Chapter 108: Web of Lies

The moment his body went limp, a hollow terror carved itself into Olivia’s chest. She pulled him toward her, cradling his head against her breast as if she could shield him from the invisible specter of death. But beneath her touch, the change was agonizing; a sudden, deathly chill swept through him, and the violent chattering of his teeth echoed in the silent room as a fever-chill took hold.

“Mathias?” she whispered, her hands frantically roaming the dark to find the contours of his face. She delivered several sharp, desperate slaps to his cheek. “Mathias! Answer me. You cannot sleep now… do you hear me? Wake up!”

A wave of primal panic surged through her. She wanted to spring up, to bolt toward the door and scream for the physician—for anyone—but the darkness rose before her like a physical wall. She was a prisoner of her own sightless eyes, trapped in a chamber that had transformed into a labyrinth of shadows.

As she shifted, trying to find purchase to stand, her palm brushed against his thigh. Her breath caught in her throat. There was a thick, hot viscosity clinging to his trousers—a wetness that felt darker than the room itself. She had known he was wounded, but she hadn’t grasped the severity—not until now. The sheer volume of the blood, and the way it pulsed beneath her fingertips, felt like a river of life escaping him in a silent, steady rhythm.

Her hands began to tremble with a violent, uncontrollable fervor. For a woman who prided herself on cold logic and an iron will, this was a crushing, absolute defeat. She felt small. She felt utterly, devastatingly powerless.

The words choked in her throat as she gasped, “Please.” Her voice fractured as hot, searing tears finally broke free, carving burning tracks down her cold cheeks. “Please, Mathias, do not do this. Do not terrify me like this. Answer me… do not leave me alone in this darkness. Not like this. Not again.”

A hollow sound escaped his lips—the ghost of a word born from the delirium of agony. “Cold… so cold… the frost…”

Without a second thought, Olivia pulled his shuddering frame into a fierce, desperate embrace. She coiled herself around him, attempting to act as a furnace for his freezing limbs, her mind screaming at the thought that he might die a second time because of her. She tried to scream, to call out for aid, but her throat felt as though it had been cauterized shut by the sheer force of the shock.

Then, the heavy silence was pierced by a series of rhythmic, measured knocks at the door.

Leon’s voice drifted through the thick timber, uncharacteristically subdued and heavy with a lingering dread. “Brother? I know you have no desire to look upon my face, but I cannot remain still. Just… let me examine the wound. It looked deep, Mathias—deeper than you let on. I am truly worried.”

In the hallway, Leon shifted his weight from one foot to the other, bracing himself for a roar of dismissal or a curse that never came. Inside, Olivia sat paralyzed, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She fought to find her voice, to shatter the icy cage of her shock and scream for him to enter, but for a heartbeat, the world remained terrifyingly silent.

She clawed against the paralysis binding her limbs, the unspoken scream tearing at her throat.

“L…eon. Leo…”

She could hear the muffled thud of Leon’s footsteps on the other side—the sound of her only hope retreating. Using the direction of his voice as her sole compass, she tried to surge upward, but her knees betrayed her, and she collapsed hard against the floor.

She did not stop. She crawled on her hands and knees, feeling the bite of the cold stone beneath her palms until her fingers collided with the rough grain of the door. She dragged herself upward, her breath coming in ragged, broken gasps, her sightless eyes searching a void that refused to clear.

On the other side of the threshold, Leon exhaled a sigh of weary defeat. “Fine, brother. As you wish. If silence is the only thing you crave, I shall grant it. I’ll return later… just, for God’s sake, look after yourself. Agreed?”

He took two steps away, the rhythm of his departure sounding like a death knell to her ears. With one final, agonizing surge of strength, Olivia’s fingers found the latch. She threw the door wide.

Leon froze. He spun around to find Olivia swaying at the threshold, her pallid face stained by an endless river of tears. The white silk of her gown and the porcelain skin of her hands were gone, swallowed by a terrifying, vivid crimson.

“Mathias…” she whispered, her voice a mere ghost trembling under the weight of her horror. “Leon… Mathias… please, help him.”

Leon’s heart plummeted. The world seemed to tilt as he lunged past her into the room. His breath hitched at the sight of Mathias sprawled across the floor, a pool of dark blood expanding beneath him like a growing shadow.

He didn’t waste a heartbeat. He reached back, seizing Olivia’s trembling hand and pulling her toward the wreckage. He forced her palms down onto a makeshift cloth pad, pressing them directly over the gaping wound in Mathias’s thigh.

“Olivia, listen to me!” Leon commanded, his voice taut with a frantic, desperate urgency. “I am going for the physician. You must stay here. Press down—with every ounce of strength you possess. Do not let him lose another drop. Do you understand? Do not let go!”

Olivia nodded wordlessly, her fingers sinking into the warm, sodden fabric as she applied every bit of her weight. Leon vanished, his footsteps echoing like retreating thunder down the corridor, leaving her utterly alone in the crushing, suffocating silence.

The minutes stretched into a hollow eternity for Olivia, her entire world narrowing down to the rhythmic, wet sounds of the physician’s movements and the pungent, medicinal tang of herbs. At long last, the elderly doctor’s voice cut through the suffocating tension.

“Do not fear, My Lady,” he murmured, his tone as steady and grounding as an anchor in a storm. “He has bled more than any man should, but his constitution is forged of iron. The wound is bound, and the fever shall break. He will recover.”

A wave of relief crashed over her, so profound it felt like a physical blow. She longed to see him—to witness the rise and fall of his chest with her own eyes, to banish the shadows if only for a fleeting second. But her vision remained a stubborn, unyielding void.

Suddenly, she felt a pair of strong arms slide beneath her, lifting her from the cold floor as if she were a delicate porcelain doll.

She gasped, her hands instinctively clutching at the air. “Wait—who—?”

“It is only I, Olivia,” Leon’s voice came, uncharacteristically soft and stripped of its usual mockery. “Rest now.”

He carried her with a gentle reverence, placing her upon the expanse of soft silk directly beside Mathias. Then, he took her trembling, blood-stained hands and guided them until they came to rest upon Mathias’s face. The warmth of his skin and the faint, rhythmic brush of his breath against her knuckles were the only truths she required.

“He is safe,” Leon whispered. “Now, for heaven’s sake, dry those eyes. If he wakes now and sees you weeping, his heart truly will stop.”

“What?” Olivia whispered, her hand trembling as she reached up to brush her cheeks. She hadn’t even realized the tears were still falling, an endless, silent stream fueled by a terror she couldn’t name.

Leon took a step back, his gaze lingering on the tableau before him. The Olivia he had known just hours ago—the sharp-tongued, impenetrable fortress of a woman—had vanished. In her place sat someone fragile, someone desperate, clinging to his brother as if he were her only lifeline in a world gone dark. It shook him to his core. If anyone had earned the right to keep vigil over the Duke in his darkest hour, it was her.

“I shall leave you with your husband, then,” Leon murmured, retreating further into the shadows. “I suspect the two of you have much rest to recover. I will be just outside the door should you need anything.”

As the heavy oak door groaned shut, a profound, weighted silence swallowed the room. Olivia did not move away. Instead, she slowly lowered her head, resting her ear against Mathias’s broad chest. She listened to the slow, rhythmic thrum of his heart—the steady pulse of a life she had nearly seen extinguished.

In that absolute darkness, the beat of his heart became her entire world, the only compass she had left. Finally, the crushing weight of exhaustion took its toll. Her eyelids fluttered shut, and her head rose and fell in time with every shallow breath he took, as she drifted into a fitful sleep anchored only by his warmth.

Lucius paced with the agitation of a caged predator, his boots striking the polished marble floor with an ominous, rhythmic thud. Behind him, the delicate clink of fine bone china against its saucer was the only sound that dared to challenge his silence. The Empress sat with measured grace, her gaze tracing the frantic patterns of his movement, her cup held in a hand that remained perfectly still.

Finally, she set the tea aside. “My dear, you have been pacing for nearly an hour. The carpet will soon fray under the weight of your thoughts. What is it that haunts you so?”

Lucius stopped abruptly, his jaw tightening into a jagged line of resolve. He turned toward her, his eyes clouded by a gathering storm. “It has been far too long since Serene’s last missive. This silence… it is not like her. She was expected at the palace yesterday for our scheduled audience, yet there is nothing. A feeling of dread is gnawing at my chest.”

The Empress narrowed her eyes, her fingers tracing the gilded rim of her cup. “She is the Duchess of a vast province, Lucius. Perhaps she is simply overwhelmed by the affairs of the duchy. If she could have sent word, she would have. You must grant her some grace.”

Her words, intended to soothe, acted instead as oil upon a smoldering fire.

“Grace is no excuse for absolute silence!” Lucius shouted, his voice echoing against the vaulted ceiling. “What if something has happened? What if that bastard, Roland, has finally unleashed his madness? What if he has done something to her?”

The Empress swallowed hard, a flicker of genuine trepidation crossing her features before she masked it with a practiced, condescending smile. “Do not be absurd, Lucius. Roland… hurting her? Have you forgotten the depths of his devotion? He worships the very ground she treads upon. He would never dare.”

The tether of Lucius’s patience snapped. He let out a low, guttural roar, his chest heaving with suppressed fury. “I was against this union from the very beginning! The only reason I signed the Imperial Decree for their marriage was because you pleaded with me. You told me she loved him. You swore to me that her happiness lay with that man.”

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