Chapter 143: The Weight of a Bow

Alisha froze, a sudden, biting chill racing through her limbs as if she had been plunged into glacial waters. Her pupils quivered, tracking the long, imposing shadow that now draped across the room’s entrance like a shroud. How? her mind shrieked in disbelief. She had been meticulous—she had ensured the message was sent in the deepest secrecy, far from the prying eyes of guards and the whispers of spies. Yet, there stood Lucius, an inescapable reality at the door.

​Beside her, Olivia’s breath hitched, her composure shattering for one fraction of a heartbeat. In that fleeting second, the formidable Duchess of Locron—the cold, calculating architect of vengeance—vanished. She felt herself stripped bare, cast back through the years until she was no longer a high-ranking noble, but someone far more vulnerable.

​However, the lapse was momentary. With the practiced ease of a woman born to survive, she donned her frigid mask once more. Her emotions retreated behind a wall of ice.

​”Greetings, Your Majesty,” she said, her voice hollow and devoid of soul. “I was merely discussing certain… lingering matters with Her Imperial Majesty.”

​Lucius clasped his hands behind his back, a subtle, rhythmic tightening of his jaw the only sign of the tempest brewing beneath his porcelain skin.

​”Matters?” he echoed. His voice was a low, terrifying resonance that seemed to vibrate in the very floorboards. His gaze shifted, sharp as a blade, moving from Alisha’s cheek—still flushed crimson from the blow—to Olivia. He took in her water-drenched silhouette, her damp clothes clinging to her skin like a second, suffocating layer, and the dark fury in his eyes flickered into a cold, predatory flame.

Lucius turned his gaze toward Alisha, a look so scorched with disdain it lacked even a flicker of the warmth she had once commanded.

​”Your Majesty…” he began, his voice a lethal frost. “Do you not find that your insolence toward the Duchess grows more intolerable with every passing hour?” He paused, the silence heavy and suffocating. “It seems that confinement to your chambers was a mercy far too great to curb these fits of madness.”

​At his words, a merciless, mocking glint flickered across Olivia’s lips. She remained silent, yet her gaze locked onto her mother’s burning eyes. Slowly, deliberately, she mouthed a single, silent sentence:

​“How pathetic.”

​The words, though unspoken, struck Alisha with the force of a physical blow. It was the final spark needed to ignite the ruins of her sanity. “You! You cursed wrench!” Alisha shrieked, lunging forward in a frenzied blur of rage to tear into Olivia.

​But Lucius was swifter.

​His hand shot out with iron-like precision, and a moment later, the only sound in the room was the sharp, echoing crack of a palm meeting skin. The force of the strike sent a violent shudder through the air.

​Dead silence followed.

​Alisha clutched her burning cheek, her eyes wide and trembling as tears pooled in a gaze of utter betrayal. “Lucius?” she whispered, her voice fractured. “You… you struck me? You laid hands on me… your beloved wife… for the sake of this wretched harlot?”

Lucius’s gaze did not waver; instead, it darkened with a predatory, obsidian fury. “What has possessed you lately?” he roared, his voice echoing like thunder against the stone walls. “She is your own blood! How dare you foul your breath with such filth? I, who am but her stepfather, have never permitted myself to speak of her in such a way. Not even Kyle or his poor child were spared from your venom and insanity! Have you truly lost your mind?”

​He turned toward Olivia, his tone shifting with a jarring, calculated softness. He placed a firm, steady hand upon her back, guiding her toward the exit with an unshakable authority.

​”Come with me, little one,” he murmured. “There is a matter of great importance we must discuss.”

​”Discuss? With her? Who gave you leave?” Alisha shrieked, scrambling to her feet behind them.

​Lucius tilted his head just enough to cast a final, lethal glance over his shoulder. “Do I now require your permission to speak? Stay in your chambers. I suspect your ’punishment’ shall endure for a very long time this time.”

​”What?” Alisha recoiled, her eyes wide with a frantic terror as tears cascaded down her face. “Lucius… you cannot do this to me! Lucius!”

​Unmoved by the desperate pleas echoing behind the heavy, bolted doors, Lucius strode down the long corridor with Olivia at his side. He moved through the Royal Gardens with a measured, regal grace, while Olivia followed in a silence more profound than any she had known. Her footsteps felt like lead, the rustle of her damp gown against the gravel sounding like a faint, rhythmic lament.

​Am I truly his daughter? The question screamed in the silence of her mind. As she stared at the broad expanse of his back, a gnawing unease took root in her chest. It felt as though the very air in his presence had grown thick—heavy, suffocating, and utterly unbearable.

The Emperor’s voice cut through the silk of her thoughts, sudden and without a backward glance.

​”How is your brother?”

​Olivia started, a sharp jolt of alarm flickering through her before she clamped down on her composure. “He is… he is well, Your Majesty,” she replied, her voice a fragile bridge she fought to keep steady.

​Lucius came to a sudden halt. He turned to face her, his features etched with a profound, aching sorrow—a grief no soul in the empire had ever witnessed on the countenance of the Continent’s sovereign. Then, in a moment that defied Olivia’s wildest nightmares, the impossible happened.

​Lucius bowed.

​The Emperor of the Nation, the man before whom kingdoms prostrated, lowered his head before the Duchess of Locron.

​”Duchess of Locron… what I ask of you now is not as your Emperor, but as a broken father,” he said, his voice fractured and heavy. “I implore you… convince Kyle to return to the palace. I will shield him and his family with my very soul. I was callous during our last encounter, and I know beyond any doubt that it is you, and only you, whom he loves and heeds.”

​Olivia stared at him, a visceral pain tearing through her chest. It felt as though a bolt of lightning had struck the very center of her heart. This man, whose name alone made the world tremble, was bowing to a mere Duchess for the sake of his son?

​Would he have gone to such lengths had he known I was his daughter? she wondered with a searing bitterness. Would he have waged war against the world for me, as he does now for Kyle? Would I have known the meaning of happiness?

Her eyes welled with unshed tears, a shimmering veil of grief that her shattered pride refused to let fall

She bowed her head sharply, shielding her vulnerability from his piercing gaze, and spoke in a voice barely more than a jagged rasp.

​”I shall try, Your Majesty… and now, if there is nothing further, I crave your leave to depart.”

​Lucius stood momentarily bewildered by her clipped response and the sudden, chilling distance in her tone. Attributing her coldness to the Emperor’s earlier outburst, he sighed. “You may go, Duchess… and I ask—I truly ask—that you find it in your heart to forgive the Empress for her insolence toward you.”

​She offered no answer. She could not even bring herself to meet his eyes. Turning on her heel, she fled the gardens with frantic strides, heading toward her carriage as if escaping a consuming inferno. Each additional second in his presence felt like a blade pressed deep against her throat.

​”Forgive that madwoman?” she hissed under her breath, her words laced with a poisonous, stifled rage. “You, Lucius… you truly are a fool of an Emperor.”

​As Olivia approached her carriage waiting by the palace’s side gate, she jolted to a halt, seized by utter astonishment. It was not merely her driver who awaited her. A familiar, towering silhouette leaned against the carriage door, his emerald eyes scanning the horizon with a hawk-like intensity.

​”Matthias?” she gasped, her voice trembling with surprise. “What are you doing here?”

​Matthias crossed his arms over his chest, his expression unreadable as he answered in a tone he fought to keep meticulously cold. “That is of no concern to you. Get in. We are going home.”

The moment Olivia stepped into the amber glow of the carriage’s lanterns, Matthias’s guarded stance shattered. He froze. His sharp eyes caught the glistening traces of salt upon her lashes and the way her silk gown clung to her, heavy and sodden against her skin. In a heartbeat, his manufactured indifference dissolved. He surged toward her, his hand reaching out with a hesitant, aching tenderness to brush the moisture from the corner of her eye.

​”What happened?” he demanded, his voice dropping to a gravelly, frantic whisper charged with alarm. “Why these tears? And why are you drenched like this? Did that madwoman dare to lay a hand on you?”

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