Domitian pursed his lips as he listened to his daughter speak. She was wrong, of course; he thought the world of her, even during her little dramatics through the summer. But he did not think it would be to her benefit to tell her that, and Domitian was always — always — thinking of his children's futures, rather than the present.

He waited a moment before he spoke. "Your metric for success should come from within you," he eventually said, his words deliberate and steady. "Not from a professor, or a friend. Not even from me." Especially not from him; he knew from personal experience that a father's love was not necessarily guaranteed, and while he could not imagine any scenario in which he could let Zenobia down so drastically as his father had disappointed him, he still did not want to raise his children to be reliant on his affirmation for their sense of self-worth.

"Excel because you want to. Because you can. Because you deserve to," he told her. "Not because you want to make me proud."