A sudden, visceral darkness swept across Leila's features. A tempest was gathering behind the porcelain mask of her face.
Her eyes, usually clear, now flickered with the jagged lightning of a brewing storm.
"You truly expect me to masquerade as the daughter of that woman?" she asked.
Her voice dropped to a glacial whisper that seemed to frost the very air of the drawing room.
"The woman who dismantled my mother's life piece by piece, until there was nothing left but ash?"
She did not wait for justifications. Instead, she turned toward Leon, a jagged smirk cutting across her lips—a smile that held no mirth, only the bitterness of a martyr.
"Forgive me, Leon," she uttered, the apology sounding more like a challenge.
Leon merely offered a languid shrug, his indifference a physical weight in the room.
"As you wish," he replied, his voice doused in apathy. "Consider yourself forgiven. It matters little to me."
Leila pivoted back to Mathias, her spine rigid, her voice now dripping with the acidic nectar of pure defiance.
"I did not ask for permission when I tied my fate to Kyle's, nor when I brought our child into this fractured world."
She stepped closer, her eyes burning.
"Those were my choices—forged in my own fire. And yet, you stand there and demand I bend my will to yours, simply because you possess the arrogance to believe you know what is best for my soul?"
Mathias's expression did not merely change; it petrified.
His face became a mask of unyielding granite, and when he spoke, his voice carried the resonance of clashing steel.
"You were conspicuously silent regarding my opinion when you were busy making those choices," he retorted, his words sharp enough to draw blood.
"And yet, now that I proffer a bridge over the abyss you created, you find the architecture not to your liking?"
He narrowed his eyes, his voice dropping to a dangerous low.
"Fine. Have it your way. Sink into the ignominy of a concubine's life. Or better yet, seek a divorce and vanish into the fog. I have exhausted my store of concern for you."
The words struck Leila with the physical force of a whip's crack.
She flinched, her breath hitching in her throat as her fingers curled into trembling fists.
But as she turned to flee, a voice cut through the air, cold and precise as a surgeon's blade.
"Lady Leila. Sit. We are not yet finished."
Olivia did not raise her voice, but the sheer weight of her authority anchored Leila to the floor.
"Did you not hear the venom he just spat?" Leila breathed.
Olivia met her gaze with a terrifyingly calm clarity.
"I heard every syllable. But tell me, child—is sacrifice not the ancient currency of love?"
She tilted her head, a phantom of a smile playing on her unreadable face.
"Besides, was this title not your birthright before it was stolen? Look at it not as a surrender, but as a reclamation of what the stars intended for you."
"You don't understand," Leila whispered, her voice cracking like thin ice. "That woman... she ruined everything. She destroyed my family."
"That woman was bound by no vows when she met your father," Olivia said, her tone clinical.
"It was he who held the keys to a home. It was he who chose to turn the lock and burn the house down from the inside."
Olivia leaned forward slightly, her gaze piercing.
"Society always finds it convenient to shroud the corruption of the powerful by blaming the instrument of their vice. You hate her because it is easier than hating the man who truly failed you."
A suffocating silence descended. Leila stared at her, paralyzed.
The realization hit with the force of a tectonic shift, forcing her to painfully reassemble the jagged pieces of a resentment she had nurtured for a lifetime.
"You may... possess a fragment of the truth," Leila admitted finally, her voice a ghost of its former strength.
She cast a fleeting glance toward Mathias. "But how can you be certain she will even agree to such an absurdity? To adopt me?"
Mathias folded his arms, the master of the board once more.
"Probability is a shadow until we cast light upon it. I shall speak with her before the sun sets."
Mathias stood before the heavy oak doors of the Duchess's chambers.
He raised a hand and struck the wood—three firm, rhythmic knocks that echoed through the quiet corridor.
The door groaned open, revealing a maid who dropped into a deep curtsy.
"Welcome, Your Grace," she murmured, stepping back to clear his path. "The Duchess is awake. She... she has been expecting you, I believe."
Mattias offered a faint, weary smile—a mere ghost of a gesture—and stepped into the sanctuary of the bedchamber.
Though illness had thinned her frame, it had failed to dim her regal essence. Her hair, once the color of a raven's wing, still held its silken luster as it spilled over her frail shoulders, a stark contrast to the porcelain pallor of her skin.
When she turned her head, her silver eyes—sharp as a predator's yet soft as moonlight—locked onto his. Even with the cruel map of time and hardship etched upon her features, her beauty remained a haunting, undeniable force.
As he drew near, a warm, knowing smile transformed her face. She reached out, her hand as delicate as a dried leaf, and cupped his cheek.
Instinctively, Mattias leaned into the familiar warmth, pressing his face against her palm as if trying to reclaim the uncomplicated peace of his childhood.
"How are you feeling, Mother?" he asked, his voice dropping to a low, melodic hush laced with a fraying thread of anxiety. "Are you any better? Tell me the truth—has the fever broken?"
She let out a soft, melodic chuckle, shaking her head at his persistence.
"You always ask after my ghost, Mattias, while you are the one who looks as though you've walked through fire. You look exhausted, my dear.
Have you been burying yourself in the archives again?"
A sheepish, lopsided grin touched his lips. "You always see through my armor."
"Of course I do," she whispered, her eyes twinkling with a momentary spark of life. "I am your mother. Did you think a few years and a title would change that?"
The playful air evaporated as Mattias straightened his posture, his expression hardening into the mask of a Duke. He took her frail hand in his, his grip gentle but unyielding, anchoring her to the gravity of the moment.
"Mother," he began, his voice turning somber.
"There is a matter of state—and of blood—that requires your intervention. I know you have heard the whispers of what has been transpiring within the palace walls."
Her silver eyes narrowed, the warmth within them cooling into calculation.
"Ah... this is about your sister, isn't it? The shadow that haunts the corridors."
Mattias nodded, his gaze unwavering.
"Yes. And I need your help to bring her into the light. I want you to adopt her. Formally. Legally."
The Duchess stiffened as if he had struck her. Her fingers slipped from his grasp, falling lifelessly onto the silk duvet. Her voice, though still gentle, carried the sharp edge of profound shock.
"Adopt her? Mattias, do you truly comprehend the gravity of those words? You are asking me to rewrite the stars."
He exhaled, leaning forward until he was within the private orbit of her scent—lavender and medicinal herbs.
"I know it sounds like madness. But it is the only path left to us. If she is brought into our House, if she bears our name, the Council cannot deny her. She will be recognized as a legitimate candidate for Crown Princess. We can secure her future."
The Duchess turned her gaze toward the window, watching the curtains sway. A look of profound conflict shadowed her face, a mix of ancient guilt and new fear.
"I have already taken so much from Talia," she murmured, her voice so thin it was almost swallowed by the breeze.
"I broke her world to build mine. And now... you ask me to take her daughter as well? To pull her into this web?"
Mattias clenched his fists, the leather of his gloves creaking. He had anticipated the political hurdles, but he hadn't expected the raw ache of his mother's conscience to sting this much. It was a reminder of the sins that built their throne.
"Please, Mother," he pleaded, his voice cracking with a rare moment of vulnerability. " We have no other way to save her."
The silence stretched between them, thick and heavy as a funeral pall, until the only sound remaining was the rhythmic snap of the curtains against the window frame.
Finally, the former Duchess turned back to him. The flickering shadows of conflict had vanished from her face, replaced by a crystalline, terrifying resolve.
"Then bring Talia to me," she commanded.
Mattias blinked, a furrow of confusion deepening across his brow. He felt the ground shift beneath his feet.
"What? Mother, I don't understand—why involve her directly? I can handle the—"
"I will not do this as a thief in the night," she interrupted, her silver eyes catching the light like polished blades. There was no room for negotiation in her tone; it was the voice of a woman who had ruled courts and conquered scandals.
"I will grant this boon only if Talia herself stands before me," she continued, her voice gaining a resonant strength.
"I require her to look me in the eye—woman to woman, mother to mother—and ask this of her own free will. I will not have this decision whispered through intermediaries or forced by political necessity."
She met his stunned gaze evenly, the frail invalid disappearing behind the indomitable mask of the Duchess.
"If she can stand in this room and tell me, with her own breath, that she accepts this fate for her child—that she understands the gilded cage she is inviting her daughter into—then I shall adopt Leila without a moment's hesitation."
Mattias stared at her, utterly speechless. The audacity of the demand left him cold. These two women were bound by a history of ruin, betrayal, and shared ghosts.
To bring them face to face was to invite a collision of two different worlds, a meeting that could either heal old wounds or set their entire house ablaze.
"I require her truth," she added, her voice dropping to a final, firm note that brooked no further argument. "That is my condition, Mattias."