"...They had been watching you all along, hadn't they?" It seems like my guess was right.
Because there's no way such a powerful family would let their 'failed investment' slip through their fingers so easily, especially when her 'price' was skyrocketing nonstop.
"That's right." She nodded, her expression bitter.
"Almost every move I made, every victory I thought I earned through my own cunning and strength..."
"They orchestrated it all. I even started to suspect that they were somehow controlling me, manipulating my very thoughts and decisions." Her hands clenched into fists. "I thought I had broken free from their control, that I had finally become author of my own story. But I was still dancing to their tune, just on a longer leash."
She won the game but lost the board; was that it? To change that much, to do all that in a short amount of time, she clearly fits the role of a protagonist.
