The morning sun bled through the towering panes of the study, casting Mathias into a sharp, jagged silhouette.
Outside, the city stirred, its cobblestone arteries pulsing with the rot of fresh scandal—rumors that spread with the silent, predatory speed of a miasma.
Mathias did not turn. His jaw remained set, a hard line of tension against the pale light.
At last, his voice cut through the stillness, heavy with a cold, simmering accusation.
"Are you satisfied now?"
In the shadows of the far wall, Olivia stood like a statue carved from spite. She crossed her arms, her face a mask of porcelain indifference.
"You speak as if the leak flowed from my own lips," she countered, her tone brittle with irritation.
"You and I both know I am not the architect of this ruin."
Mathias finally turned. His dark eyes searched hers, glimmering with a volatile mixture of exhausted fury and hollow resignation.
"It is of no consequence," he exhaled, a sharp, ragged sound as he ran a hand through the disarray of his hair.
"I knew the tides would turn against us eventually."
Olivia arched a brow, her gaze unimpressed.
"And so, you summoned me at this ungodly hour for the sole purpose of martyrdom? To lay the world's sins at my feet?"
A bitter, hollow laugh escaped him as he retreated toward his mahogany desk, leaning heavily against the wood.
"Hardly, Olivia. I called you here to bear witness to the harvest of your own demands."
He looked at her sharply.
"This particular folly is the crown jewel of your persistence—and I, the greater fool for indulging it."
Olivia stiffened, her fingers digging into the fine silk of her sleeves.
"I? I never courted a scandal! He is my brother, Mathias. Whatever my grievances, he is my blood. I do not betray my own."
His expression curdled into a dark, knowing smirk, his eyes as sharp as a duelist's blade.
"Oh, none would ever dare question your devotion to the family name," he drawled.
"After all, we both remember the lengths you went to for your father."
The air in the room suddenly felt thin. For a heartbeat, the silence was absolute, heavy with the ghosts of shared secrets.
Olivia's breath hitched—a mere fracture in her composure—before she smoothed it over with a look of icy defiance.
She would not be broken by the past.
Mathias pushed off the desk, closing the distance between them with predatory grace.
"So, Your Grace," he mocked, the title dripping with irony.
"Since you were so adamant that a divorce be averted, what is your grand design? How do you intend to mend this shattered glass?"
He stepped closer, his voice dropping.
"Enlighten me—how do you propose to gift happiness to both my sister and your brother in this wreckage?"
The challenge hung in the air, stifling and thick. Olivia let the silence linger, drawing in a slow, calculated breath.
"What if Leila were not a commoner?"
A flicker of genuine surprise sparked in his dark gaze. "What?"
"What if she were adopted into a house of standing?" she held his stare, her voice steady. "A noble lineage would silence the whispers."
Mathias paused. The skepticism on his face slowly dissolved into a grim intrigue.
He stroked his chin, the gears of a new machination turning behind his eyes.
"A curious gambit... It would require a house of the highest echelon, one the Imperial Court would not dare disparage."
A sudden, sharp glint returned to his eyes.
"As it happens, I know the perfect candidate for such a charade."
Without further explanation, he turned, snatching his coat from the chair and throwing it over his shoulders.
He reached the door before pausing, looking back at her as if she were a mere afterthought. He extended a hand.
"Are you coming?"
Olivia blinked, her composure finally slipping into genuine confusion. "Me?"
Mathias gave a dry, humorless bark of a laugh.
"Indeed. Unless there is a ghost in this room I've yet to meet? Come. We have a future to rewrite."
With a soft, resigned sigh, Olivia stepped forward and slipped her arm into his.
The silk of her sleeve brushed against the wool of his coat—a fragile alliance forged in the heat of a crisis.
Whatever this gambit entailed, the bridges behind them had already begun to burn.
Their footsteps rang out in rhythmic harmony against the cold splendor of the marble floors.
A heavy silence draped over them, thick with the realization that the words they were about to speak would alter the tapestry of their lives forever.
When they reached Leila's chambers, Mathias paused, his hand hovering before the wood.
He delivered a soft, measured knock. No answer came.
"Pardon the intrusion, sister," he called out, his voice low. "I am coming in."
He pushed the door ajar, but the room was a hollow shell, bathed in the soft, golden light of mid-morning.
"She must have sought the solace of the gardens," Olivia murmured.
She turned to leave, but a sound—fragile and rhythmic—caught her ear.
She froze, tilting her head toward the grand bed.
With the soft rustle of her skirts trailing behind her, Olivia approached.
Tucked amidst the vast sea of linens lay the child, small and ethereal, her breath a steady, porcelain hum of sleep.
Mathias moved to her side, his towering presence softening as he looked down at the girl.
His voice, when it finally broke the silence, was uncharacteristically tender.
"The resemblance to you is striking."
Olivia looked up, startled. "Truly?"
She turned back to study the girl's delicate features. "Well... I suppose it is only natural. I am her aunt, after all."
A spark of curiosity lit Olivia's eyes as she glanced at the man beside her.
"Tell me, Mathias—have you ever held her? Even once?"
His lips parted as if to offer a swift, sharp retort, but the words died in his throat.
The hesitation in his eyes betrayed him.
Without a word of warning, Olivia reached down, gathering the sleeping child into her arms.
"Adjust your arms," Olivia commanded, her tone leaving no room for debate.
Mathias blinked, looking utterly adrift. "I beg your pardon?"
"Just do it. Quickly now."
With the bewildered obedience of a man facing a force of nature, he repositioned his hands.
A moment later, the weight of the child was transferred into his embrace.
He stood paralyzed, his muscles locked as if he were holding a vessel of the finest, most volatile crystal.
Then, slowly, the tension bled out of him.
A warmth, radiant and alien, spread across his face, and his guarded eyes thawed into an expression of undeniable, quiet joy.
Olivia watched him, mesmerized.
The way he cradled the small life, the sudden gentleness that smoothed his jagged edges—it was a revelation.
He would make a wonderful father, she thought.
A wistful, aching smile touched her lips. Before she could check her tongue, the thought escaped as a whisper.
"You'll be a great father, Mathias."
Still caught in the spell of the child's warmth, Mathias answered instinctively.
"You truly think so?"
His voice held an unusual brightness, a quiet hopefulness that neither of them were used to hearing.
They remained there, lost in a sanctuary of their own making, unaware of the figures standing in the shadow of the threshold.
Leon, Isabella, Kyle, and Leila stood there. They watched in a stunned, breathless silence.
To them, the sight was nothing short of a miracle.
Mathias and Olivia, the two most guarded hearts in the realm, smiling together... looking like a true family.
Then, sensing the weight of eyes upon them, Mathias and Olivia turned with a synchronized sharpness.
The air in the room seemed to freeze instantly.
The warmth retreated like a tide, replaced by the familiar, frigid masks of their station.
Mathias stepped forward, carefully returning the girl to his sister's arms.
He straightened his coat, assuming his usual mantle of cold authority.
"Since you have all seen fit to assemble," he said, his voice cutting through the silence like a winter gale. "Sit."
The atmosphere grew heavy. One by one, the couples moved to their seats.
Mathias leaned forward, his gaze pinning Kyle to his chair with the intensity of a predator.
"Kyle. This charade of yours—lingering in the Duchy—it is not an act of devotion."
His voice dropped to a low, firm vibration.
"It is cowardice. And you are far too intelligent to pretend otherwise."
Kyle's jaw tightened, but Mathias silenced him with a single, sharp gesture.
"You will return to the Palace. I will not sit idly by while the whispers of the rabble stain my sister's honor."
He paused for effect.
"We have found a path that allows you and Leila to remain together, but the Empress will never bow to a man hiding beneath my roof."
Kyle stood abruptly, his eyes wide with a frantic hope. "Truly? How?"
Silence filled the chamber as Mathias let the anticipation build.
When he finally spoke, his words were slow, dripping with the weight of their consequence.
"I intend to have the Dowager Duchess adopt Leila."
He watched their faces.
"In doing so, she shall be restored as a true daughter of House Lucron."
The air was sucked from the room in a single, collective gasp.
"My mother?!" Leon's voice cracked the stillness, his face a canvas of pure shock.
But it was Leila whose reaction burned the brightest.
She stood, her face pale with a burgeoning fury, her eyes flashing like lightning.
"You expect me," she hissed, her voice trembling with the force of her indignation.
"To become the daughter of the very woman who dismantled my mother's life?"
She glared at him, her voice a final, sharp blade.
"You ask for the impossible, Mathias."