Lorraine sat by the tall window of the drawing room, her gaze drifting lazily over the garden bathed in soft morning light. The sprawling green seemed impossibly calm compared to the storm raging in her mind.
She had finished plotting, every intricate detail of vengeance meticulously written, every calculated step laid bare on parchment. But now, her temples throbbed with unbearable intensity, as though the weight of every word she wrote were pounding inside her skull.
Her desk, usually a place of power, now seemed like a prison. The scattered parchments, once her instruments of control, now mocked her, their ink blurring in the haze of her headache. One more glance at those indecipherable letters and she feared her brain would simply spill out, leaving nothing but ruin.
