Chapter 10 - The Garden of Flowers
Fifteen years later.
The summer sun shone brightly over the seaside town of Camden, Maine. The air was crisp, filled with the scent of salt water and blooming lavender.
In the center of the town stood a beautiful, two-story stone building surrounded by lush green gardens. Above the wooden double doors was a hand-carved sign painted in gold letters: THE ISABELLA & DAARIO MORETTI MEMORIAL SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN.
Inside the sunlit art studio on the second floor, a young woman stood before a large canvas, holding a palette of bright watercolors.
She was twenty-two years old, breathtakingly beautiful, with long dark hair tied back in a simple ribbon. But it was her eyes that caught the light—a striking, brilliant shade of gray-green.
She wore a simple white linen dress, free of dirt or blood, and on her wrist was a polished antique silver watch that ticked with quiet, eternal precision.
Around her, twenty young children sat at small wooden desks, laughing, painting watercolor flowers, and humming songs as sunlight poured through the high arched windows.
"Miss Mia!" a small girl called out, holding up a paper covered in bright yellow and pink swirls. "Look! I painted a castle!"
Mia turned, a soft, radiant smile spreading across her face—a smile that held the warmth of a mother’s love and the unbreakable strength of a king’s legacy.
She walked over to the little girl’s desk, kneeling down to her eye level, touching the silver locket resting against her collarbone.
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"It's a beautiful castle, sweetheart," Mia whispered gently, looking out the window at the endless blue ocean beyond. "The strongest kind there is."
She looked up into the clear sky, feeling the light warm her face, knowing that somewhere out there, past the shadows and the pain of the past, two angels were watching her build a world born not of blood, but of love.
