Electra’s POV

I woke up already knowing that today was going to be a problem.

The realization came to me before I even fully opened my eyes, and the moment my brain caught up with the thought, a long groan slipped out of my mouth. I turned my head to the side and buried half my face into the pillow, hoping for a brief second that maybe I had imagined everything that happened last night.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t.

My eyes slowly opened, and the sunlight creeping into the room through the window made it very clear that morning had already arrived. That meant the day I had personally set into motion had officially started, whether I liked it or not.

I sighed heavily and rolled onto my back, staring up at the ceiling as I tried to gather the energy to actually get up.

Today was going to be extremely busy, and I had no one to blame but myself.

After all, I was the one who had marched into the palace in the middle of the night and demanded that Queen Jella gather the kingdom’s council. I was also the one who ordered her to release the man who was supposedly my father from the dungeon she had thrown him into. Those weren’t exactly small things that could be ignored or postponed.

If Jella had any sense left in her terrified head, she would already be preparing for the meeting. Which meant I couldn’t stay in bed pretending none of it was happening.

Another groan escaped me as I rubbed my face with both hands. Sleeping in would have been nice. I would have loved to spend the morning doing absolutely nothing and letting my body recover from the long night I had put it through, but that wasn’t an option anymore.

I had started something, and now I had to see it through.

Slowly, I pushed myself up and sat on the edge of the bed. My body still felt heavy with exhaustion, and I stretched my arms above my head while letting out a quiet yawn. For a moment I just sat there, staring around the room while my thoughts slowly arranged themselves into something that resembled a plan.

Everything that had happened last night had been guided by instincts.

That was the strange part about it.

I hadn’t sat down and carefully thought about every step. I hadn’t spent hours planning how to approach Jella or what exactly I was going to say once I got there. I had simply followed the pull inside my chest that told me where I needed to go and what I needed to do, and somehow, despite how reckless it sounded, it had worked.

Just like I had told Seraphina earlier this morning.

The moment her name crossed my mind, I immediately shook my head as if I could physically throw the thought out of it.

No.

I wasn’t going to think about Seraphina, not right now.

There were far more important things waiting for me today than whatever complicated mess existed between us. Thinking about her would only distract me, and distraction was the last thing I could afford when I was about to walk straight into the political heart of the kingdom.

Still, the memory tried to sneak back into my mind anyway. The warmth of her body beside mine last night, the way her voice sounded when she spoke my name, and then the way she stormed out of my room earlier that morning after our conversation fell apart.

I clenched my jaw slightly and shook my head again, harder this time. "Focus," I muttered quietly to myself.

Seraphina was not the priority today.

The kingdom was.

I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees while letting out a slow breath. The instincts that had guided me all night were still there, sitting quietly in the back of my mind like a compass pointing in a direction I hadn’t fully explored yet, and right now, that instinct was telling me something very simple.

This was my chance.

If I wanted to stop being the kingdom’s greatest embarrassment, then I had to take control of the situation instead of letting everyone else control it for me. From what I already knew, in the last few weeks or perhaps months, however long my secret had been out, people had looked at me as if I were some kind of living disaster, something dangerous and unnatural that should never have been born.

A mistake and a sin. The more power I had, the harder it would become for them to treat me that way, and fear alone wasn’t enough.

People already feared me, but what they didn’t do was respect me, and respect came from power.

If I could take the throne away from Jella and claim it for myself, everything would change. I wouldn’t just be the girl everyone hated and gossiped about anymore. I would be the one making the decisions that shaped the kingdom itself.

The thought settled in my mind with surprising clarity.

Yes, that was exactly what I needed.

I let out another yawn and finally pushed myself to my feet. My muscles protested slightly as I stretched again, but the movement helped shake away the last bit of sleep still clinging to me. Once I was fully standing, I glanced around the room briefly before running a hand through my hair.

The first thing I needed to do was talk to Irina and Penelope.

They were the ones who brought me here to Elysium in the first place. From their perspective, this school was supposed to be a safe place where I could hide from the chaos outside while slowly recovering my memories.

Unfortunately for them, my instincts had already decided that hiding was no longer an option.

I had bigger things to deal with than sitting in classrooms pretending to care about lessons that meant nothing to me. The entire kingdom was shifting under my feet, and I wasn’t about to waste time pretending to be a normal student while everything outside these walls moved forward without me.

Irina and Penelope deserved to know what I had done, and more importantly, they needed to know what I planned to do next.

I started getting dressed while running through the conversation in my head. It probably wasn’t going to be an easy one. Irina especially had made it very clear that she wanted me to stay here where it was safe. Sneaking out in the middle of the night to confront the queen of the kingdom was probably the exact opposite of what she had in mind, but I wasn’t going to apologize for it.

Eventually I finished getting dressed and headed toward the door. My plan was simple enough. I would go straight to Irina’s room, explain everything that had happened during the night, and then tell both of them what I intended to do moving forward.

If they didn’t like it, they could complain later because I had already made up my mind.

Just as I reached for the door handle, a sudden knock echoed through the room, and I paused.

That was unexpected.

For a moment I just stood there staring at the door, trying to figure out who would be knocking on my door this early in the morning. Most people in the dorm were probably still asleep.

Curious now, I pulled the door open and immediately blinked in surprise.

Roxana was standing there.

I leaned slightly against the doorframe and stared at her for a second, genuinely caught off guard. Of all the people I expected to see outside my room this morning, Roxana was definitely not one of them.

The last time she had spoken to me properly was days ago.

That had been the day I kicked her and the rest of the girls out of my room, and for some reason she had taken that moment very personally. Since then she had been avoiding me completely, barely even looking in my direction whenever we happened to cross paths.

Honestly, I hadn’t cared enough to question it, but now here she was, standing right outside my door.

"What do you want?" I asked bluntly.

My voice wasn’t hostile, but I didn’t bother pretending to be polite either. Roxana had made it very clear that she didn’t want anything to do with me recently, so this sudden visit was confusing.

"I thought you were trying to avoid me," I added, crossing my arms slightly. "You’ve been doing a pretty good job at it."

Roxana sighed softly, and the sound was heavier than I expected.

For a moment she didn’t say anything, and the silence between us stretched awkwardly in the hallway. She looked tired, like she hadn’t slept much either, and there was something about her expression that made me narrow my eyes slightly.

Finally she looked up at me. "We need to talk," she said.

Her voice was calm, but something about the tone made the back of my mind twitch with unease.

I tilted my head slightly while studying her more carefully. "That sounds serious," I said, but Roxana didn’t smile.

She just stood there looking at me in a way that made a strange feeling settle in my chest. I couldn’t quite explain it, but something about the way she said those words didn’t sit right with me.

It felt like the kind of conversation that changed things, and for some reason, my instincts were already telling me that whatever Roxana had come here to say was not going to be simple.