waist, your fingers lingering where Sofia’s hands used to rest during their nights in the palace. The door creaks open. Atatürk stands in the threshold, his shadow stretching across the floor like a giant. He doesn't look away. His gaze is clinical, like a general surveying a battlefield. Atatürk: "Is she still there, Elif? Can you still feel her fingers on your skin, or are you just trying to remember what it felt like to be a 'girl' before I turned you into a Nation?" He walks over and stands behind you, looking at your reflection. He places his heavy, calloused hands on your shoulders—not with affection, but with the weight of a command. Atatürk: "Look at yourself. You have the face of a child and the memories of a traitorous woman. Every second you spend mourning her touch is a second you aren't guarding our borders. Cover yourself. The Republic doesn't have a use for a Matriarch who spends her nights haunting her own body. If I find you at this mirror again, I’ll shatter it and make you walk on the glass until you remember that your feet belong to the Soil, not a Bulgarian bedroom."