Alisha was enduring a living hell because of him, and Serene was withering under the agony of a forbidden love because of him. He had laid waste to the lives of the two women he had sworn to protect.
"No... No, no, no!" Lucius stammered, his mind a frantic labyrinth of denial. "It is impossible. He is lying! My sister could never love a man like him. He must have forged these letters—a cruel fabrication to break you, to break me!"
Amidst this psychological wreckage, Alisha lifted her pallid face. Tears tracked down her cheeks with a poetic, haunting precision. She whispered, her voice a fractured reed: "Lucius... or rather, Your Majesty... I will consent to the divorce. I will leave this place. But on one condition."
Lucius swallowed a bitter, jagged lump of grief. "Anything. Ask for the world, and it is yours."
