Free Web NovelChapter 373: Chapter-373
The Marchioness’s expression instantly turned grave. Her fingers dug into her handkerchief, but she forced her lips into a tight, strained smile. "Daughter... this is Kavien. He is your adopted groom, not your brother."
"Ah!" Heena gasped softly, looking back at Kavien with an apologetic, completely mocking gaze. "I am really so sorry. You called her ’Mother’ with such profound devotion, and you spoke to me with such big, authoritative words... I truly thought my parents had just gotten me a little brother while I was away. My mistake."
She raised her hand in total nonchalance, completely brushing off the eldest groom’s authority. Kavien’s jaw tightened, his face flushing with a mix of anger and humiliation as the other three grooms—Wilbur, Larus, and Veer—watched in stunned, tense silence from the side.
Suddenly, a frail, trembling voice broke through the ambient chatter from the front row of the guests.
"Is it... is it really you, my baby?"
Heena froze. She slowly turned her body toward the sound of the voice, her sharp, calculated composure faltering for the very first time since she had walked through the gates.
Standing there, leaning heavily on a polished wooden cane, was her grandmother.
Just like the original Seera, Heena realized that even in this den of vipers, there was one person who had loved the young lady dearly. It was her grandmother. The old woman’s eyes were brimming with tears, her fragile frame shaking as she stared at the granddaughter she thought she had buried.
"My...my baby," the grandmother whispered, her voice cracking with raw emotion.
Even though she spoke, anyone looking at the old woman’s face could see the intense, breathless nervousness radiating from her. She was terrified that this was a cruel dream, her hands trembling against her cane as she waited for Heena to cross the distance between them.
Out of the corner of her eye, Heena noticed the System shifting uncomfortably behind the wooden pillars, his digital eyes wide with intense stress. Heena herself felt a rare, sudden jolt in her chest. For a split second, her momentum was completely caught in place.
It wasn’t because of the crowd, or the grooms, or the Marquis. It was because of one specific thing Heena was genuinely bad at handling: dealing with the people who had truly, deeply loved the original owner of this body.
Fooling enemies was easy. Fooling a mother who wanted you dead was a game. But fooling someone who knew Seera’s soul? That was incredibly dangerous. Heena knew that despite what people in high society whispered about the elderly being frail or easily deceived, the old matriarchs of these great families were often the smartest, most perceptive predators in the room. This loving grandmother could catch her on a single, misplaced syllable or an unfamiliar glance. It was an infinitely harder test than the Marquis and Marchioness combined.
Taking a slow, cautious breath, Heena moved forward. She stopped right in front of the old woman, her expression shifting into a carefully calculated look of hesitation.
"Grandma...?" she whispered.
She intentionally used a tentative, questionable tone—as if she were a girl straining to pull a foggy, distant face out of her fractured memory. She couldn’t act like she remembered everything perfectly; if she made even a tiny mistake in their personal history, the old woman’s sharp instincts would tear her story apart. It was safer to play the recovering amnesiac.
With a heavily trembling hand, the grandmother reached up, her frail fingers brushing against Heena’s cheek. "I knew it," the old woman wept, her voice breaking completely. "I knew my baby was alive. I knew it..."
Wiping at the thick tears spilling down her wrinkled face, the grandmother surged forward with unexpected strength, pulling Heena into a fierce, desperate embrace. freёwebnoѵel.com
Inside the hug, Heena’s soul genuinely trembled. The raw, pure affection radiating from the old woman was overwhelming, cutting straight through Heena’s usual cold, calculated detachment. Slowly, she wrapped her arms around her grandmother’s fragile back, squeezing her firmly.
"It’s okay... it’s okay, Grandma," Heena murmured softly, her tone entirely softening.
The old woman buried her face in Heena’s expensive silk shoulder, sobbing openly into the quiet courtyard. "I told them... I told each and every one of them that you couldn’t be gone, but none of them would listen to me! They wouldn’t listen!"
Hearing those words, and knowing the foul play the rest of the family had committed, a pair of genuine, unbidden tears slipped from Heena’s eyes, rolling down her face. She held the old woman even tighter. To this grieving grandmother, holding Heena right now felt as though she were clinging to her absolute lifeline in a sea of monsters.
It was as if the very last tears the old matriarch possessed in this world were all being poured out for her granddaughter. The surrounding nobles watched the scene in stunned silence, many pulling out lace handkerchiefs to wipe their own eyes. They could hardly believe what they were witnessing; the notoriously ruthless, merciless matriarch of the Marquis family—a woman who had ruled the high-society circles with an iron fist for decades—was bursting into helpless, ragged tears right before them.
The Marquis, looking deeply uncomfortable under the watchful eyes of the capital’s elite, stepped forward. "Mother, please, don’t cry in front of the guests. It’s bad for your health."
But the moment his hand touched her arm, the grandmother sharply slapped it away with a resounding crack.
She turned on him, her eyes blaring with utter disgust and deep-seated anger. "I told you!" she shrieked, her frail voice echoing off the stone walls. "I told each and every one of you that she was alive! But no, none of you would listen to me! Instead, you had my granddaughter’s funeral portraits made!"
Suddenly, as if gripped by a frantic frenzy, the old woman spun around and glared at the massive, somber portraits of Seera dominating the courtyard. Before anyone could stop her, she marched directly toward the nearest display. With trembling, rage-fueled strength, she tore the fabric banners apart, knocking the heavy frames to the ground and scattering the burning incense into the dirt.
"I told you it was terrible luck to do this!" she shouted, her chest heaving as she pointed a shaking finger at the ruined displays. "But you insisted she was dead! See?! See what happens when you don’t listen to me?! She is alive! Here is my granddaughter!"
The younger nobles in the crowd whispered behind their fans, shocked by her volatile outburst. But the older generation understood her pain completely. They knew exactly why the matriarch was tearing those portraits down. The banners were strictly black and white, traditional mourning portraits explicitly crafted to announce a permanent death and a final yoking of the soul. To display them while the girl was drawing breath was an egregious, cursed insult to the heavens.
Seeing her grandmother panting and on the verge of collapsing from sheer rage, Heena stepped forward. She moved quickly, wrapping her arms around the old woman from behind, holding her in a secure, comforting embrace.
"It’s okay, Grandma... please, calm down," Heena murmured softly against her ear, squeezing her tight. "I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere."
