Liliana von Carstein

Leo stood still, his grip tightening around Nightshade as he faced Lilliana. The air between them felt heavier than before, charged with tension that pressed against his chest.

He had heard everything Tatiana told him about her stepsister, yet seeing Lilliana in person stirred something deeper—an instinctual warning for him to turn around and run for his life.

No matter what Tatiana said, Leo wasn't fooled.

According to Tatiana, Lilliana was "weak trash." But Leo had quickly learned that Tatiana's definition of weak wasn't something he could take lightly and he should never even dare to make such a costly mistake.

To someone like her, who had awakened her racial traits at birth—a feat that instantly marked her as a prodigy—calling Lilliana weak was relative. Tatiana's standards were impossibly high. She had told him as much with that ever-present smirk of hers.