Chapter 34

Aurelia POV

Four days passed in a suffocating haze of enforced luxury and restless idle hours.

I played the role of the docile captive to perfection, lounging in the high-backed velvet chairs of my fourth-floor parlor, turning the crisp pages of ancient histories, and accepting the lavish meals brought by the manor’s quiet servants. I allowed Draven to believe that his soft approach was working, that the silk tapestries and open doors were lulling me into a state of quiet submission. But beneath my placid, distant exterior, my mind was working with feverish precision, fueled as much by the maddening boredom of my golden cage as by the survival instincts that refused to sleep.

From my balcony and the upper corridors, I charted the rhythms of the estate until I could recite them in my sleep. I mapped the exact shift rotations of the guards, noting the forty-five-second window between midnight patrol handoffs when the third-floor corridor was left entirely unmo