novelno Chapter 199: Ashes of Illusion
Chapter 199: Ashes of Illusion
After a long, heavy sleep that swallowed the entire morning, Olivia slowly opened her eyelids. Her body felt weighed down by lead. Blinking against the dim light, she instinctively turned her head toward the right side of the bed.
Those familiar green eyes were already staring back at her. For a long, breathless moment, they simply watched each other in the quiet room, until his lips finally parted.
"What is it, Olivia?" he murmured, a faint, teasing glint in his eyes. "Why are you staring at me like that? Are you looking to pick a fight the exact moment you wake up?"
Olivia remained entirely silent, her throat tight as she locked her gaze onto his face. She couldn’t form a coherent thought, her mind suspended in a fragile, beautiful trance.
"You..." she finally choked out, her voice barely a whisper. "Mathias..."
"Oh, Duchess," he chuckled softly, the sound cutting through the stillness. "Have you already forgotten what your own husband looks like? Why ask such a strange question?"
Slowly, trembling, Olivia raised her hand, reaching out to touch the cold line of his jaw, desperate to feel his warmth.
Knock. Knock.
The sharp sound of knuckles against the heavy wooden door shattered the silence of her bedchamber.
Olivia’s eyes snapped toward the door, and when she frantically looked back to her right—there was nothing. The velvet sheets were cold, smooth, and completely empty. There was no Mathias. She had been utterly alone from the very beginning.
A suffocating lump lodged itself in her throat, a wave of familiar, crushing grief hitting her chest. But no tears came. Her eyes remained dry; she had bled so much sorrow over the past months that she had simply run out of tears to cry.
Swallowing the bitterness, she sat up and fixed her posture. "Come in."
The door opened, and Leon stepped inside quietly. The usual playful, mocking smirk he always wore was entirely gone, replaced by a heavy, uncharacteristic solemnity. He closed the door behind him, his movements methodical and serious.
"What is it, Leon?" Olivia asked, her voice returning to its usual detached, ruling tone.
Leon walked over and sat in the chair directly across from her bed. He studied her pale face for a moment. "Are you feeling better? His Majesty was here all morning, so I couldn’t intervene or check on you."
"I am fine, do not worry," Olivia replied smoothly. But as she spoke, her sharp eyes dropped to his hands. Strands of dark, damp earth were clinging to his fingernails and the cuffs of his shirt.
Her gaze narrowed. "Were you doing what we agreed upon?"
"Yes," Leon answered, his voice dropping into a flat, deadly serious whisper. He didn’t flinch under her stare. "Delaying it any further would have given Roland the perfect evidence against us. So... I gave him exactly what he came here looking for."
Olivia managed a faint, satisfied smile despite the lingering exhaustion draining her body. "Good. Well done."
Meanwhile, inside the grand walls of the Imperial Palace, a storm was brewing.
Ever since his return from the North, the Emperor had been utterly unable to remain still. He paced back and forth across the polished marble floor of his private study, his long strides restless, driven by the volatile doubts that were slowly eating him alive from the inside out.
"Your Majesty, you will burn a hole through the floor if you keep walking like that," his chief aide remarked quietly, standing near the heavy mahogany desk with a stack of state documents in hand.
Lucius let out a harsh, frustrated exhale and threw himself heavily into his velvet armchair. He rubbed his temples, his golden eyes dark with confusion. "I don’t understand. I truly do not understand... How did that child withstand my energy?"
The aide blinked, caught entirely off guard by the choice of words. "A child? Your Majesty..."
"Olivia. Olivia Locron."
"Ah," the aide hesitated, adjusting his posture. "With all due respect, Sire... from what I know, the Duchess of Locron is a grown woman, not a child."
"I see her as a child," Lucius murmured, his voice dropping into a rare, heavy tone of genuine sorrow. He leaned back, staring blankly at the high ceiling. "She looks exactly like her mother. The resemblance is striking... though their temperaments couldn’t be more different. But let us return to the matter at hand. How was she able to absorb my mana so flawlessly? To completely synchronize with it?"
The aide fell into a tense, heavy silence. The thought forming in his mind was dangerous—so dangerous that speaking it aloud would be considered an indirect insult to the reigning Empress, and a threat to the stability of the throne itself.
"Your Majesty..." the aide began cautiously, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"What is it?" Lucius snapped, shifting his sharp gaze toward him.
"I must remind you of something," the aide said, taking a slow breath to steel his nerves. "Princess Cyrene... she mentioned something regarding Lady Olivia recently, if I recall correctly."
The moment his aide spoke those words, a vivid, burning memory flashed through Lucius’s mind—the venomous, resentful glare Princess Cyrene had directed at him, and her parting, bitter words: ’You do not deserve to know anything about her.’
The memory hit him like a physical blow. He rose from his armchair so abruptly that the heavy wood scraped harshly against the marble floor.
"Your Majesty?" the aide asked, his eyes widening with concern as he looked at the darkening sky outside. "Where are you going at this hour? It is already evening."
"I am going to the only person who holds the definitive answer to my question," Lucius said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, gravelly register as he strode toward the doors.
"Who, Sire?"
"The Empress."
Lucius wasted no time. He moved through the grand corridors with a lethal, purposeful speed, heading directly toward the Western Palace—the secluded estate where the Empress had been relocated after her downfall. Even though he had stripped her of her power and placed her under strict isolation, he had still granted her a lavish, magnificent palace to maintain the imperial image.
He marched through the ornate hallways, ignoring the panicked, low bows of the servants who hadn’t expected the Emperor’s arrival. When he reached her private chambers, he gave three sharp, commanding knocks and pushed the heavy doors open without waiting for an invitation.
Even in her confinement, Alisha retained the cold, sharp elegance of a fallen ruler. The Western Palace was a golden cage, magnificent yet hollow, filled with the echoing silence of her lost power. She sat before her vanity mirror, her long hair being meticulously brushed by one of her personal maids.
"You," Lucius commanded, his golden eyes locking onto the servant through the mirror. "Get out."
The maid gasped, bowed frantically, and practically fled the room, shutting the door tightly behind her.
"Lucius, my dear," Alisha murmured, a slow, calculated smile spreading across her lips as she turned around. "Have you finally decided to come visit me?"
In the past, a single utterance of the word ’my dear’ from her lips would have made his heart soar; he would have forgiven her anything just to hear it. But not anymore. Not after the horrific truths that had been uncovered during their last confrontation.
"Alisha, we need to talk," Lucius stated, standing like an unyielding wall in the center of the room.
Alisha rose gracefully from her stool, her silk gown trailing behind her as she walked toward a small table set with a porcelain tea set. "Then let us talk while we enjoy some warm tea."
Realizing that forcing her would only make her lock her secrets away tighter, Lucius had no choice but to play along for now. He walked over, his posture rigid, and sat across from her.
They sat in a tense, suffocating silence for a moment, sipping the hot liquid.
"So?" Alisha asked, setting her saucer down with an elegant, hollow click. "What brings the man who stripped me of my crown to my doorstep tonight?"
Lucius stared at her, his golden eyes completely devoid of the warmth they once held for her.
"I certainly did not come here to look at your face," he said, his voice dripping with icy detachment. "I think it is time we finish our last conversation."
"Our last conversation?" Alisha mirrored his words, her brow arching slightly as her gaze turned cold.
"I will be direct, Alisha, because sitting in the same room as you has become entirely suffocating," Lucius cut through her pretense, leaning forward slightly. He locked his eyes onto hers, ensuring she couldn’t look away. "I want a clear, honest answer to one question."
"And what would that be?"
"Who is Olivia’s real father, Alisha?"
The porcelain teacup slipped from Alisha’s fingers. It hit the table with a sharp, shattering clatter, amber liquid splashing across the pristine white cloth as her entire face completely froze into a mask of pure horror.
"What...?" she breathed out, the color draining from her cheeks.