Chapter 102: The Noble Lie

Olivia reached out, her fingers fluttering like the wings of a wounded bird until they found the contours of his face. She traced the hard line of his jaw, the tension in his brow. “Why such a grimace, Mathias? I can practically feel the thunder on your brow.”

He caught her hand, pulling it away with a sharp, controlled movement. “Stop weaving circles around me, Olivia. Answer the question. Did those bastards lay their hands on you? Did they do this?”

She turned her head away, her sightless eyes staring into the void. “It isn’t important. I only wanted you to understand that my bond with them is not what you imagine. Do not ever mistake me for their pawn, or think that my loyalties lie with that den of snakes.”

Mathias looked at her, his heart fracturing at her hollow tone. “Not important?” his voice cracked with a mixture of desperation and burgeoning rage. “Olivia, you are my wife. You are a part of me. How can you possibly believe that them hurting you is of no consequence? Cast aside these wretched thoughts.”

“A part of you?” She let out a soft, dry laugh that didn’t reach her eyes. “What a poetic sentiment. You truly have a gift for consolation, Mathias. But you needn’t fret. I am fine. Even if they struck me, it wasn’t as if I stood there and took it. I returned the favor to Elvira in kind. So, we are even, are we not?”

“So they did… they truly hurt you.” The realization settled in his gut like lead. “How? What did they do?” He couldn’t contain it anymore; his voice rose to a pained roar. “Olivia, stop telling me you are fine! Look at yourself! You are broken, bleeding, and shrouded in darkness. You are at your absolute lowest, and you still refuse to let me in!”

She let her head fall against his chest, the last of her defenses crumbling like a ruined fortress. “Yes… they hurt me,” she sobbed, the words finally breaking through the dam of her pride. “They hurt me so much. I want to lie, I want to deny it all, but I can’t do this anymore. You’re right. I’m not fine. I’m tired, Mathias… so very, very tired.”

Her tears fell hot against her cheeks and soaked into his shirt. Mathias didn’t say a word; he simply pulled her into a crushing embrace, anchoring her to him as if he could absorb her pain through his own skin. He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to her forehead.

“It’s alright. I understand,” he murmured, his voice thick with an emotion he had spent years suppressing. “No more questions. Just breathe. Just stay here.”

But the combination of the absolute darkness and the unexpected warmth of his arms acted like a truth serum. The more he tried to soothe her, the more the years of suppressed agony clawed their way out. Her crying intensified, her fingers digging into his shoulders as she clung to him for dear life.

“I just want to rest, Mathias,” she wailed, her voice cracking with the weight of a thousand secrets. “I just want to be happy. Why is life always against me? Why is it always a war?”

He held her tighter, his own heart shattering at the sound of her spirit breaking. “It’s okay… let it out. Cry until the weight lifts. I am here. I am right here.”

They stayed like that for an eternity, two souls colliding in the dark. Eventually, the sheer exhaustion of her ordeal claimed what was left of her strength. Her body went limp against him, her breathing slowing into heavy, rhythmic hitches. Just before the blackness of sleep claimed her, she whispered a final, haunting plea:

“Don’t leave me alone in the dark… like my father did.”

The words struck him with the force of a physical blow. He laid her back against the pillows with agonizing care, pulling the covers up to her chin. He sat by her side, his fingers tracing the curve of her hair as his face twisted in a mask of guilt and newfound resolve.

“What did they do to you?” he whispered to the silent room, his silver eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “And what did I do to you, constantly throwing your lineage in your face? I hope… I hope the day comes when you can open your heart to me completely, without fear.”

She woke into a world where the dawn refused to break. The silence of the room felt like a physical weight, pressing against her chest until she gasped for air. Her hands moved frantically, sweeping across the silk sheets in a desperate search for something solid, something human.

“Mathias! Mathias, where are you? Answer me!” Her voice was a ragged edge of panic, echoing in the lightless void.

Suddenly, firm hands caught her shoulders, steadying her trembling frame. “Olivia, wake up! It’s just a nightmare. Calm down. I’m right here. I haven’t moved.”

She reached out, her fingertips tracing the sharp line of his jaw and the warmth of his skin with clinical precision. It was him. Truly him. She let out a breath she felt she had been holding for centuries. “You’re really here… it was a nightmare. How long was I out?”

“Six, perhaps seven hours,” he murmured, his voice a low, soothing vibration in the dark.

“And you… you stayed?” Her voice carried a hint of disbelief, a crack in her usual armor.

“Of course. Did you think I would simply discard you in this state?”

A ghost of a smile touched her lips, bitter and faint. “How very… chivalrous of you.”

“It is my duty, Olivia. You know that.” He paused, his tone shifting into something heavier, burdened by a regret he could no longer suppress. “Leila will be here soon; I’ve already sent for her. But… as much as I loathe to bring this up now, I must. Olivia, I am sorry.”

She furrowed her brow into the darkness. “Sorry? For what?”

“For everything you’ve endured because of me,” he said, the words spilling out with raw honesty. “For every time I threw your lineage in your face. For calling you your father’s daughter and blaming you for every sin they committed. I didn’t know. I am truly sorry.”

A sharp, cynical laugh bubbled up from her throat, a jagged sound that startled him.

“Why are you laughing? Did I say something amusing?”

“I’m not laughing at your apology, Mathias. No,” she said, catching her breath. “In truth, I never blamed you for those words. I believed I was his daughter, too.”

“Then why the laughter?” he asked, his confusion mounting.

She stared ahead with vacant, sapphire eyes, her voice dropping to a chilling, detached coldness. “The irony is that you called me that, yet I don’t even know if I have a father. Or rather, I don’t know whose blood actually poisons my veins.”

Mathias stiffened. “Olivia, perhaps you’re still delirious from the shock. You aren’t making sense.”

Her brow snapped together in a flash of her old fire. “I am blind, Mathias, not mad! What I mean is that the Empress—my dear, saintly mother—lived a life so… ’eventful’ that even she wasn’t certain who sired me.”

The air in the room seemed to vanish. “You mean…”

“Exactly!” she cut him off, her voice as sharp as a scalpel. “But let me add a detail to truly dazzle you. It turns out my ’official’ father took my mother by force. So, the glorious truth is this: I am either the product of a brutal crime or the illegitimate brat of a nameless shadow. The bottom line, my dear Duke, is that I am a person who was never meant to exist. Do you see it now? The woman you’re trying so hard to comfort is nothing but refuse. Even the ’noble blood’ you were so proud to marry has turned to ash.”

​”Stop it,” he rasped, his voice sounding like it had been dragged over broken glass. “Do not call yourself that.”

​”Why not? It’s the truth,” she countered, her sightless eyes blinking rapidly as if trying to find a spark of light that wasn’t there. “I am a stain on the lineage you cherish so much, Mathias. Doesn’t it disgust you? The thought that you’ve shared a bed with—”

Mathias felt as if the floor had been yanked from beneath his feet, leaving him suspended in a cold, dark vacuum. He stared at her, He saw a woman who had been built on a foundation of lies, a woman who had been carrying the weight of a ’sinful’ birth on her shoulders while he had been busy adding his own stones to her burden.

​His grip on her shoulders didn’t loosen; it tightened, but not in anger

​”I said stop!” He moved then, sudden and fluid, his hands cupping her face, forcing her to ’look’ in his direction. “Do you think I care about the purity of the blood that flows in your veins? I spent years hating you for being a ’Tharon,’ and now you’re telling me you’re not? Fine. Then you are just Olivia. Just my wife. And that is the only thing that matters to me now.”

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