Matthias stepped from the Duchess's chambers.
He drew the door shut with a slow, heavy deliberation, as if the click of the latch could somehow tether the whirlwind of his thoughts.
But the reprieve was short-lived.
There, leaned against the stone wall with arms crossed and a predatory glint in his eyes, stood Leon.
Arching a skeptical brow, Matthias lowered his voice to a sharp, commanding rasp.
"What brings you to this corridor? Do not tell me you've taken up the ignoble habit of eavesdropping."
Leon's lips curled into a smirk. His head tilted with a practiced air of mockery.
"And if I have, dear brother? What then?"
Matthias, his patience already frayed to a thin thread, was in no mood for such verbal fencing.
Without a word, he seized Leon by the ear, hauling him toward the sanctuary of his study.
Leon's protests—a chorus of "Ouch! Watch the ear!"—fell on deaf ears until they were safely behind closed doors.
Matthias slammed the heavy oak shut.
The sound echoed like a gunshot.
He turned, his gaze dark with a volatile mix of exhaustion and paternal worry.
"Why were you listening?" he demanded, his voice trembling with suppressed heat. "Give me the truth. Now."
Leon winced, tenderly massaging his reddened ear.
He straightened his vest, his demeanor shifting from playful to unnervingly calm.
"Curiosity, mostly. I merely wanted to see how Mother would weather the storm of your revelation."
A heavy sigh escaped Matthias.
He ran a hand through his hair, the strands catching between his fingers as he muttered, "I truly do not know what is to be done with you, you little devil."
A heavy silence stretched between them—a bridge of unspoken history and shared blood.
It was Leon who eventually broke the stillness, his voice shedding its usual levity.
"So… she wishes to receive Lady Talia?"
Matthias gave a slow, somber nod. "She does."
"And…?"
Matthias frowned, his confusion genuine. "And what?"
Leon sighed.
His tone softened into something almost crystalline, as if he were treading on glass he feared might shatter in Matthias's heart.
"Will you grant it? I know your sense of duty is a cage you won't break, but that isn't what I mean."
He stepped closer.
"Are you ready, Matthias? To stand before her? She is, after all, the woman who gave you life."
The air in the room seemed to vanish.
Matthias's features tightened into a mask of sudden, sharp pain.
His throat constricted, bone-dry and tight.
The room felt too small, the shadows too long.
He fumbled with the top button of his shirt, wrenching it free as he rose to pace the floor with the frantic energy of a trapped animal.
Leon watched him, the mockery entirely gone, replaced by a haunting shadow of concern.
"Matthias... are you alright?"
Matthias came to a sudden halt.
He turned toward his brother with a countenance that had finally begun to crack.
The usual mask of the stoic heir had slipped, revealing eyes clouded with a turbulent, raw uncertainty.
"I… I truly do not know, Leon," he whispered, his voice splintering.
"She brought me into this world, yes—but it was your mother who raised me. It was she who raised me. For years, there was only silence."
He looked away, his breath hitching.
"No letters, no inquiries, not a single shadow of her presence. And now, I am expected to simply… stand before her? To weigh my soul in an instant?"
His voice grew frantic. "What if the encounter is a disaster?"
A fine sheen of sweat broke across his brow.
His knuckles whitened as his hands curled into trembling fists.
When he spoke again, his voice had sunk to a ghost of a whisper, barely audible over the crackle of the hearth.
"Leon… if the roles were reversed… what would you do?"
Leon remained motionless.
The silence stretched long and thin as he searched for an answer that wasn't there.
When he finally spoke, his bravado had vanished, replaced by a quiet, somber honesty.
"I have no answer for you, brother," he admitted.
"But I see the toll this takes. You are frayed to the very edges. Perhaps you should seek the reprieve of sleep before you attempt to unravel these knots."
Matthias let out a long, shattering breath.
He was visibly fighting to pull the scattered pieces of his composure back together.
"You speak sense. But before I rest, Leon, I have a task for you. I want you to be the one to escort Lady Talia here."
Leon's eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise. "Me? Why send the 'troublemaker'?"
Matthias stepped into his brother's space.
He gripped Leon's shoulder with a sudden, firm intensity.
His eyes burned with a cold, calculated seriousness.
"Because I need your eyes, Leon. Observe her during the journey. Peer behind the curtain of her manners and find the truth of her character."
He leaned in.
"If this meeting is a trap or a farce, we must be prepared for… more decisive measures."
A slow, knowing smile tugged at the corners of Leon's mouth.
He gave a sharp, respectful nod.
"Understood. If it's a spy you need rather than a son, I shall play the part. I'll depart at once."
"Good luck, Leon."
Matthias watched as his brother vanished through the heavy doors.
He was left alone with the flickering shadows that danced like ghosts against the study walls.
He stood there for a long moment—a solitary figure draped in the weight of a crown he hadn't asked for.
Finally, he turned and walked toward his private chambers, hoping for sleep, yet fearing the dreams that might meet him before the coming storm.
In the sanctuary of her opulent study, Olivia sat entombed in her work.
The rhythmic rustle of parchment was the only sound as her slender fingers sifted through scattered documents.
Across the room, Isabella moved with a hollow air of industry, feigning tasks that fooled neither of them.
Since that fateful night when the shadows had retreated to reveal their hidden truths, the air between them had curdled.
It was a cold, electrified tension—a silent war of attrition fought with stolen glances and words left unsaid.
Finally, Isabella fractured the stillness.
Her voice was steady, yet it carried an unfamiliar, icy edge.
"Your Grace, there is something you ought to know."
Olivia lifted her gaze from the ink-stained pages, her expression a mask of cool curiosity.
"Oh? And what might that be?"
Isabella paused, a flicker of hesitation crossing her features before she delivered the blow.
"We are to have guests tomorrow."
Olivia's eyes narrowed.
She felt the invisible threads of a snare tightening around her.
"Guests?" she repeated, her voice laced with suspicion. "To whom are you referring?"
"Lady Talia and Miss Emilia," Isabella replied, her tone devoid of emotion. "They are expected at the manor by morning."
A flash of genuine shock widened Olivia's eyes.
She quickly forced her features back into a sharp, regal composure.
"You mean my husband's mother? And his sister?"
"Precisely."
A cold tremor traced the length of Olivia's spine.
Why now?
After years of exile and silence, why would that woman choose this moment to emerge from the fog of the past—and with a daughter in tow?
"And the purpose of this sudden pilgrimage?" Olivia asked, her voice like velvet over steel.
Isabella met her gaze with unnerving steadiness. Her reply was clipped and bold.
"I couldn't say. Is it not the Duchess who is usually privy to the family's secrets?"
The provocation was unmistakable.
Since her secret had been unmasked, the hesitant, dutiful servant had withered away.
She had been replaced by a woman who spoke with the sharpness of a blade.
Olivia did not flinch. She fixed Isabella with a gaze that could wither stone.
"Isabella," she warned, "you seem to have forgotten that you stand before the Duchess."
Isabella blinked, the fire in her eyes dimming as she realized she had pushed too far.
She swallowed her retort, falling into a tense, resentful silence.
"Now, tell me what you know of their visit."
"Leon spoke of it," Isabella said, her voice neutral once more.
"He claimed the former Duchess requested the meeting herself. He was in a haste to depart and offered no further explanation."
"I see..."
Olivia sat in silence.
The information swirled in her mind like crows circling a battlefield.
She set her pen aside with a finality that signaled the end of her labor and rose from her chair.
Before she reached the door, she turned and crossed the room with predatory grace.
She stopped inches from Isabella, leaning in to whisper a warning that chilled the air.
"My dear, our pact remains. You are to breathe a word of our affairs to my father only when I deem it time. Do not even entertain the thought of leaking a single document."
Isabella offered a practiced, porcelain smile.
However, her eyes glinted with a quiet, dangerous defiance.
"I am well aware of our arrangement, Your Grace. Just as you are aware that the time is coming for you to fulfill your end of the bargain."
Olivia arched an elegant brow, her expression unfathomable.
"Of course. Once this storm has passed, I shall personally escort you to your father."
Leaving her study, Olivia moved through the dim corridors toward her husband's office.
She sought council.
But when she pushed open the heavy doors, she found only ghosts and shadows.
The long velvet curtains billowed like funeral shrouds in the wind of an open window.
The desk sat untouched, cold and indifferent, as if its master had vanished hours ago.
A sudden, sharp constriction seized her chest.
Driven by a mounting dread she refused to name, she climbed the stairs to his private quarters.
She knocked—once, twice, then again.
The silence that followed was thick and suffocating.
Casting decorum aside, she turned the handle and barged into the room.
The air inside was a foul cocktail of stale tobacco smoke and the sharp, cloying sting of spilled spirits.
Empty wine bottles were strewn across the floor like fallen soldiers.
But it was the figure slumped against the far wall that caused the breath to die in her throat.
There sat the Duke.
His chest was bare, rising with shallow, ragged heaves.
He was drowning in a sea of extinguished cigarettes.
His face was flushed with an unnatural heat, his brow damp with a feverish sweat.
In his right hand, a final cigarette butt still trailed a ghostly wisp of smoke.
But it was the sight of his palm that made her blood run cold.
Raw, angry burn marks marred the flesh—self-inflicted brands of agony.
She knelt beside him, her blood running cold as she saw the raw, angry burn marks.
A chilling realization took root in her mind, unbidden and terrifying.
Was he... was he burning himself?