I made my own daughter a slave

Previously

…And in that responsibility, a new purpose began to dawn within her. She was not here to free a slave, but to support a guardian, to understand a connection she was only beginning to glimpse. And as she looked at Lyra, standing bathed in the soft glow of the setting sun, Elara felt a profound sense of peace, and a flicker of something that felt suspiciously like love. The gilded cage, it seemed, was not for Lyra, but for the very essence of Blackwood Manor itself, and Elara, the unexpected inheritor, was now tasked with its safekeeping, and with understanding the quiet strength of its keeper.