Cayetana loathed the dampness. The cloying chill, the suffocating heat of Áurea’s island air—it gnawed at her. Perhaps it wasn’t the climate itself but the way it clung to her skin, a tactile reminder of Greta’s suffocating presence. Every touch of humidity felt like a ghost of that woman’s hands, leaving an unclean residue that no amount of scrubbing could erase.

She despised anything that evoked Greta. She even hated the act of hating her, a bitter irony that twisted her insides. That hatred had been her lifeline, the ember that kept her alive through years of torment. Alive... to bear the privilege—or curse—of birthing five daughters. Strong, formidable in their own right, yet tainted by Greta’s cursed blood coursing through them. Hattie and Hazel, with their mother’s fiery temper; Ingrid and Irene, with her cunning; and María, the only one who carried a flicker of Faye’s light—gone too soon.

“And yet...” Cayetana whispered, her voice barely a breath, “their anger mirrors mine.” Her ice-clear eyes, sharp as Faye’s mists, flickered with a rare moment of introspection. She pressed a bony hand to her brow, exhaling a weary huff. The weight of dark thoughts, as deep and treacherous as the sea’s abyss, pressed against her, worsened by the morning’s damp chill seeping into her bones.

She set the quill back into the inkwell, pushing aside the pile of letters and trade agreements cluttering her desk. Her movements were deliberate, heavy with the fatigue of a lifetime spent wielding power. Rising from her chair, she murmured, “Perhaps the air will clear my mind.” Her sigh carried decades of exhaustion, a fleeting crack in her unyielding facade.

But repose was a luxury she could ill afford. The heavy doors of her private chamber burst open with a violent thud, and her body snapped taut, instincts honed by years of vigilance bracing for the worst. For a fleeting, irrational moment, dread gripped her: Greta has returned, come to drag me back into her depths. Her hand twitched toward the jeweled dagger hidden beneath her robes, a habit born of survival.

The sound of small, hurried footsteps shattered the illusion, banishing the specter of her past—at least for now. Cayetana’s shoulders eased, though her gaze remained sharp, guarded. Only one person could enter her sanctum so boldly: her granddaughter, the sole heir to Faye’s light. The sight of those familiar, shimmering eyes softened the edges of Cayetana’s stern facade, coaxing a rare, fleeting smile.

“Child,” she said, her voice softening yet still commanding, “you move like a storm. What brings you to disturb your queen?” Beneath the reprimand lay a warmth she reserved for no one else, a flicker of hope that this child might one day wield the power Cayetana had forged—and perhaps redeem the legacy Greta had poisoned.