Camila's POV
I used to believe that silence was survival. That the less I revealed, the safer I'd be. But now I know, silence is what got me here in the first place. Alone. Lied to. Used.
So I stopped being silent.
I stood in the center of that council room, my heart pounding in my chest like a war drum, staring down the same bastards who painted my parents as traitors. The same ones who stood by while my name became a weapon for others to use.
They didn't expect me to show up, and they sure as hell didn't expect me to speak.
"My name is Camila," I said, my voice steady even as my hands trembled with fury, "and I am done being your pawn."
I threw the scroll across the table, my mother's trial records. Sealed in blood. Forgotten in some dusty vault like her life didn't matter. But it did matter. She mattered. And I was going to make damn sure they remembered that.
"You murdered my parents to cover your sins," I said. "And you used me because you thought I'd never find out."
