Chapter 8 --8.
Elara let her head lower again, hiding the small, satisfied spark in her eyes.
Surveillance, she thought. Gloms. Collars. Bloodline locks.
Different tools. Same principle.
In her first life, Richard had built a weapon and hidden it inside a company. Here, the Emperor had built a system and hidden himself inside his children’s lives. Both liked to watch from a distance, pulling strings while pretending their hands were clean.
The difference was simple: Richard had never expected his weapon to look back.
This Emperor, sooner or later, would realize his quiet fourth daughter was staring straight into his cameras.
***
The glom arrived in silence.
A robed official carried it in with both hands, the clear sphere hovering just above his palms like something alive. Up close, it wasn’t just some drifting ornament anymore—thin lines of light moved beneath its surface like veins, pulsing steadily. He knelt just inside the doorway, head bowed, arms extended. Behind him, the physician waited with his medicine case, keeping his eyes firmly on the floor and away from the two princesses or the man who ruled them.
The Emperor didn’t move at first. His aura still pressed down on the room like a weight. Only when the official’s arms started trembling did he speak.
"Show it."
The man pressed his thumb to the base of the sphere. Light seeped out slowly, then brighter, until a thin sheet of image unrolled in the air between the pillars like a curtain of glass. The glom’s view was from high up, just under the ceiling, looking down into the same room they stood in now. Everything was there: the tall doors, the white floor, the huge bed, the thin girl in red silk.