"If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by".

When Sera was four years old, her mother had read to her The Art of War. It was not the ideal story book for a child, and Sera struggled with many of the concepts in it, but her mother was patient. Every time Sera did not understand something, her mother would sit by her and explain it until she did.

By six, when the Hollan Agent turned up, Sera could quote the book with ease, but rarely did so. She was still a child after all, and to the wider world, a child was weak. So, she would be weak until she had the means to appear strong.

"All warfare is based in deception".

The Hollan Agent was a stranger to Sera, but her mother knew the man. Julia Terique was not surprised to see him. She simply said upon his arrival, "How long have we to pack out belongings?"

The Agent seemed a little surprised, but the expression was gone from his eyes just as quickly as he eyed Sera, "The car will be here in two hours".

He waited outside. Julia did not invite him in. She had expected his arrival, but that did not mean it was welcomed.

Julia had taken Sera aside and said simply, "Engage people with what they expect".

Sera easily recalled the quote and finished it in her soft voice, "It settles them into predictable patterns".

It was not the full quote, but Julia nodded in approval to see that her daughter was on the same page. They were being taken into the Lion's den, and they were but lambs to be kept for slaughter at the appropriate time.

The 'car' that arrived was actually five cars. Four filled with those who appeared to be security personal, the fifth empty except for the driver. It was into this car that Sera and her mother were placed with the Hollan agent, their bags taken into the car as well.

They drove for four hours before they were loaded onto a private jet that took them far from the home Sera had always known. Sera did not dare to ask questions with eyes on her and her mother. She simply held her mother's hand or curled up on her lap and pretended to sleep.

When the plane landed, they took another car to what Sera would come to know as the Hollan Estate.

It was at a small house on the edge of this Estate that the cars dropped them off along with the agent that had accompanied them. He led them inside, and there they came face to face with Daniel Hollan, third son of the Hollan Patriarch.

The Hollan family was one of the Elite Families of the world, particularly in Aruba where their bloodline had lived for centuries. They were Nobility of the highest order, even Kings had to pay them respect.

The Hollan Patriarch, prior to Sera's arrival at the Estate, had been Daniel's grandfather. The old man had passed away from natural causes and after two months of internal debates by family elders, Daniel's father Leonard Hollan had been named the successor as the oldest son of the previous patriarch.

Daniel had two older brothers, and all three of Leonard's sons had families of their own. He already had six grandchildren. But Daniel, who had never been liked by his brothers, decided that he needed to try to protect the daughter he had never acknowledged despite what it may do to his reputation.

Daniel and Julia had an affair before he had been married. Classified only as an affair because Daniel had been engaged since he was a young teenager to the daughter of another noble bloodline. Julia had been unaware of it, and when she had discovered it had broken all ties with Daniel, only to discover a week later that she was pregnant.

She had told Daniel, and she had always believed that it had been the right thing to do. She'd always known that it would be impossible to marry him and she adamantly backed out of any arrangement he wanted to make and determined to raise Sera on her own. Daniel had never met his eldest daughter, had never spoken of her lest one of his family members got it in their heads to try to harm her, but now that his father was patriarch, Daniel had revealed Sera's existence to him.

Leonard had been furious with his son, but after several days of consideration, had agreed to bring Sera and her mother to the estate where Sera would be given a full education and the resources of a Hollan descendant.

Daniel stood from the chair he had been seated in, giving a brief glance at Julia before his eyes fell upon Sera. His gaze softened somewhat, "I am your father. You will remain here from now on".

His tone left no room for argument. So, Sera acted like any intimidated child would. Already clinging to her mother's shirt, Sera looked up for her mother's confirmation.

"You will be a Hollan now," said her mother, placing a gentle hand on her head, "Even if you do not share the name, you do share the blood".

Sera was silent as if scared and struggling to understand, but she eventually nodded, and this seemed to appease Daniel for now.

"Settle in tomorrow, no one will disturb you, ask Lance for anything you need. A Tutor will be by the following day to test Sera on her aptitudes. She'll be required to greet the Patriarch at the end of next week during his birthday celebration," Daniel instructed, then he left with only a final glance at Sera.

Sera had not been entirely aware of the situation at the time, but they had no visitors the following day except Lance, the Hollan Agent who had gone to retrieve them.

When the Tutor arrived, it was very clear the he was only here to do a job. A job he was not wholly impressed with.

He administered several tests, then took the results back to the main house where Sera was to be assessed.

Following her assessment, Sera was assigned several resources to aid in her learning. The tutors were supposed to come to teach her, but it was made clear, especially following her meeting with the Patriarch and the main family on his birthday, that Sera's presence in the Estate was a black mark against their name. With the Tutors absent, and neither Sera nor Julia able to complain about it, Julia set to work teaching her daughter from the resources provided.

They passed the next four years peacefully, their only contact with the outside world being Lance. Even Daniel did not approach the house where they lived even if it was on the family's extensive estate. On special occasions, Sera's presence was required as she was a part of the main bloodline, but Julia's was barred.

Sera learned not to draw attention to herself, to blend into the background and ignore the jabs at her 'bastard' status and presumed lack of intelligence thanks to her silence.

In fact, her education was almost forgotten about considering that all that she needed to continue forward was to take the required tests on the laptop provided to her, and then the next batch of materials would be sent.

Only her mother was aware that Sera was reading at six years above her level, sometimes eight years. Her critical thinking developed at an accelerated rate, as did her creative thinking. When she was eight, she had plucked up the courage to ask Lance to teach her hand-to-hand combat. He had hesitated at first, but taking pity on the mother and daughter pair that were so isolated from the world, he eventually agreed. He did not go easy on her though, and that was something that Sera was exceedingly thankful for. He didn't bat an eye when she moved from hand to hand to weapons, doing exceptionally well at archery in particular.

By the time she was ten, if anyone had bothered to check, they would have known that the Bastard Daughter was far above the capabilities of her legitimate cousins of the same age.

But when she was ten years old, Julia's health began to decline.

It was not something she noticed at first, but when Julia one day collapsed after coughing up blood, Sera immediately requested the main family for a doctor.

Two days later, the doctor confirmed that Julia had a tumour in her left lung. Sera petitioned the main family for the funds to help, but after three months, she had heard no reply as her mother's condition grew worse and worse.

A month following her daughter's eleventh birthday Julia Terique passed away.

It was only then that Daniel appeared to bring his now motherless daughter to his own home, but in Sera's opinion, it was far too late.

"For months I asked for help," said Sera, "Back then you could have saved her, and you didn't. Nobody did".

Daniel did not reply to this. He knew it to be the truth.

"I would rather continue living in the house where we both lived as a family, than with a family of people no better than strangers who would not help even if someone was dying," said Sera.

"You are a Hollan, Seraphina, you will be cared for-"

It was the first time her father had spoken her name. Sera did not like it.

"My name is Terique," said Sera, "It always has been. Not because I believe it to be the superior inheritance, but because so far, that has been the only name that has meant something to me. It's the name of a mother who sincerely cared for me and loved me all my life, where my father of the great Hollan bloodline did not".

Sera turned away from her mother's grave in her back garden, "Please leave, your family will be missing you".

Sera could have looked after herself, but Daniel sent a maid to bring her meals and clean the house anyway.

It became clear rather quickly that the maid was not enthused to be there, and on one occasion where the food Sera was given made her sick for over a week, she realised inexplicably that she had been poisoned. Lance realised it too. He banned the maid from ever approaching the house again, then nursed Sera back to health.

After that, Lance practically lived at the house, helping to raise Sera as well as taking care of her security.

It was in those moments that Lance became all too aware of how intelligent Sera actually was. Enough that by the age of fourteen, Sera was in her final year of high school. A month before she turned fifteen, Sera completed her final exam, and the computer system alerted the tutors and the Patriarch to her progress. The Patriarch immediately asked it to be investigated, and it caused quite a ruckus for him to find out that Lance was living in the house with her.

Lance was accused of taking the exams for her, and dismissed promptly. Sera was barred access from university classes, even after she retook the high school graduate level exams. Her house and the gardens around it were all walled off, and a gate locked. She was not to leave without permission.

Instead, Lance gave Sera a contact before he left. A contact that was to take a slip of paper with any requests on it one day of the week and deliver the items the next. As an heir, Sera had always had money, she simply hadn't bothered using it when she had access to the education system of the family. She was not barred access from the accounts, and allowed to buy items, though they had to be approved by the family. The contact skipped the family approval and bought her the items she wanted directly along with the food delivery every week.

Sera had the contact purchase two puppies for her own company and to help guard the house from unwanted intruders. Without Lance she had no security to rely on but that of the Hollan family as a whole, and that was not favourable to her. She also laid hunting traps along the walls of her property against intruders, planted her own vegetable garden, and made her own chicken coop. She became largely self-sufficient considering she grew sick of testing all her food for poison.

The thing she most asked her contact for though, was books. She was not picky or proud on which ones. She sometimes requested a particular topic or genre, but otherwise simply asked for ten books of varying subjects.

It was a week following her eighteenth birthday when Sera's presence was requested at the Main House of the Estate. She was surprised to find it, but from the wording, it was clear it was a gathering of the entire Hollan Bloodline. A very uncommon event.