Aria's expression became a bit complicated. "And what if Elion had refused to stay with you afterward?"
Celeste looked genuinely puzzled. "He would not."
"How were you so certain?"
"I was not entirely certain," Celeste admitted. "But I understood him well enough to know that he would never abandon his own child."
Mira's eyes narrowed with interest. "So even if he did not love you, you knew he would remain involved."
"Yes."
"That is rather calculating of you."
Celeste met her gaze. "I have been raised to rule a clan. Calculation is unavoidable."
Mira smiled. "I did not say it was a bad thing." Of all the women present, Mira seemed to understand Celeste's reasoning the most.
Both had grown up surrounded by people who treated relationships as transactions, perhaps not to the same scale.
Celeste's situation was more about being shackled by her duty as a royal and a future ruler, while Mira had been shackled by her own controlling father.
