From disbelief came a silent, burning rage.
Her protector—the man she called uncle, the one who stood beside her all her life—was just gone, reduced to nothing right before her eyes. And she had done nothing. Could do nothing.
Felicia stood frozen, her chest heaving. Her trembling hands curled into fists at her sides, and her elegant features contorted ever so slightly as a storm brewed within her. She wasn't supposed to be helpless. Not her. Not Felicia Etternburgh of the Divine Sun Empire.
Yet… in front of that creature, her existence hadn't even been acknowledged.
She was nothing.
And that realization—bitter, acidic, and choking—began to corrode her rationality. A surge unlike anything she had ever known coiled in her chest, tightening with every breath. Fury. Shame. Desperation.
Just as she was about to release the torrent of emotions clawing at her insides, a pair of cold, indifferent compound eyes slowly turned toward her.
Ricky.