Dirthfall, 1802 — under the yoke of Enshire.

Lord Louis Tomlinson, master of Velmire, had long ceased troubling himself with the cost of colonialism. He was no fool—he saw what Enshire’s grip had done to his people—but he preferred the safety of favour, the comforts of power. Like other noblemen, he maintained his good standing with the Enshirian Empire, aiding their politics when needed and keeping his title polished.

He was also a father, though the title brought him more grief than pride. His only daughter—spirited, sharp, and unyielding—was everything he was not. Though heiress to great fortune, she had begged for a bookshop rather than jewels, claiming it a gift for her studies. Louis obliged, imagining it a harmless indulgence. But the shop became a hearth for rebellion, and her writings—scathing, fearless—called out the empire he served. She marched with commoners and raged in ink, her name whispered in scandal.

She had been arrested many times, and each time, it was Anthony—Louis’s loyal servant—who fetched her. Louis, tired of it all, still paid the price in silence. She made his life harder. Suitors vanished. Noblemen wanted wives, not revolutionaries.

That evening, cigar between his fingers and the paper before him, he heard the door open. Anthony’s steps. A softer, limping tread beside him.

He did not look up at first. But when he did, he saw her—bloodied lip, bruised cheek, eyes full of fire. Again.

Louis shut his eyes briefly, jaw tight with fury and fatigue. The paper crinkled in his grip. “What would you have me say?” he muttered aloud, not quite to her. “You look like a rebel dragged from the gutters—not the daughter of a Lord.”