The training continued.
The next hours blurred into commands, corrections, and exhaustion. Raya was forced to walk up and down the room in the heels they'd given her, instructed to "glide, not stomp," and hold her chin high, as if she'd been born with a silver spoon lodged in her throat.
"Straighten your shoulders. Breathe from your diaphragm, not your throat. Again. You're slouching. Again."
But Raya slipped again, frustrating Elena.
"Seraphina doesn't slouch," she snapped. "Seraphina doesn't mumble. And Seraphina never walks with her toes turned inward like a child. Again!"
Again.
The mirrors didn't lie. No matter how hard she tried to mimic Seraphina's grace, she still looked like Raya—tired, tense, and terrified.
By the time Elena shoved a pen and notebook into her hands for handwriting drills, her arms felt like they might fall off.
Raya instinctively reached for the pen with her left hand.
"Stop," Elena snapped.
