Chapter 137: Hollow Sacrifices

For a single, agonizing heartbeat, Olivia found herself praying for the impossible. She craved the lie—wished with a desperate fervor that she truly was Roland’s daughter, and that the blood pooling in Serene’s mouth would simply remain there: cold, stagnant, and silent. In that hollow moment of doubt, she yearned for the magic to fail, for the nightmare to be a fabrication, so she wouldn’t have to carry the crushing weight of what she had become.

​A flicker of morbid euphoria flared within her, only to be drowned by a wave of absolute bitterness. She didn’t want to lose her mother, yet she shuddered at the price of her return. Her mind was a jagged battlefield of contradictions until a primal instinct sent a jolt of pure terror through her soul.

​The corpse had begun to drink.

​It wasn’t a gentle acceptance, but a parasitic surge. An ancient, alien energy erupted from Serene’s pallid frame—a force so frigid it made the very marrow in Olivia’s bones ache. She felt her life force being ripped from the deepest reaches of her veins, clawed toward the void lurking in her mother’s chest. Clutching the velvet sheets with a trembling hand, Olivia felt her vision fracture as the heavy wine and the relentless drain of blood finally took their toll.

At that bone-chilling moment, the truth of the taboo finally took hold. This was no mere exchange; it was a consumption. To breathe life into the hollowed dead, the living had to be drained of their very souls.

​Olivia clawed at the air, desperate to wrench her hand away, but she was pinned by an invisible, suffocating weight. Her blood surged in a frantic, rhythmic tide, her limbs turning to lead as the world began to tilt on its axis. The last thing she felt was the sudden, violent release of that predatory energy—a jagged severance that left her hollow.

​Her hand fell limp. Her strength evaporated into the cold air.

​She collapsed. Her body struck the unforgiving stone floor with a sickening, muffled thud. Olivia fought to keep her eyelids from sealing shut, but the darkness was absolute, a heavy shroud pressing down on her. She lay there, a broken doll discarded in a casket of ivory and crimson, as the silence of the room was shattered by the first, ragged gasp of something that had been dead for far too long.

​Serene’s eyes snapped open.

​It wasn’t a gradual awakening; it was a violent resurrection. Her first breath was a sharp, jagged wheeze that tore through the stillness. She stared at the ceiling—a foreign sight to her fractured memory—while her hand flew to her chest in a reflexive spasm of terror, as if she could still feel the phantom ghost of the blade sinking into her heart.

​Panting, she struggled to push herself up, her movements clumsy and strained. The metallic tang of blood coated her tongue—a strange, lingering heat. As the fog in her mind began to clear, a slow, unnatural strength started to seep back into her veins.

Her gaze fell instantly upon the silver-haired girl collapsed at her feet, blood weeping steadily from her pale hand.

​Serene lunged from the bed, her movements frantic as she brushed the stray silver locks away from the girl’s face. Her breath hitched, and her eyes widened in a paroxysm of soul-crushing horror at the sight of Olivia’s ghostly complexion.

​”No, no, no… my child… No!” Serene’s voice tore through the room, a jagged shriek of agony. She pulled Olivia’s limp body against her chest, her own frame racking with violent tremors. “Olivia, answer me! What is happening? My love, can you hear me?”

​In a desperate bid to stave off the inevitable, she seized the wounded hand, pressing down with all her might. When the crimson tide refused to ebb, she snarled in frustration, tearing the hem of her gown with a violent tug to bind the deep gash. It was a futile gesture, a silent prayer against a mounting realization that struck her like a physical blow.

​The metallic tang in her mouth—it was familiar. Too familiar.

​”How am I still alive? I felt the blade… I know I pierced my own heart.” She looked back at Olivia’s mangled hand, her fingers trembling as she wiped her own lips, only to find them stained a vivid, incriminating red. Blood.

​She stared at the girl in sheer terror, her voice dropping to a haunted whisper. “This is impossible. You gave me your blood. You… you are Lucius’s daughter.”

​Shaking and drenched in the gore of her own resurrection, Serene clung to Olivia in a suffocating, desperate embrace. Her legs felt like lead, paralyzed by a dread so profound she couldn’t even stand. “Why, Olivia? Why would you do this? Please… just open your eyes.”

​The sanctuary of her grief was suddenly shattered by a sharp, cold voice from the doorway.

​“What happened here?”

Isabella stood at the threshold, her gaze sweeping over the carnage with a flicker of alarm before she strode toward them.

​”You? Isabella, right?” Serene shrieked, her voice thin and frayed. “Help her, please! I—I don’t know what happened! She won’t wake up. Please, help me… I don’t understand where I am or how… I don’t understand anything!”

​Isabella didn’t waste words on comfort. She knelt and firmly wrenched Olivia from Serene’s trembling embrace. It was a practiced, clinical movement; Isabella had seen Olivia broken so many times that her own eyes remained bone-dry. Her focus was singular: the faint, rhythmic rise and fall of the girl’s chest. She was still breathing. For now, that was enough.

​With strained effort, Isabella hoisted Olivia onto the bed. She didn’t look back as she began her work, her hands moving with frantic precision to bind the wounds.

​”Duchess Tharon,” Isabella said, her voice dropping into a chillingly professional tone. “You asked where you are. You are in the Duchy of Locron. I will tend to the Duchess now, but you had best go and intercept your rampaging husband before a war breaks out tonight.”

​Serene gasped, her mind a blurred kaleidoscope of shadows. “What? I… I am so confused. I don’t understand—”

​Isabella didn’t look up, her palms already pressing hard against Olivia’s mangled hand to staunch the flow. “He came here looking for you. I don’t know what Olivia did to drag someone back from the Great Beyond, but I imagine it’s something you wouldn’t want Roland to discover. I trust you take my meaning.”

​The weight of those words struck Serene like a physical blow. The “sin” of her resurrection wasn’t a miracle—it was a liability.

​Serene’s expression hardened instantly. She wiped the tears from her face, her warmth vanishing into a mask of cold resolve. “Yes, I understand, Lady Isabella,” she replied icily. “See that she lives.”

Meanwhile, in Olivia’s chambers…

​The air was thick, heavy with the cloying scent of fine wine and the acrid sting of potent narcotics. Matthias stood in the center of the room, arms crossed, having just returned from the Imperial Palace—only to find the room’s mistress vanished.

​His gaze swept over the wreckage: overturned chalices and scattered pills. His fingers curled around a discarded medicine bottle—the very one used to sedate her.

​Shatter.

​The glass disintegrated in his grip, shards biting like fangs into his palm, but he didn’t flinch. The sting of the glass was nothing compared to the murderous rage radiating from his soul.

​How long must we remain in this spiral? he wondered. Every time I move an inch closer, she drifts a mile away. How long will she keep retreating into these damned drugs to solve her problems?

​The sound of heavy footsteps echoing across the floorboards caught his ear.

​”Where is she?”

​Matthias turned to face the intruder, knowing exactly to whom that voice belonged. “Looking for something, Duke?”

​Roland didn’t wait for an answer. He lunged, his sword whistling through the air with the clear intent of taking Matthias’s head.

​Matthias caught the cold steel with his bare, bleeding hand, refusing to let it move a single inch from his throat.

​”Where… is… my wife?” Roland roared, his face flushed with the obsession that had fueled his madness for decades. “Where has she gone?”

​Matthias let out a mocking, hollow laugh. He tightened his grip on the blade, blood dripping from his palm and staining the floorboards.

​”I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re raving about, my ’dear father-in-law’,” Matthias retorted, his voice dripping with venom.

​Roland leaned his full weight into the sword, his veins bulging with desperate longing. “Where is that cursed bitch? Where is Olivia?”

Matthias’s face contorted into a mask of pure, unadulterated fury, the veins in his forehead bulging with the strain. “A whore, is she? Beautiful. You’ve arrived at the perfect time, Roland. I’ve been looking for someone to bleed my rage onto.”

​Ignoring the consequences, Matthias reached for his ring, ready to strip it away. He didn’t care if he’d be executed for using the forbidden arts; his fury had breached its limits. He was ready to burn everything down.

​But a soft, ethereal voice sliced through the tension, making him freeze in utter disbelief.

​”What is it you want, Roland?”

​Matthias turned, his eyes wide with a haunting terror. “You… how? You… Serene?” he whispered, the name barely leaving his lips.

​There stood Serene, composed and hauntingly still. Roland didn’t hesitate; he lunged toward her like a madman, pulling her into a crushing, terrifying embrace that reeked of obsession. But Serene didn’t flinch. Instead, she did something she hadn’t done in all their years of marriage—she raised her arms and held him back.

​Roland froze, paralyzed by the sudden warmth of her touch. The air seemed to turn to ice as she leaned in, her breath ghosting against his ear in a chilling whisper.

​”I’m sorry for making you wait, my dear. Let’s go home now.”

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