Chapter 48 – Her Presence in Every Corner
It was just past midnight when she came to his room again.
The Grand Duchess wore no jewels this time. No crown of polished moonstone or silver-threaded gown. She walked the halls barefoot, like a woman who had forgotten her title.
The Grand Duke walked silently beside her. A presence like an old sword—worn, but unyielding.
The door to Sirius's room stood closed.
She had not stepped inside it for years. Not since he was a boy.
And now, she hesitated.
Not because she was afraid—but because she knew, somehow, that what waited behind that door had nothing to do with her anymore.
She pushed it open anyway.
And froze.
The air inside was heavy with jasmine and stillness. The scent—too soft for war, too intimate for anything her son should remember after two years of battle—was everywhere. It wrapped the furniture, the high carved shelves, the velvet drapes, the sculpted archways. It lingered like a ghost.
Like a woman still breathing through the bones of this place.
Her eyes swept across the chamber.
There, on the far wall, was the latest painting.
Silver hair spilled across a dark background like melted frost. A gaze that saw through kings and time alike. A face too divine to belong to the mortal world.
The same girl.
She was not real—she couldn't be. No one looked like that. No one had eyes that deep or a presence so still it seemed to quiet even the wind beyond the windows.
But the room said otherwise.
The Grand Duchess turned, slowly, her eyes tracing every inch.
There was a statue in the alcove—half-swathed in silk, half-finished. Her posture was serene, her lips parted as if about to speak his name.
On the walls, sketches. Dozens. All of her. Sometimes turned away, sometimes sleeping. Sometimes smiling so gently it made the duchess feel like an intruder.
On the bed: folded fabric—a silver scarf, pressed like it had been there for centuries, undisturbed.
At the base of the bed, a single, handwritten poem. Ink slightly smudged, as if by a thumb that had trembled after writing it:
"No one knows her name. But I remember the silence in her eyes. And I have not known peace since."
The Grand Duchess inhaled sharply.
"Sirius," she said, her voice low. "This again?"
He didn't look at her.
He sat by the canvas, brush resting loosely in one hand.
"You've been gone for two years," she continued, her voice rising. "You saw blood. You saw death. How—how are you still clinging to this fantasy?"
"I never let go," he murmured.
The Grand Duke said nothing. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, gaze fixed on his son.
She took a step forward.
"She's just a pretty face. A mirage. Something you dreamed up when you were young and foolish. And now you're back from war, older, stronger. It's time to—"
"To what?" Sirius asked quietly.
"To forget her."
His eyes lifted, slow and cold.
"No."
The word fell like a knife.
His mother's eyes blazed.
"Is she even noble? Is she worthy of you?" she spat. "Do you even know where she comes from? What her name is? Who her family is?"
"I do."
"Then why has no one seen her?" the Grand Duchess demanded. "Why have I never met the woman who's taken root in every corner of this house? This room is a shrine, Sirius. A shrine to a girl who may not even exist."
He looked toward the statue again.
"She exists."
"I will not allow this," she hissed. "I will not allow you to throw away your future for a face. For some—some girl you've turned into a goddess in your mind. She's not real. And if she is, she is not worthy."
A pause.
Sirius met her eyes then—finally.
And smiled.
"No," he said.
"I am the one who is not worthy of her."
The words landed like stone.
The Grand Duchess stared.
The Grand Duke, still quiet, exhaled once through his nose and stepped forward. A subtle motion—but enough.
He placed a firm hand on his wife's shoulder.
She flinched. "You're siding with him?"
"I'm stopping you," he said, his voice like ironwood.
Sirius stood, turning back to his canvas.
The brush touched paint again. Slow, precise.
"She is your daughter-in-law," he said softly. "That is all you need to know."
Silence.
The Duchess's hands curled into fists.
All the titles in the world, all the bloodlines, all the noble connections—none of it meant anything in that moment.
Because her son—the war hero, the youngest of the Ten Pillars, the Empire's storm—had already made his vow.
To a nameless girl.
A silver phantom who lived in his silence.
A love that reigned in shadow.
The Duchess stood there for a long time.
And finally, as if pulled from the back of her throat, she whispered—
"…Who the hell is she?"
But Sirius had already turned away.