Chapter 122: The ring

The silence in the room was heavy, broken only by the steady, rhythmic breathing of Isabella. Olivia sat stiffly on the velvet sofa, her expression one of controlled irritation. For hours, she had remained motionless, her lap serving as a pillow for the girl who had finally—mercifully—succumbed to exhaustion.

Olivia let out a sharp, impatient huff, her sightless eyes directed toward the ceiling as if she could see the slow crawl of time across the molding. To anyone else, it might have looked like a moment of maternal tenderness, but Olivia’s thoughts were far from soft.

How much longer does this brat intend to use me as a mattress? she thought, her fingers drumming restlessly against the armrest.

She reached down, her hand tracing the air until her fingertips brushed Isabella’s forehead. The skin was cool, the frantic heat of her earlier distress finally gone. Olivia’s lips thinned. Without a hint of hesitation, she curled her finger and delivered a sharp, stinging flick right to the center of Isabella’s brow.

“Ow!” Isabella jolted upright, her eyes snapping open in a daze of confusion and pain. she rubbed her forehead, staring at Olivia with a mixture of betrayal and shock. “Hey! What was that for? I was finally resting!”

Olivia didn’t flinch. She shifted her weight, leaning back into the plush cushions with a regal indifference, stretching her cramped legs.

“I don’t recall giving birth to a daughter like you, Isabella,” Olivia remarked, her voice dry and laced with a biting edge. “I certainly didn’t sign up to let you turn my lap into your personal nursery. I overlooked it for the first hour out of pity, but my patience has its limits. Even if I am blind, I still have a functional sense of time. You’ve been dead to the world for hours. Do you truly never tire of sleeping?”

Isabella pouted, the lingering fear from the day’s events momentarily eclipsed by Olivia’s usual sharp tongue. But as the room fell quiet again, the irritation on Olivia’s face began to melt away, replaced by a subtle, creeping unease.

She turned her head toward the door, her ears straining for a sound that wasn’t there. The space beside her felt hollow. The air in the room had grown unnaturally thin, and for the first time since they had arrived, the absence of a certain presence felt like a physical weight pressing against her chest.

“Where is he?” she whispered, more to herself than to the girl beside her.

“Who do you mean?” Isabella asked, blinking away the last remnants of sleep as she watched Olivia’s troubled silhouette.

“None of your business,” Olivia snapped, her voice cutting through the air like a blade. “In fact, why are you still here? Get out of my room. You’ve overstayed your welcome by several hours.”

Isabella let out a long, weary sigh, the weight of the day returning to her shoulders. She didn’t argue; she didn’t have the strength left to match Olivia’s thorns. “Fine. As you wish. I’ll leave you to your solitude.”

She began to stand, the fabric of her dress rustling against the carpet, but before she could take a single step, Olivia’s voice rang out again—colder, sharper, and strangely urgent.

“Wait.”

Isabella paused, looking back with a frown. “What now? I know you haven’t forgiven me, but isn’t this constant manipulation a bit much? One moment you want me gone, the next you pull me back.”

“Shut up and sit down,” Olivia commanded, her jaw tight.

Isabella hesitated for a heartbeat, then succumbed to the sheer force of Olivia’s will. She sank back into the chair, crossing her arms. “Fine. I’m sitting. Now what?”

“Nothing,” Olivia replied, turning her face toward the dark expanse of the window. “Just sit there. Don’t speak to me; your voice is grating and I’ve had quite enough of it for one lifetime. Just… stay.”

Isabella fell silent, watching the Empress’s daughter. She didn’t understand the sudden change in temperament, but Olivia felt the silence of the room closing in on her like a physical shroud. The darkness she lived in every day was usually a familiar companion, but tonight, it felt predatory.

Her biting words were a fortress, a wall of thorns built to hide the fact that she was terrified of the hollow silence that followed when she was truly alone. She used Isabella’s presence as a flickering candle against a vast, encroaching void.

Beside her, Isabella remained obediently still, sensing that beneath the venomous insults, Olivia was clinging to the only human tether she had left in that vast, haunted palace.

Olivia’s hand moved instinctively to the empty space on the sofa beside her, her fingers brushing the cold fabric where Mathias should have been. Where are you? she screamed internally. The air is freezing, and you are nowhere to be found.

A sharp, rhythmic series of knocks echoed against the heavy oak door, shattering the fragile silence. Without waiting for an invitation, Leon stepped into the room. As he raised his left hand to adjust his heavy mantle, the light from the flickering candles caught on a familiar piece of jewelry.

​The ring was slightly too large for his finger, sliding down toward his knuckle with a distinct, metallic clink. Isabella’s gaze, sharpened by hours of restless anxiety, immediately snapped to it. She recognized that ring.

“Hello, sister-in-law,” he began, his voice carrying a forced cheerfulness. “How are you faring tonight?”

His gaze flickered toward Isabella, noting her reddened, swollen eyes—the unmistakable mark of a long, agonizing bout of crying. Leon hesitated for a fraction of a second, then skillfully composed his features, acting as if he had seen nothing at all. He knew better than to stick his hand into a hornet’s nest.

“What do you want?” Olivia asked, her voice flat and devoid of any welcoming warmth.

Leon cleared his throat, maintaining a facade of calm. “Nothing much. I merely came to inform you that Isabella will be staying with you for the night. I trust the two of you have… resolved your little dispute?”

Olivia’s brow arched in cold bewilderment. She turned her sightless gaze toward the direction of his voice, her lips curling into a look of disdain. “Excuse me? And why exactly would she be staying with me? I don’t recall mentioning a need for a concubine, nor do I require a lady-in-waiting.”

Leon swallowed hard, his jaw tightening so much it ached. He bit back a torrent of insults that he would have gladly hurled at her if Isabella weren’t sitting right there. Damn you, Mathias, he cursed silently, the words screaming in the back of his mind. You leave me here to deal with this madwoman—the only woman on this earth who makes even an Emperor’s blood boil, and the only one you seem to enjoy submitting to.

“Olivia,” Leon spoke through gritted teeth, his patience fraying like a worn rope. “I believe you are crossing the line just a bit, don’t you think?”

A mocking, jagged smile spread across Olivia’s face. “Then by all means, take your wife and get out. Both of you. In any case, where is Mathias?”

Leon let out a sharp, mirthless huff. “If he were here, you wouldn’t find me wandering anywhere near your chambers. He left for an urgent matter, and he specifically requested that Isabella remain by your side in case you needed anything.”

“Urgent?” The word felt like a drop of ice down Olivia’s spine. The mockery in her voice vanished, replaced by a sharp, predatory focus. “What do you mean by urgent? Where is he now, and when is he returning?”

Leon caught the flicker of genuine concern in her voice, and a wicked, vengeful smile touched his lips. It was a rare opportunity to strike back, and he wasn’t about to waste it. “That,” he said, his voice dripping with mock secrecy, “is none of your business. Why on earth would I tell you?”

Olivia felt the bitterness of his words like a physical sting, but she didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her flinch. She pulled her cold composure around her like a shroud. “Fine then. If you’re finished being useless, show yourself out. It seems I’ll be monopolizing your wife for the night after all.”

“Fool,” Leon spat, the word barely more than a hiss as he turned on his heel and strode out of the room.

Olivia didn’t care for his insults. She let him curse the shadows as he disappeared down the hall. Her mind was already miles away, racing through the dark corridors of the palace, searching for Mathias. A heavy, suffocating dread was beginning to take root in her heart—a certainty that whatever “urgent matter” had taken him, it was stained with the same black magic that was currently haunting her dreams.

“So, he is the one who insisted on this journey, and now he simply vanishes and leaves me behind? Excellent. Truly marvelous,” Olivia spat, her voice thick with a volatile mixture of fury and abandonment. She made a move to stand, her hands searching for something—anything—to seize and shatter against the floor just to alleviate the suffocating pressure in her chest. But the realization of her own helplessness struck her like a physical blow, pinning her back into the cushions.

Isabella, who had remained a ghost-like witness during the heated exchange with Leon, finally spoke up, her voice small and tentative. “Did you… did the two of you have a falling out?”

“What?” Olivia snapped, her head whipping toward the sound of Isabella’s voice.

“I’m asking if you fought with Mathias. Before he left.”

“No. Why are you even asking such a ridiculous thing?”

Isabella bit her lip, hesitating as she looked at the door Leon had just exited. “It’s just that I noticed… no, it’s probably nothing.”

“Speak, Isabella. Don’t test the remnants of my patience,” Olivia commanded, her tone dangerously low.

“Well,” Isabella started, shifting uncomfortably. “It’s just that… Leon was having Mathias’s ring on his hand. Isn’t that your wedding band? The one he always wears

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