Free Web NovelChapter 222: The Broken Blade
Olivia sat in absolute, heavy silence for a long time after Matthias finished recounting everything that had transpired with Serene. The ticking of the clock in the quiet chamber seemed to echo the chaotic racing of her own thoughts, each second pulling her deeper into a dark, unyielding realization.
Matthias watched her closely, his dark eyes tracing the subtle shifts in her expression, waiting out her silence with a heavy patience. "Why the sudden silence, Olivia?"
"It’s just..." Olivia trailed off, her gaze hollow as she stared at the intricate patterns on the heavy blanket, her fingers tracing the silver threads without truly seeing them. "Serene truly loved Elvira. She loved her with everything she had. But Elvira did everything in her power to force her own mother to loathe her. First and foremost... the murder of her own siblings. If it weren’t for her malice, I would have had three siblings right now."
A shuddering breath escaped her lips as the weight of her mother’s hidden past pressed down on her chest like a physical stone.
"During that period, Serene was living through a severe, agonizing mental breakdown. She would carry them for nine months, nurture them, only for them to vanish into the cold ground just as they had arrived. And despite everything she told Roland, he never believed her for a single second. He dismissed it all, claiming it was nothing more than a tragic, unfortunate accident. That girl... Elvira was mentally diseased from her very childhood."
Olivia’s fingers tightened around the fabric of her gown, her knuckles turning white as her voice dropped into a softer, trembling register, stripped of her usual aristocratic armor. "The absolute truth that Serene chose to stand by my side, instead of hers... it feels incredibly surreal. It makes me feel a strange, unfamiliar sensation of..."
"Of what?" Matthias prompted softly, his hand moving across the sheets to gently cover hers, his warmth a stark contrast to the cold dread filling the room.
"I just feel like... she is truly my mother," Olivia whispered, a stray, heavy tear finally slipping down her cheek. "And at the same time, I feel a profound, aching sorrow that she was forced to completely abandon and give up on her own flesh and blood... just to save me."
Matthias stared at their joined hands, his expression darkening as her words drifted through the quiet room. The softness in his touch began to fade, replaced by a sudden, rigid tension. The reminder of parental failure, of children buried too soon, and of monsters born from the same bloodline seemed to strike a bitter, deeply buried chord within him.
He slowly pulled his hand back, his face closing up into an unreadable mask.
"Well," Matthias spoke, his voice turning low, laced with a cynical, heavy weight that instantly cooled the remaining warmth in the air. "Not every person we love is someone we can make better."
The shift was subtle, but to Olivia, it was like a sudden gust of winter wind. Her tears dried instantly. Her violet eyes narrowed, her defensive instincts—honed by years of betrayal—flaring up in an instant. The vulnerable mother vanished, and the sharp, guarded Duchess returned.
"Are you implying something about me?" she demanded, her voice sharpening like a drawn blade. "Are you throwing my past choices back in my face right now, Matthias?"
Matthias closed his eyes for a brief second, pinching the bridge of his nose as a cold exhaustion settled deep into his features. He felt the familiar, suffocating walls of their mutual pride closing in, and he refused to engage in it tonight. He shifted on the edge of the mattress and stood up, straightening his dark coat.
"Olivia, stop picking a fight with every single word I say," he muttered, his tone flat, refusing to match her rising fire. "In any case, I am leaving." frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
Seeing him turn away so abruptly, a sudden, frantic urgency seized her. The fear of him vanishing back into the shadows, back into the world of the dead where she had mourned him, overrode her pride. She reached out, her fingers locking around his forearm with a bruising grip.
"Why are you leaving?" she pressed, her voice a mix of anger and raw desperation. "You can stay now. There is no need to hide in the dark anymore. Leon and the others already know that you are alive, and—"
Before she could finish the sentence, Matthias reached down. His movements were not violent, but they were unyielding as he firmly, deliberately peeled her fingers off his sleeve, breaking her hold.
"I need to go, Olivia," he said, his voice dropping into a quiet, dangerous register. "Please, don’t do this. Not tonight."
"What?"
When he finally looked back at her, the last remnants of the man who had comforted her seconds ago were completely gone. His dark eyes were entirely frozen—a terrifying, hollow void of pure steel that seemed to look right through her. It was the gaze of the predator who had survived the ruins, a look so cold it made a violent shiver run straight down her spine.
Olivia instinctively recoiled against the pillows, her breath catching painfully in her throat. The distance between them had never felt wider.
"Fine," she whispered, her voice hardening to match his frost, her pride locking itself back into place. "Do as you please. Wander back into your darkness."
Matthias didn’t answer. He masked his expression entirely, shielding his thoughts behind an impenetrable shadow, and turned on his heel. His heavy boots made no sound against the rug as he strode away.
He pushed the heavy oak doors open and stepped out into the dimly lit corridor. The chaotic crowd of royals and guards from earlier had already dispersed, leaving the hallway in a tense, suffocating quiet. Everyone had gone—except for one man who remained leaning against the stone pillar, his arms crossed over his chest as he waited in the shadows.
Leon.
Matthias stopped, his posture rigid as he locked eyes with his most trusted ally. He didn’t offer an explanation for the ice radiating from his frame, nor did he look back at the heavy doors he had just abandoned.
"Follow me, Leon," Matthias commanded, his voice a low, lethal rumble that echoed off the cold masonry, signaling that the time for mourning was officially over.
Leon stood inside the cold, isolated chamber, his eyes tracking the tense, rigid silhouette of his Commander. The air between them was thick, vibrating with an unexploded violence that made the stone walls feel suffocating.
"What is it, Matthias?" Leon asked, his voice low, measured, and tight with concern.
The response was instantaneous and brutal. With a sudden, savage burst of repressed fury, Matthias slammed his fist into the stone wall. The heavy, thunderous impact cracked through the quiet room, drawing a faint line of crimson blood across his split knuckles. He didn’t care. He didn’t even flinch.
Leon stared at the blood on the masonry, his gaze narrowing. "Is this because of Cedric?"
Matthias didn’t answer. He remained with his forehead almost touching the cold stone, his chest heaving violently, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps.
"It really is because of him," Leon sighed, taking a tentative step forward, keeping his hands open. "Matthias... he was an asset to us. He helped us."
"I know! I goddamn know!" Matthias roared, spinning around to face his ally, his dark eyes bloodshot and wild with an agonizing mixture of humiliation and hatred. "And that is precisely what is tearing my mind apart! I couldn’t even protect my own wife. In one single moment of absolute carelessness, I almost lost her forever! You don’t understand, Leon. You don’t know how it felt... finding him emerging from her chambers, carrying her through those towering, infernal flames. I felt utterly, entirely helpless."
He gripped his own hair, his voice breaking into a raw, hollow gravel as the composure of the great Duke entirely disintegrated.
"I stood there, completely paralyzed, trapped inside that guardian armor like a useless ghost, forced to watch him save my own wife... only for him to place her in your hands. True, the entire world outside believes I am the one who rescued her from the ashes, but we know the truth. We know it was him."
"Matthias, calm down," Leon urged, his voice firming up as he tried to act as an anchor to the drowning man. "Control your thoughts."
"Calm?!" Matthias hissed, a fractured, cynical laugh ripping from his throat. "How can I be calm, Leon, when I couldn’t even force my own legs to move? Do you want to know what was running through my twisted head while her room was burning? Do you want to know the absolute curse that was screaming in my mind? Let her die. Let her burn. If she dies, you will finally be free. You will finally find peace."
Leon’s breath caught in his throat, his eyes widening in horror at the confession.
"I hate myself!" Matthias snarled, tears of pure rage glistening in his bloodshot eyes as he struck his own chest. "I hate myself because of this godforsaken curse! It makes me take a sickening pleasure in her suffering! When she threw her arms around me in front of all of you... I couldn’t even bring myself to return her embrace. I froze, Leon! Because I knew—I knew that if I held her, my monstrous nature would only end up destroying her. I couldn’t even look her in the eye tonight, and it is killing me. It is killing me from the inside out. In the end... Cedric was right. His words became reality. He is better off for her than I will ever be."
The silence that followed was broken by a sharp, deafening crack.
With blinding speed, Leon stepped in and delivered a violent, stinging slap across Matthias’s face. The force of the blow snapped the Duke’s head to the side.
"Stop this utter, pathetic nonsense!" Leon barked, his voice vibrating with a commanding, unyielding fury as he grabbed Matthias by the shoulders and shook him. "I am absolutely certain that Cedric had a hand in what happened, or at the very least, he knew it was coming. Why else would he choose that exact, specific timing to visit the Duchy? If Olivia had barred him from entering the last time, he wouldn’t have even dared to set foot here. But it matters not. He saved her, and that is a good thing, not a bad one! But your actions? Your behavior right now?"
Leon tightened his grip on Matthias’s shoulders, looking directly into his hollow eyes. "This curse... it is not something within your control! We will find a solution to this madness. I swear it to you, even if it has to be over my own dead body!"
Matthias slowly turned his head back, his gaze hollow, dead, and utterly unmoving as he looked at his most loyal friend.
"And what exactly will you do, Leon?" Matthias whispered, his voice terrifyingly calm now, the manic rage replaced by a cold, hollow certainty. "I went to war... I marched into the mouth of hell itself, and the curse did not fade. It didn’t leave me. If I continue down this path, if I keep existing like this... there is only one logical solution left."
"And what is that?" Leon asked, a sudden, ice-cold dread seizing his heart.
Matthias looked through him, his eyes staring into the dark abyss of his own future.
"I must kill myself."
