Talia's countenance remained a mask of carved stone. The sharp lines of her face were unyielding to the heavy air of the room.
When she spoke, her voice was a draft of glacial air—distant and hollowed of all warmth.
"Yes," she murmured. "It has been a lifetime, hasn't it?"
A faint, ghostly tremor of a smile brushed the other woman's lips. It was a weary expression that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"You haven't changed, Talia. Still as composed and elegant as the day I last saw you."
Talia finally deigned to look up, her gaze unreadable. "I fear I cannot return the compliment, Eloise."
Her amber eyes swept over Eloise's ravaged form. The woman looked skeletal, a mere specter wrapped in heavy, suffocating linens.
Her skin was like translucent parchment, marred by the violent interruptions of a hacking cough. Her fingers trembled like fallen leaves even as they clawed at the bedsheets.
She was fragile—a broken shadow of the formidable woman she once was.
Eloise didn't flinch at the remark, though her knuckles whitened against the fabric. When she spoke again, her voice had thinned to a rasp.
"So... you came all this way. Does this mean you have finally consented? Will you let me adopt Leila?"
A sharp, jagged laugh escaped Talia's throat before she could stifle it.
"You have already stripped me of everything else, Eloise. What is one more child added to your spoils?"
The words fell between them like stones dropped into a stagnant pool. Eloise's lips parted as if to catch a breath, but nothing came.
In the suffocating silence, she finally whispered, "I... I never intended—"
"Never intended what?" Talia's voice sliced through the air like a silver blade.
"To steal my husband? To abandon your own daughter? To betray the one woman who would have walked through fire for you?"
Eloise shuddered, a sharp intake of breath rattling in her chest. "Talia, I—"
"I am not finished," Talia interrupted. Her voice trembled not with weakness, but with the crushing weight of years spent in silence.
"Of all the souls in this wretched world, Eloise, you were the last person I expected to hold the knife. His betrayal? I could have swallowed that. But yours?"
She leaned in, her eyes burning. "You were my sister in every way but blood. You knew the depths of my love for him, and yet... you chose him over me."
Eloise clenched her fist, nails digging into the white linen. Finally, she spat out the question that had been corroding her soul for a decade.
"Then why? Why didn't you fight for him? Why did you leave me to rot in your shadow all these years?"
Eloise's voice broke. "I lived with a man who searched for your ghost in me every single day—and never found it."
Talia let out a mirthless laugh. "Fight for what, exactly? A friend who planted a dagger in my spine? A husband who proved to be nothing more than a fleeting illusion?"
She shook her head with lethal pride. "You chose to mimic me, to covet what was mine. But there is one thing you could never replicate: Dignity."
"If a man can betray me once, he can do it a hundred times," Talia added coldly. "And I, for one, refuse to play the fool."
Silence reclaimed the room. Eloise's gaze dropped, her composure finally fracturing. She knew Talia spoke the absolute truth.
When she finally found her voice, it was a silver thread, fragile and fraying.
"You are right. Every word... a jagged truth," she muttered. "He did betray me. Dozens of times. I was never more than a distraction to help him forget you."
She closed her eyes. "Perhaps your prayers were answered, Talia... for every day of that marriage was a slow, waking death."
Talia exhaled a sharp sigh of weary frustration. "You have only reaped what you sowed, Eloise."
"Please, Talia... forgive me," Eloise pleaded, her fingers reaching out in desperation. "I cannot draw breath under the weight of my sins."
Talia recoiled as if touched by a flame. "Forgive you? Do you truly think I have spent all these years nourishing a grudge?"
She laughed—a sound devoid of warmth. "I abandoned my hatred for you long ago. Forgiveness is a grace reserved for those who still hold a place in my heart."
"As for you? You are a ghost to me," Talia stated, her voice dropping. "Nothing more than a shadow, Your Grand Duchess."
She spat the title with venomous precision.
Eloise swallowed hard, reclaiming a shred of her former dignity. "It seems your heart is set. Then tell me... how is Emily?"
The question struck Talia like a physical blow. Her posture stiffened. "Why do you ask? What business is she of yours?"
Eloise met her gaze with sudden steel. "She is my daughter—do not forget that. I ask after her just as you might wish to ask after Mathias."
"Your son, is he not?" Eloise continued. "Even if I was the one who raised him, he remains your flesh and blood in the end."
Talia's face contorted with fury. "By what right do you speak of her? She became mine the moment you cast her aside. I am the one who molded her."
"She belongs to me," Talia hissed. "And you shall not lay so much as a finger upon her."
"You know I had no choice," Eloise countered, her voice trembling.
"Did you think I was blind?" Talia sneered. "That 'mysterious' woman who left gifts... who came cloaked in shadows just to see her... I knew it was you."
Talia leaned closer, her whisper dripping with venom. "I allowed it out of fleeting pity. But now that she is grown, I will not see her life dismantled by you, She's my daughter."
She glanced toward the door. "As for that boy... keep him. I have barely the patience to endure his sister, who reminds me far too much of her father."
Eloise's breath hitched. "Talia, I warn you... do not speak of Mathias that way. Never."
Talia's face washed over with utter indifference.
Eloise turned away, her strength spent. "I believe this conversation has reached its end. I am tired. Leave me."
"Of course," Talia smiled mockingly. "How convenient for a thief like you to cast me out of your house."
As Talia swept out, Eloise's body betrayed her. She collapsed like a house of cards. Her breathing became a ragged struggle as a maid rushed forward with medicine.
Outside the door, Olivia stood paralyzed. She had eavesdropped on every poisonous word.
"How is life so unjust?" Olivia hissed through gritted teeth, gripping her hair in rage. "How could a wretch like that ever be called a mother?"
Night descended with a chilling swiftness. The grand chandelier overhead cast a flickering, uncertain light across the dining table.
Despite the spread, an oppressive silence sat in the chairs. No one possessed the slightest appetite.
Olivia idly toyed with her food, her gaze fixed on Talia. She leaned toward Isabella, whispering, "I truly cannot stomach that wretch."
Isabella's reply was a dry breath. "I highly doubt the feeling is mutual.
I suspect this banquet will not find a peaceful end."
Why? Isabella asked
"You shall see soon enough," Olivia replied darkly.
The silence was suddenly severed by Mathias. His gaze sharpened on the young girl at the end of the table.
"Leila?" His voice cut through the air like a blade. "What has happened to your face? Who laid a hand on you?"
Leila froze. The eyes of everyone at the table converged upon her like vultures.
She hurriedly pulled her dark hair forward, trying to shroud the livid bruise on her cheek. "It is nothing, brother... I simply tripped."
Mathias's eyes clouded with burning skepticism. But before he could press her, another voice intervened—steady and terrifyingly calm.
"I am the one who struck her."
The confession was as cold as a winter tomb. Talia sat with her spine rigid, draped in a regal poise that defied the room.
"Is there a grievance to be found," Talia asked, her expression a mask of stone, "when a mother deigns to discipline her own daughter?"
For the first time, Mathias looked his mother directly in the eye. His gaze was ignited by an unbridled fury.
"Yes. There is a grievance," Mathias said, his voice dripping with venom. "A mother does not 'discipline' her child by marring her face. And she is my sister."
Talia regarded him with pure, crystalline disdain. "Watch your tongue, Mathias. She is my daughter, and I shall do with her as I see fit."
"Duke."
The voice of Olivia rang out, sharp and decisive as a dagger's thrust.
Talia narrowed her eyes. "What?"
Olivia met that glacial stare without flinching. A predatory smile played on her lips.
"Duke. He is a Duke," Olivia stated firmly. "And since you are now a mere commoner, you would do well to address him with the proper decorum."
Olivia leaned forward. "Or has living among the rabble caused you to forget the etiquette of the nobility?"
A bitter, razor-thin smile curled the corners of Talia's lips. "And is the daughter of Tharon truly going to lecture me on the intricacies of etiquette?"
She then shifted her gaze toward Mathias.
"And in case your memory has failed you, Olivia—he is my son. I shall address him in whatever manner I deem fit."
A jagged smile mirrored Talia's on Olivia's face. The mention of Tharon stoked the fires of her rage until they threatened to consume her.
Beside her, Isabella watched the exchange with hawk-like intensity.
"So," Isabella murmured to herself, a grim realization settling in. "This is what she meant. The banquet hasn't just turned sour—it is about to catch fire."