Heir-Apparent Petra Drazsek

Petra Drazsek was named heir at six, an age when the key at her collar seemed more like a prize than a responsibility. Forty years later, her grandmother still occupies the chair, and Petra has learned that being prepared to inherit is a profession with no guaranteed appointment.

She commands Throne Engine in the house’s service, managing disputes and earning loyalties that cannot be dismissed as gifts from her family. Her grandmother praises the work while retaining every final decision. Petra admires the older woman’s endurance and resents the way that endurance keeps her own life indefinitely provisional.

Her red hair is braided neatly, her monocle carefully set, and her public manners are almost impossible to disturb. In private she asks sharper questions: what is a house owed by its heir, and what is an heir owed in return? Petra intends to be ready when the answer finally matters.