Traffic Love

Prologue: Rooted in Depth

Rip a waterlily from the depths that cradle it, and it dies.... yet the moment it is returned to its rightful place, it rises—reborn, defiant, and breathtaking.

"You don't belong here, Eirian Alvarez. Trash like you will never have a place in Altamarè."

Eirian closed her eyes, if only to keep the weariness from spilling over. Her fingers tightened around her cutlery, knuckles blanching as a long, soundless breath eased its way from her chest. The voice was familiar—too familiar—dripping with the same entitled cruelty Severine Salazar had perfected over the years. A bully born of privilege, from a lineage infamous for trampling people like her beneath polished shoes.

"Yeah," Eirian said at last, her tone languid, almost bored. She didn't bother to look up. "I've been hearing that from you for four years now."

She took another unhurried bite of her modest meal, chewing slowly, as if Severine's words were nothing more than background noise—unworthy of interrupting her simple lunch.

"Don't get clever with me, you peasant. You should be on your knees, grateful you're even allowed to study in Altamaré."

Severine's face twisted with naked contempt. In one sharp motion, she snatched the cutlery from Eirian's hands and flung it aside, metal clattering against the floor like a final insult.

Eirian let out a quiet huff, more amused than angered. A smug curve touched her lips. Of course. Severine was nothing if not predictable—far too delicate beneath all that arrogance to tolerate indifference. Her cruelty thrived on reactions, and the moment it was denied, she unraveled, resorting to theatrics and old, hollow taunts that had long since lost their sting.

"Fine," Eirian said softly. "Thank you, Saint Severine—beloved daughter of a politician dressed in sheep's clothing, when everyone knows your family is nothing more than a pack of wolves. Wolves who feast on those beneath them, then wear the remains as leverage without a shred of shame."

The words slipped from her lips in a low hiss, sharp with disgust but carefully restrained. She had no desire to draw the attention of the surrounding students, all of them clustered over their lunches in the cavernous cafeteria, ears perpetually tuned for scandal.

Altamaré, after all, was skilled at keeping up appearances. Beneath its gold-gilded halls festered a rotting system—one that cultivated arrogance instead of competence, pedigree instead of intellect. Here, status outweighed knowledge, and cruelty passed for power.

"Fucking bitch."

Severine snarled the words, her face blazing an angry red. In one reckless motion, she seized Eirian's plastic container and hurled its contents straight at her, liquid and scraps splattering without mercy.

The constant hum of voices in the vast cafeteria died instantly, swallowed by a silence so abrupt it rang louder than noise. Moments later came the weight of it—the hostile, prying stares of an eager audience, eyes sharp with anticipation as they pierced into her back.

This was Altamaré, after all. Anyone who stood against Severine Salazar was automatically condemned. Provocation was irrelevant, truth inconsequential. If the bratty socialite was involved, the institution would politely avert its gaze—because here, power dictated innocence, and status rewrote every rule, especially for people like Eirian.

She wiped the grease from her face and uniform with her bare hands, the motion precise and unhurried as though cleansing herself with something insignificant. There was no embarrassment in her eyes—only composure. A thin, knowing smile settled on Eirian's lips.

"What?" she asked flatly. "You told me to be grateful. I complied."

She tipped her head just enough to meet Severine's gaze, her stare cool as ice. She took in the flushed skin, the trembling flare of nostrils—not with amusement, but with measured appraisal. Every second of her calm demeanor pressed harder against Severine's fury, provoking it not through taunts, but through the quiet certainty that she was not bothered by her deliberate childish attacks.

A faint gasp shivered through the crowd—curiosity, disbelief, maybe even outrage—that she had dared to defy the one student no one crossed. Eirian felt none of it. She didn't care. Soon, very soon, the gilded walls of this prison would crumble behind her, and she would be free.

Yet, despite her loathing—despising Altamaré's merciless, anti-poor machinery, its obsession with status over merit—she could not escape the truth gnawing at her. She needed this. The privilege, the doors that opened only to the wealthy, the powerful. The scholarship, extended by Severine's father, was a bitter chain she had swallowed, a necessary compromise. Pride and principle were luxuries she couldn't afford here; survival demanded she wear the mask of gratitude, even as it choked her.

"That's right," Severine murmured. "Whatever I say, you comply. I own you, Eirian."

The anger vanished from her face as if it had never been there, replaced by a calm that felt rehearsed—precise, calculating. Her lips curved, not in a smile, but in possession.

"I'm glad you understand where you belong," she continued, her voice low. "Beneath me. A shadow without a name, existing only because I allow it." Her gaze lingered, cold and deliberate. "Without my father's scholarship, you would already be nothing. On the streets. Begging for scraps you don't deserve."

She leaned in just enough to invade Eirian's space, enunciating every word with quiet cruelty. "So yes. You will do what I want."

Then she straightened, looming—not to threaten, but to remind. Of rank. Of power. Of a world designed to keep one of them standing and the other permanently small.

But Eirian was not someone to be trifled with.

She rose to her feet, meeting Severine head-on. Her gaze speared through the girl before her—steady, demanding, unyielding.

"No," she said evenly. "You don't own me." A pause, deliberate. "I'm sorry if your parents raised you to believe people like me exist to be claimed—faceless, nameless, beneath notice."

A ripple passed through the onlookers. Brows twitched, breaths caught, disbelief flickering across carefully composed faces. Of course they reacted that way. They were cut from the same cloth—stitched together by privilege, bound by the same quiet assumptions about who mattered and who did not.

Severine's lips curved into a faint smirk. "Of course you'd say that," she murmured. "People like you always do. You cling to self-defense until it feels like dignity—an illusion, really. It's all you have."

She stepped closer. Too close. Her voice lowered as she leaned in, a wicked amusement glinting in her eyes.

"You dress it up as courage," Severine whispered, "but it's only a reflex. A way to cope when the truth hurts." Her smile sharpened. "Because you know I'm right. The world doesn't pause for people like you—people without purpose, who exist only to remind others what power looks like."

Her head tilted, her mouth brushing dangerously near Eirian's ear.

"Do you know what power is?" she breathed. "It's a single word from me, and your family disappears. Erased so completely it's as if they never existed."

She straightened, the threat lingering in the space between them. A wide, satisfied smile settled onto her face.

"So if I were you," Severine said lightly, already turning away, "I'd think twice before trying to play heroine for people as hopeless as you."

With that, she walked off—leaving silence and fear in her wake.

Eirian remained where she was long after Severine disappeared into the sea of uniforms, the weight of unspoken threats settling around her like dust. Only then did she feel it—the unmistakable prickle of being watched. Near the far end of the cafeteria, half-obscured by pillars and shadow, someone stood apart from the crowd. Unreactive. Uninterested in Severine's theatrics. His gaze met hers briefly—not with curiosity, nor judgment, but with something sharper. Recognition, perhaps. Then he turned away, vanishing as if he had never been there at all.

For the first time that day, Eirian's pulse stuttered—not from fear, but from the unsettling certainty that her defiance had not gone unnoticed.