CHARLES POV

If anyone falls, better it be the one you can afford to lose.

That was the first lesson I learned in power.

Power is a ledger: credits on one page, debits on the next. You don’t admit where the sums come from. You only make sure the balance favors you.

Empires aren’t destroyed by outsiders; they rot from within when the wrong person takes the blow.

And if there’s one thing I’ve never done, it’s take a blow meant for me.

I stood in my study, the city glittering like a crown ...