Chapter 120: Atone

“God help us,” Alisha gasped, her breath hitching in a throat constricted by terror. She crept toward Serene, her eyes fixed on the girl’s tranquil, frozen features. The stillness was haunting.

“Roland, we are undone. We are dead. If Lucius discovers she has perished, he will butcher us both.”

Trembling violently, she began to gnaw at her fingernails, her gaze darting toward him. He stood there, unmoving, wearing a smile that was as sharp as it was enigmatic.

“Why are you smiling? Have you lost your mind? She is dead!” her voice rose in a frantic whisper. “Undo this cursed incantation! We must do something, anything!”

Roland began to advance. His steps were slow, rhythmic, and heavy with a predatory grace that stirred the embers of an ancient fear within her. Involuntarily, Alisha recoiled.

It mattered little that she wore the crown of an Empress; in the presence of this man, she was nothing more than the frightened girl he had once broken. Roland remained the singular horror of her life.

He reached out, his fingers trailing through her silver hair with a chilling, possessive familiarity.

“The resemblance is truly striking,” he murmured.

“Who?” she choked out. “Who do you mean?”

“You and your daughter, of course,” he replied, his eyes gleaming with a dark, mercurial light.

“Even your expressions of terror are identical. That little brat may have learned to mask it lately—to look at me with that defiant, newfound confidence—but I can never erase the image of her from my mind, trembling and begging for mercy. It was an exquisite pleasure, one I find myself savoring even now.”

The atmosphere grew stifling, the air thick with the Alisha’s rising panic. She swallowed hard, her throat feeling as though it were lined with glass. She couldn’t quite decipher the cryptic venom in his words, but one truth was undeniable: Roland’s fury toward Olivia was so absolute that the veins in his neck pulsed like living serpents.

A dry, mirthless laugh escaped his lips. “Mmm. My eldest daughter has truly learned to play the game like her father, hasn’t she? And if the little bird breaks the cage, then the mother must pay for the damage… isn’t that only fair?”

“What?” Alisha’s voice broke into a jagged scream. “What do you mean? I have nothing to do with that madwoman’s schemes!”

The retort was silenced by a sudden, jarring crack. The force of his palm across her face sent her reeling, leaving a burning crimson mark blooming upon her cheek. Before a single gasp could escape her lungs, Roland’s hand clamped over her mouth with bruising violence.

“Hush,” he hissed, his eyes narrowing into predatory slits. “You’ll wake my wife from her slumber. You wouldn’t want to truly anger me, would you, Your Majesty?”

In that agonizing silence, Alisha cursed the very moment she had decided to come here alone. Her crown, once a symbol of absolute power, felt like a hollow, useless trinket against Roland’s raw brutality. Tears began to trace hot paths down her face—not merely from the sting of the blow, but from the suffocating shroud of shame that now wrapped around her.

Roland reached out, his thumb catching a stray tear and brushing it away with a mockery of tenderness.

“Oh, Your Majesty, there is no need for such sorrow,” he whispered, his voice smooth as silk. “We all make mistakes. I forgive you for yours. There is truly no need to cry.”

A fragile whisper escaped her lips; Alisha realized then that the only path to survival was to mirror his madness before she found herself lying in the same eternal stillness as Serene.

“Thank you,” she breathed, “for your… forgiveness.”

Roland’s face softened into a mask of false gentleness. “There. That is much better. Now, we can finally have a civil conversation.”

He took her hand, prying her trembling fingers open to reveal her palm. Into it, he pressed a dagger—a wicked thing of obsidian that seemed to swallow the light of the room.

“What is this?” she stammered, her voice thick with dread.

“Oh?” Roland tilted his head, feigning a look of innocent confusion. “Do you not recognize it? It is an instrument of atonement.”

Confusion etched itself into Alisha’s features, a thousand questions racing behind her eyes. Roland sighed, a sound of weary disappointment, as if he were a tutor dealing with a dull-witted child.

“Oh, Your Majesty, must I truly explain it to you? You, a member of the Imperial Family? I am speaking of the Forbidden Blood.”

The blood drained from Alisha’s face, leaving her a ghostly pale. “How… how could you possibly know of that? That is a secret held by the Imperial bloodline alone. No outsider… it is impossible.”

Roland’s grin widened, sharp and predatory. “Mmm, exquisite, isn’t it? I find it so delightful when you royals believe your secrets are buried deep, only for me to dig them up and hold them to the light.”

He began to circle her, his presence trailing over her skin like a serpent coiling around its prey. His fingers brushed against her shoulder, then her hair, a touch that felt like ice.

“Shall I tell you the price such blood demands?” he purred.

Alisha’s limbs turned to lead, her strength failing her. She stared at him, paralyzed by a terror that seemed to feed his growing malice. He watched her intently, his eyes glowing with the dark satisfaction of a monster who had finally cornered a queen.

“When a member of the Imperial bloodline falls,” Roland began, his voice dropping to a haunting, melodic cadence, “their soul does not depart. It lingers, caught in the grey veil between life and death, waiting for the rise of the next full moon to be set free.

For centuries, the Royals used the blood of their own kin to drag their dead back from the brink—a convenient miracle on the battlefield, wouldn’t you say?”

He paused, a dark mirth dancing in his eyes as he leaned closer until his cold breath brushed her ear.

“But shall I tell you why it became forbidden? Because an Emperor of old viewed his own children as nothing more than living vessels—sacrificial wells of blood he tapped since they were mere infants to sustain his own wretched life. They say that the ritual demanded the essence of the line, and what could be purer than the unblemished life of a newborn? In the old texts, it was whispered that a single drop from an infant held the potency of a gallon from a grown man. The younger the blood, the stronger the bond to the veil.

Most of them withered and died for his vanity, until the one who survived took his father’s head and buried the ritual in shadow.”

He pulled back, his expression one of mock pride. “Where is my applause, Alisha? I’ve just given you a most enlightening lesson in your own family’s glorious, blood-stained history.”

Alisha fought to find her voice through the paralyzing chill. “Who told you this? And why… why are you telling me this now?”

Roland reached out, gripping her chin and forcing her gaze to lock with his—a predator pinning its prey. “Because, my dear, I have a sudden urge to revive the ancient traditions of the Empire.”

“What? You don’t mean…”

“Of course I do,” he replied with a terrifying simplicity. “Is Serene not the Empire’s only Princess? I am certain her brother—or perhaps her son—wouldn’t dream of begrudging a few drops of life to save their precious Serene.”

“No… no, I cannot! You know that is impossible!”

His hand clamped down over hers, crushing her fingers against the hilt of the black dagger. “I am not asking, Alisha. I am commanding. Unless, of course, you would prefer to see your own blackened past dragged through the mire for all to see. You adore your darling husband, do you not? Then the blood of your youngest son seems a fair price to pay for the sins of his sister. Wouldn’t you agree, my ’exalted’ Empress?”

She sought to flee, but the chains of her past—the atrocities she had committed against Serene—trailed behind her like a suffocating shadow. Exposure meant the end of everything: the throne, the prestige, and Lucius. At best, she would spend her remaining days in a cold cell for her treachery against the blood.

“Well then? Do we have an accord?” Roland’s voice was a silken trap.

Silence was her only refuge, a hollow void where her courage should have been.

Roland smiled, reaching out to brush his fingers against her bruised cheek. A faint, shimmering spark of energy pulsed from his touch. “Silence is the sweetest form of consent. This should suffice to clear the mark from your face. Until we meet again, Your Majesty. I wish you a safe journey back to your palace.”

Alisha fled the Tharon Estate a broken woman, her legs barely supporting her weight as she reached the imperial carriage. The guards, seeing her ghostly complexion, moved forward in concern.

“Your Majesty, you are pale. Are you unwell?”

“I am… quite fine,” she lied, her lips stretching into a stiff, artificial smile that did not reach her hollow eyes. “I am in perfect health.”

The carriage lurched forward, beginning the long trek back to the seat of power.

The obsidian dagger lay hidden within the heavy, silken folds of her sleeve, pressed tight against her forearm. Its unnatural chill bit into her skin, a constant, freezing reminder of the pact she had made.

She sat in a daze, the passage of time blurring into a haze of terror. She hardly realized she had returned until she found herself standing at the threshold of Kyle’s chambers. Roland’s command echoed in her skull, a rhythmic chant that stole her breath: The blood of your youngest son.

She looked toward the waiting attendants, her voice trembling. “Where are the Crown Prince and his wife?”

The maids bowed low. “They have gone for a stroll in the Eastern Gardens, Your Majesty. We expect their return shortly.”

“I see. You are dismissed. All of you. Leave me.”

She collapsed onto the sofa, the weight of her grief crushing the air from her lungs. But then, a soft, fragile sound pierced the silence—the gentle whimpering of little Anne in her cradle.

Alisha stood, her movements mechanical, and walked until she towared over the sleeping infant. She stared down at the child with the intensity of a treasure hunter who had finally unearthed a long-lost prize. The babe reached out, her tiny fingers curling around her grandmother’s hand, a soft giggle bubbling from her lips.

A horrific, jagged smile slowly spread across Alisha’s face.

“I had forgotten all about you,” she whispered, her voice a chilling caress. “I never expected you to be of any use until now.”

She pulled her finger away from the child’s grasp and traced the soft curve of the infant’s cheek. “Yes… he demanded the blood of the Imperial line. It need not be my son.

It can be you.”

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