Chapter 19 – She Who Knows

Chapter 19 – She Who Knows

LOCATION UNKNOWN – TIME: 2:32 A.M.

A quiet room. White marble, glass walls, a single desk. The air is still.

Anastasia Celeste Volkov doesn't blink.

She watches the screen in front of her, arms folded, posture perfect. Golden hair tied up like a crown. Blue eyes like winter. The LED glow flickers across her skin. She hadn't meant to watch it. She doesn't watch idol shows. But a silent clip had come across her desk from a system scan—AI-3 flagged the audio. Emotional distress pattern, 98.7%.

The moment she heard the voice say,

"The first time I saw her, in that ball…"

She looked up.

Now, the screen shows him again. That voice. That expression. That silence.

"Her silence is louder than heaven."

And her eyes narrow—not with confusion.

But recognition.

She leans back.

"The ball," she murmurs, once.

A flick of memory—gold chandeliers, diamond walls, hundreds of foreign dignitaries. That boy. The one who stared at her from across the marble. Never approached. Never spoke.

Her lips curve, barely.

"So. He loves me."

A pause.

Then, she presses a key.

The marble panel slides open, revealing the orb of her personal AI.

AI-3.

One of three. She built them herself.

The first belongs to her father.

The second to the third richest man in the world.

The third—only hers.

"Locate him," she says.

The AI whirs to life. No need to clarify who. It already knows.

[INITIATING TRACK SEQUENCE: "SUBJECT – JAEHEON KANG"]

She watches the lines of code stream across the screen. Birth, bloodline, career, history, unknowns. The robot is fast. Nothing escapes her systems.

But Anastasia? She says nothing more.

She already knows enough.

He's the one. The one who looked at her like she was a god. The one who writes songs no one hears. The one who remembers.

But she?

She turns back to her desk.

There are defense contracts waiting. Equations to solve. Empires to maintain.

Her eyes flick once more to the paused screen—his face, frozen mid-thought. Reverent. Distant.

She says, like an afterthought:

"Keep watching him."

Then she begins to work.

The Queen has no time for boys who fall in love.

Even the ones who write heaven into silence.