Chapter 119: The Leash of Forgiveness

“Did I not command you to leave?” Olivia’s voice tore through the silence, a jagged blade of a scream.

“Get the hell out of here! You know what, I actually thank God every day for this darkness, if only because it spares me the sight of your wretched face.”

Isabella did not flinch. She moved toward her with a cold, rhythmic grace, stopping just inches from the woman who sat staring defiantly into the void. Isabella traced the hollows of Olivia’s face with her eyes—eyes that searched for a flicker of the woman she once knew.

For a fleeting second, her arms trembled, aching to pull Olivia into an embrace, but the invisible wall between them was too high. She drew back, her posture turning to stone.

“Fine,” Isabella said, her voice a low, steady anchor against Olivia’s storm. “I will go. But only after you hear what I have to say. After that, you may curse my name until your lungs fail—but for now, I beg of you, listen.”

Olivia crossed her arms over her chest, a sharp, impatient movement. “Ha! And what could you possibly have to say?”

Without a word, Isabella caught Olivia’s wrist. It was a firm, grounding grip that brooked no argument. She led her toward the nearby velvet sofa.

“What do you think you’re—” Olivia began to protest, her voice rising in indignation.

“Just sit,” Isabella interrupted, her tone weary but firm. “We are going to talk. That is all.”

Olivia lowered herself onto the cushions, crossing one elegant leg over the other. Despite the dead milky hue of her gaze, she carried herself with a terrifying, celestial pride. To any casual observer, she looked not like a woman who had lost her sight, but like a queen awaiting a peasant’s plea.

The soft chime of crystal against glass echoed through the room as Isabella reached for the decanter on the table.

“I know you prefer a glass in hand when the conversation turns heavy,” Isabella murmured, the liquid swirling like blood in the light. “I’ve poured you the vintage red—the one you always favored.”

Olivia’s lips curled into a mirthless, mocking smile. “So, you’ve memorized my preferences now? What is this, Isabella? An attempt to poison me? After everything that has happened, I would put nothing past you.”

The words hit Isabella with the force of a physical blow, a serrated edge twisting in her chest, but she said nothing as she watched the woman who hated her with such exquisite grace. The tension in the room thickened, heavy with the scent of aged grapes and the sharp tang of unspoken resentment.

“I… Olivia, you must understand,” Isabella began, her voice small, trembling beneath the weight of her guilt. “People… they are prone to such wretched mistakes. I know I have wronged you, but—”

Olivia listened, the stem of the crystal glass held delicately between her fingers. She took a slow, agonizingly calm sip, but the words were like salt in an open wound. Even without sight, she could feel Isabella’s presence—the warmth of her body, the frantic rhythm of her breathing just inches away.

With a sudden, violent motion, Olivia lashed out. She didn’t throw the glass; she tilted it with a jagged force, drenching the space beside her. The dark crimson liquid cascaded over Isabella’s silk dress, soaking into the fabric like a fresh wound.

“Olivia!” Isabella gasped, shivering as the cold wine clung to her skin.

“You deserved that, you harlot,” a sharp, cruel laugh bubbled up from Olivia’s throat. “After everything you’ve done, this is the least of what you’re owed. If my eyes were whole, I wouldn’t be wasting wine—I would have my hands around your throat.”

Isabella stared at her, her heart shattering at the sheer venom in those words. Slowly, she reached out and took Olivia’s hands, guiding them until they were locked around her own neck.

“Then do it,” Isabella whispered, a sob caught in her throat. “Strangle me. Kill me if you must, but do not treat me as if I am a ghost. It hurts, Olivia… since that day, you haven’t uttered a single word to me. I am so deeply, truly sorry for what I did.”

Olivia’s fingers brushed against the pulse point of Isabella’s neck. For a moment, she felt the frantic beat of a heart that belonged to her. Then, her lip curled in disdain.

“You aren’t even worth the effort of a murder,” Olivia spat, withdrawing her touch as if burned. “You are nothing to me.”

The rejection snapped something inside Isabella. The tears finally broke, streaming down her face in hot, silent rivers. In a fit of desperate longing, she threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around Olivia in a suffocating embrace.

“Get off me! Let go!” Olivia snarled, struggling against the contact. “I hate you! Stay away from me!”

But Isabella only clung tighter, her face buried in Olivia’s shoulder. “Olivia, please… forgive me. If you truly hate me so much, then tell me why you came for me? Why did you risk everything to save me? Why did you stand before Mathias and take the blame—why did you lie to protect me? Tell me why! Is it truly hate?”

Olivia froze. The fire in her eyes—the eyes that saw nothing—seemed to flicker and dim. Her breath hitched, the words catching in a throat suddenly gone dry.

“I… I don’t know,” she stammered, her voice losing its edge. “Perhaps… perhaps it was merely out of pity.”

“Pity?” Isabella pulled back just enough to look at her, her voice a broken whisper. “Is that all I am to you, Olivia? Is that all I am worth? Please, answer me.”

Without a word of comfort, Olivia reached down. She found Isabella’s hands, still locked around her waist, and tore them away with a strength born of pure, desperate pride. The air in the room grew heavy, saturated with the metallic scent of spilt wine.

“Isabella, leave. Now,” Olivia commanded, her voice trembling with a cold, vibrating rage. “I cannot stomach another word. You were the one who made this choice. You were the one who gripped the hilt and decided to bury the blade in my back. It was your choice to believe Elvira over me—your choice to let me endure all of this. You did this alone.”

Isabella bit her lip so hard she drew blood, the metallic tang mixing with her salt-streaked breath. “You know I was just like you,” she cried out, desperate to bridge the distance. “You, of all people, know why I was so naive, why I clung to her lies. Is this not exactly what happened to you when you refused to accept Elias was gone? I was drowning, Olivia! I was a desperate soul searching for a ghost in the world of the living. I know I wronged you, I know I cut you deep—but I had lost the last fragment of my family. What did you expect me to do?”

The mention of the past was like a physical blow to Olivia’s fortress, a hairline fracture appearing in her stony resolve. She shook her head, a bitter, jagged smile twisting her lips.

“I gave you my darkest secrets,” Olivia whispered, the words dripping with gall. “I considered you my sister—my confidante. I told you things I never dared whisper even to Mathias, my own husband. I entrusted you with my very life. I spent years trying to make you understand that the dead do not return, simply so you wouldn’t have to suffer the same agony I did. And yet, you had the audacity to stand there and tear our bond to shreds. You chose her truth over mine. You broke me, Isabella—me, who looked at you and saw my own blood.”

At those words, the last of Isabella’s composure disintegrated. She collapsed to the floor at Olivia’s feet, her knees hitting the rug with a dull thud. She gathered Olivia’s limp, cold hands and pressed them into her own lap, burying her face against them. She wept then—not the polite sob of a lady, but the raw, racking wail of a terrified child.

“Olivia, please… please, forgive me,” she choked out through the torrent of tears. “I consider you my family, too. I am utterly alone in this world, and you are all I have left. I love you, Olivia—truly. Don’t treat me with this killing silence. I am dying inside. Every day spent away from you has been a descent into hell; I’m suffocating in the dark. Please… I’ve missed you so much.”

The wall of ice surrounding Olivia’s heart finally suffered a fatal blow. She felt the warmth of Isabella’s tears soaking into her palms like a rising tide. For a long, agonizing moment, the silence was broken only by Isabella’s ragged sobs, until Olivia let out a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of a thousand years.

Slowly, Olivia withdrew one hand. Her movements were no longer jagged or violent; instead, her fingers found the crown of Isabella’s head, stroking her hair with a tenderness that felt almost haunting.

“Cease this wailing,” Olivia murmured, though the harshness in her voice was now a mere facade, a thin veil over her own trembling emotions. “You have utterly ruined my gown. You look like a stray dog begging for its master’s mercy. Perhaps that is all you truly are—a pathetic, faithful hound.”

“Does this mean…” Isabella whispered, her voice hitching. “Does this mean you’ll forgive me?”

Olivia’s lips curled into a cunning, feline smile. She leaned down, her face inches from Isabella’s, the scent of the spilled vintage red mingling with the salt of tears.

“No,” Olivia whispered darkly. “Not yet, my dear. Let us say that I shall grant you forgiveness only after I have squeezed every ounce of use out of you. I intend to punish you slowly for your betrayal—to let the weight of your treason settle in your bones. Those beautiful emerald stones of yours…”

Olivia whispered, her fingers tracing the line of Isabella’s eyelids with a chilling, feather-light touch.

“From this breath forth, they shall be my secret eyes—the ones no one suspects, the ones no one can blind. You will see the shadows for me, Isabella.”

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