Power never left Elizabeth's hands. She felt it thrumming beneath her skin, ringing in her pulse every morning she walked into Wynsor HQ. It radiated from her voice and the efficiency of her calendar, from the trembling respect in her subordinates' silence. It was in the way her rivals went quiet when she entered a room and in the cautious awe of reporters trying to divine her next move.
But power was not absolute. Not anymore.
It began with a flicker—just a brief, sharp pain behind her left eye as she stood before the board, dissecting the Morrison acquisition's final integration numbers. The spreadsheet columns trembled. Letters swam. Her focus, usually a diamond blade, fogged with static.
Elizabeth Wynsor despised distraction. Pain was for lesser people, a thing to be conquered, not submitted to. Yet as the meeting dragged on, that flicker grew into something she couldn't ignore—a spike driving deeper with each passing minute, as if something was burrowing into her skull from the inside.
"—and with the Morrison assets fully integrated," she continued, her voice steady despite the sensation of her brain being squeezed in a vice, "we project a seventeen percent increase in quarterly returns. The workforce reductions will be finalised by Friday, and termination packages will be distributed according to the minimum legal requirements."
Marcus Webb nodded, making notes on his tablet. Patricia Chen asked a question about pension obligations that Elizabeth answered with mechanical precision, though she couldn't quite remember forming the words a second after they left her mouth.
The numbers on the projection screen blurred. For a fraction of a second, Elizabeth saw double—two sets of quarterly projections, two Patricia Chens, two versions of the reality she'd so carefully constructed. She blinked hard, tasting copper, and the world snapped back into focus.
"Any further questions?" Elizabeth asked, her fingers gripping the edge of the conference table with enough force to leave impressions in the polished mahogany.
Silence. They'd learnt not to challenge her, especially not when she used that particular tone—the one that suggested questions were insults to her competence.
"Excellent. We'll reconvene on Friday to finalise the Morrison closure." She gathered her materials with practised efficiency, dismissing her C-suite with a word and heading straight for her private office, making it clear by posture alone that no one should follow.
She locked the door. Sat at her immaculate glass desk. Pressed ice-cold fingertips to her temples as the pain crescendoed into something that felt like her skull was splitting open from the inside.
'Stress', she told herself. Nothing more. The Morrison deal is complex. This is the price of excellence.
She took two ibuprofen, dry-swallowed, and forced herself to review another hundred pages of contracts and HR terminations. The text swam before her eyes, reorganising itself into meaningless patterns. She squeezed her eyes shut, counted to ten, and opened them again.
Better. Manageable. She could work through this.
Her phone buzzed. Sage: Let me know when you're done tonight. I have dinner reservations. Or I can come by the office and bring food?
The message irritated her in a way she couldn't quite articulate. Sage's persistent care felt like an intrusion, a demand for vulnerability that Elizabeth had no capacity to provide. Why does she always want more than I can give?
She typed back: Later. Working.
The vagueness was deliberate. Let Sage wonder about priorities, about where she ranked in Elizabeth's carefully ordered world. Control through information asymmetry—one of the first principles she'd learnt.
But even as she sent the message, something in her chest twisted uncomfortably. The sensation was unfamiliar enough to be alarming—guilt, maybe, or something approximating it. Elizabeth pushed the feeling away with practised efficiency. Emotions were liabilities. Sage would understand, or she wouldn't. Either outcome was acceptable.
The afternoon bled into evening. The migraine didn't recede—if anything, it intensified, sending jagged spikes of pain through her temples with each breath. By six o'clock, Elizabeth's vision had narrowed to a tunnel, her peripheral awareness consumed by the relentless pounding in her skull.
She took codeine. Then something stronger that her personal physician had provided "for emergencies". The pain dulled fractionally, enough that she could pretend to function.
I am Elizabeth Wynsor. I don't submit to physical limitations. I don't surrender to weakness.
But her hands trembled as she packed her briefcase. Her reflection in the office window showed someone who looked dangerously close to breaking—makeup smudged, hair escaping from its usual perfect arrangement, eyes that held something almost like fear.
No. I'm fine. This is temporary. Tomorrow I'll be back to normal.
She arrived home after midnight. The apartment was still. The ache behind her eye had turned thunderous, making the world pulse with each heartbeat. She nearly missed Sage sitting cross-legged on the sofa, a takeout bag cooling on the side table.
"I waited," Sage said softly.
Elizabeth met her gaze, saw the shadow of hope and exhaustion there, and immediately wanted to turn around and leave. The vulnerability in Sage's expression felt like an accusation—you're failing me, failing us, failing at the one thing that should be easy.
Instead, she set her briefcase down with more force than intended. "You didn't need to."
A beat of silence. Sage pressed her lips together, searching for patience that was nearly spent. Elizabeth could see it in the tension of her jaw, the way her fingers found her bracelet—that tell that meant Sage was struggling to maintain composure.
Good, Elizabeth thought with cruel satisfaction. Let her struggle. Let her understand that I won't be manipulated by guilt or obligation.
But the thought rang hollow even as it formed. Because underneath the cruelty, underneath the narcissistic need to dominate, there was something else—a flicker of awareness that she was destroying something precious and that she lacked the capacity to stop herself.
"You said this would get easier, you know?" Sage's voice was carefully controlled. "Us. Being with you. You said once the Morrison deal closed, once the pressure eased, we'd have time. Real time, not just the scraps you throw me between board meetings."
'I never said that,' Elizabeth thought. She heard what she wanted to hear.
But had she? The memories were fuzzy, corrupted by exhaustion and pain. Maybe she had promised something. Maybe she'd meant it in the moment, before the weight of empire-building crushed all her softer impulses.
"I never said easy. I said possible." Elizabeth dropped her jacket onto the arm of the sofa and massaged her temples, willing herself not to show weakness. The pain was a living thing now, eating through her concentration, making every word an effort.