Ayla wasn't an early riser, but she knew Silas was.

Even when she lived a different life—one that now felt distant and unreachable—she had never been the type to wake up before sunrise. But she also understood that she couldn't just lie around, doing nothing, while she stayed under his roof. She couldn't afford to be seen as someone without purpose, someone merely surviving without contributing. Silas despised that kind of existence. He respected ambition, movement, persistence. And right now, she had none of those things. But she had to try.