"It is not Kira," Matthias replied, his tone as steady as polished steel but carrying the unmistakable weight of command.
"And there will be no more wine tonight. The Crown Prince is due for a visit, and I will not permit you to greet him while you are inebriated."
Her eyes — the colour of a stormy sea — flew wide open, fixing on the mirrored reflection before her. It was not her maid but her husband standing sentinel behind her, his piercing green gaze locked onto hers. The shock was a sharp, physical jolt, and the crystal wine glass slipped, cold and heavy, from her nerveless fingers.
With a predator's swiftness, Matthias snatched it mid-fall — the potential shattering silenced.
"Are you well, Olivia?" he asked, the concern in his voice a calculated, shallow thing.
"How long have you been standing there?" she countered, the question a quiet accusation.
His lips twisted into a wry, cold semblance of a smile.
"Rather than fretting over my punctuality, you should concern yourself with the danger of harming yourself."
A beat of charged silence passed before she replied, her voice eerily calm.
"I am fine."
"Good. I require you to be," he stated simply, his gaze sweeping over her with an impersonal assessment that felt like a violation.
"As I mentioned, the Crown Prince will be here tonight, and we must afford him a suitable welcome."
"Ah. So that is why you finally graced me with your presence," she said, the coolness in her voice hardening into a visible edge.
"Pardon?" he responded, his brow furrowing in a minor display of irritation.
"Nothing. I shall prepare for his arrival. You may leave now," she dismissed him with a careless wave of her hand — the apathy a sharp, intentional weapon.
Matthias paused, a brief flicker in his eyes suggesting a wealth of unspoken words — perhaps a rebuke or a deeper inquiry. Ultimately, he merely spun on his heel and strode from the chamber, the heavy door clicking shut behind him like the final verdict on their exchange.
By the late hour, the Ducal Palace had been transformed into a blinding spectacle of elegance. Crystal chandeliers cast a dizzying, blinding glow over the polished marble floors. Matthias and Olivia stood side by side at the grand entrance — a perfect, lifeless tableau of a powerful couple awaiting their distinguished guest.
When the Crown Prince arrived, his very presence radiated an aura of authority laced with a captivating, youthful vigour. A genuine, unguarded smile broke across his face as he spotted Matthias, and without a moment's hesitation, he pulled the Duke into a hearty, familial embrace.
"Matthias, old friend! I've missed you. It has been far too long," Kyle, the Crown Prince, exclaimed with palpable sincerity.
Olivia observed them from a slight distance, her features an unreadable mask. Kyle was not merely the Crown Prince — he was her half-brother. Her mother, after divorcing Olivia's father, had married the Emperor and given birth to Kyle. Yet despite the blood they shared, there was a formality to his conduct towards her — a cool distance that wounded her more deeply than she would ever condescend to admit.
"Your Highness," he greeted her courteously, the words devoid of any genuine familial warmth.
"How do you fare?"
"I am well," she replied flatly. "Shall we proceed to the dining hall?"
"Yes, of course," Kyle agreed with a shallow bow, and the three of them moved toward the impending feast.
The evening, for all its pretense of elegance and expected propriety, felt oppressively thick with tension. Every polite word, every casual glance exchanged in the formal dining hall seemed to conceal an unvoiced, malignant truth.
Olivia sat beside her husband, her posture rigid — a perfectly composed Duchess. Across the vast mahogany expanse of the table sat Prince Leon and Isabella. The First Prince's customary air of arrogance was a palpable thing, his smile a constant, unnerving hint of hidden agendas.
The beginning of the dinner was a suffocating silence, broken only by the cold clatter of silverware on silver plates. Olivia tried to fix her focus on the elaborate dish before her, acutely aware of the First Prince's gaze cutting across the table — a look as sharp and constant as a threat.
Then, as if he could no longer bear the restraint, he shattered the silence.
"I have heard disturbing news recently. It seems there is a traitor in our midst — someone leaking sensitive intelligence to the neighbouring Empire," he stated, his voice cool and unnervingly precise.
The Duke raised a single, questioning eyebrow. Olivia continued to eat, utterly unconcerned by his words. The Prince pressed on, unperturbed by the rising tension.
"And sadly, it appears this person is closer to us than we might have imagined."
He slowly dragged his gaze across the assembled faces before letting it linger on Olivia for a moment too long — a blatant attempt to test her composure.
"I wonder how your father, the Duke Carthon, can possibly remain... innocent in this equation. Wouldn't you agree, Duchess?"
For a suspended moment, the air froze in the chamber. Matthias stopped chewing and slowly turned his head to look at his wife, assessing her reaction. But Olivia, defying every expectation, remained perfectly — terrifyingly — still.
She neither flared in anger nor rushed to a defence, nor did she meet his challenging stare. She calmly returned to her meal, as if the Prince's venomous words had been nothing more than inconsequential background noise.
This unnerving composure was her shield, and it succeeded in baffling her audience. Shortly after the dinner concluded, she excused herself and quietly left the hall, retreating to the solitude of her chambers.
Seated in her private sanctuary, she allowed herself to sink into a dangerous depth of thought. She was no fool; the Prince's thinly veiled insinuations had not escaped her. He was clearly aiming at her, testing the stability of her mask. Yet what truly gnawed at her was the chilling realisation that the Prince might not be entirely mistaken.
Her mind recoiled into the recesses of her past. Her father — the man who had once been her only refuge in a merciless world — had betrayed her in ways she had never thought possible.
How many times had she aided him unquestioningly? How many times had she trusted him despite the desperate warnings of others?
Now, history was poised to repeat itself. But this time, she would not be the naive girl used as a pawn in a game too large for her to grasp.
"I will make him drink from the same bitter cup he forced upon me — and more," she whispered to the empty room, a sinister, slow smile curving her lips.
Two weeks later, a servant's knock startled her from her grim thoughts.
"Your Grace, the Duke Carthon is here to visit you."
Her heart leaped — a brief, frantic bird trapped in her chest — but she ruthlessly quelled the tremor and rose to receive him.
In the reception room, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Matthias, his face beaming with the forced glow of the perfect, doting father. He clapped her lightly on the shoulder and spoke of her with a chilling pride.
"I trust you are taking good care of her. This is my precious daughter, after all. I know our relationship is strained, but I hope that does not affect how you treat her."
Matthias held his gaze for a long, quiet moment.
"I treat her as my wife, Duke Carthon. You have no need for concern."
Ignoring the toxic history that hung between them, she stood composed, mirroring her father's easy smile. If she was to bring the bastard down, she could not let him see her hand. He was a powerfully ruthless man — she knew that better than anyone alive.
The atmosphere shifted the moment Matthias departed, leaving father and daughter alone. As soon as the door sealed shut, the mask of the doting Duke vanished. He seized a handful of her hair, his grip brutal, and yanked her face close to his own.
"You slut. Why did you not inform me the Prince was coming yesterday?" he hissed, his voice a low, furious growl.
Olivia bit back the gasp of pain, holding the tears captive, and answered in a steady, toneless voice,
"I did not know. No one informed me."
He narrowed his eyes, scrutinising her face as if testing the sincerity of her soul. Then, in a low, unmistakable command, he said:
"I want you to watch your husband and the Crown Prince. Rifle through their offices. I need detailed information. Do your job."
Finally, he released her hair — the tenderness returning to his manner the instant he heard Matthias's footsteps approaching. He moved to embrace her, playing the role of the perfect, concerned father.
Olivia struggled to maintain her composure, forcing a confident, unshakeable smile back onto her face.
When he was finally gone, she collapsed onto a nearby chaise lounge. She stared at her own reflection in the mirror, her fingers tracing the lingering ache on her scalp where he had held her. It was not just the pain she felt; it was a cold, raging fire of indignation.
"I was a mere instrument to him in my past life — and I will never be that again," she vowed to her reflection.
In that single, raw moment, the decision was made: she would play the game, but by her own rules.
I will make you reveal your true face to the world, you treacherous bastard.
She smiled — a small, dark contraction of her lips. It was not a smile of happiness, but the cold, nascent smile of war.
Two weeks had crawled by since her father's last visit — two weeks of taut, pregnant silence, punctuated only by the relentless arrival of his missives. They contained nothing but thinly veiled instructions and insistent queries about the Duchy — transparent attempts to assert his distant control.
Olivia, no longer the trembling girl who feared his shadow, now stood before the fireplace, one of these damning letters held lightly between her fingers. After a single, dismissive glance, she allowed it to flutter down into the licking flames. Watching the paper curl and blacken in the fire had become a ritual of defiance — a symbolic retrieval of a life she had believed was no longer her own.
But the fire, though it consumed his words, could not erase her memories. Instead, it seemed to stoke them to life in their most brutal forms, replaying them with unyielding clarity.
Her mind dragged her back to the darkest corners of her childhood, stripping bare the wounds she had tried to bury.
The sprawling dungeon loomed in her memory — a cold, airless place where her father had frequently confined her as punishment. She was a child of only nine years then, clutching the heavy iron bars with trembling hands, her voice a fragile, broken whisper:
"Father... please! Let me out. It's so dark... so dark. I promise to be good. Please... just a drop of water, I haven't drunk anything in two days. Please, Father, I feel like I'm dying. I'm begging you..."