"Your son, you say? How utterly charming."
Olivia set her fork down with a chilling, deliberate calmness.
A frigid smile played on her lips, sharp enough to draw blood.
"I truly intended to let this evening pass without incident," Olivia began, her voice low and dangerous.
"But your audacity never fails to startle me. I wonder which fool convinced you that you still hold any scrap of authority or belonging in this house?"
"You are a Hamill, Madam. You are no longer a Lockron."
A flicker of bitter resentment crossed Talia's face, but she masked it quickly behind her stony facade.
Olivia didn't slow down.
"Your son? No, my dear. This man is my husband—the Duke of Lockron."
"Do not attempt this sudden performance of motherhood before me; I am well-acquainted with the dirt you are molded from."
A stunned silence smothered the room.
The words vibrated through the air, sending visible shockwaves through the gathered guests.
Talia was the only one to break the stillness, letting out a slow, mocking laugh.
"Oh, how incredibly entertaining."
She leaned back, her eyes glinting with malice.
"I stand corrected, Your Grace. You are right. You and he truly do make a magnificent pair—the spawn of that scoundrel and the daughter of Tharon."
"It is almost... poetic."
Leila, her face pale, reached out to catch Talia's sleeve.
"Mother, please... that is enough. You've crossed the line. She is the Duchess."
Talia didn't even look at her.
She violently wrenched her arm away, shoving Leila back.
The girl stumbled, but Mathias caught her before she could hit the floor.
His fury ignited instantly, his voice a thunderous roar.
"That is enough! You have stepped far beyond your bounds, woman!"
"I have held my peace only for Leila's sake. How dare you lay a hand on her?"
"Mathias, stay out of this!"
The sound of Olivia's palm striking the table cracked through the dining hall like a gunshot.
The echo of her wrath silenced every breath in the room. Her voice followed, sharp as a honed blade.
"What? Olivia, she is my sister—"
"Mathias."
She turned her gaze to him.
He locked eyes with her for a single, fleeting second and instinctively recoiled.
He didn't need words to understand the lethal intent in her stare.
Olivia walked toward Talia, stopping only inches from her face.
"You know, there is one question that has been haunting me," Olivia said, her tone dropping into a perilous whisper.
"How in the name of hell did a woman like you ever become a mother?"
Talia went rigid, but Olivia continued, her voice gaining a terrifying edge.
"How could someone like you bring children into this world only to discard them?"
"You carried them for nine months, yet you treat them as if they were nothing."
"In truth, you show more mercy to strangers than you do to your own flesh and blood."
Olivia's eyes narrowed in genuine bewilderment.
"It's not just that. You grant the love you denied your own children to a complete stranger—someone who doesn't share a drop of your blood. Why?"
The accusation landed with the weight of a death blow.
The air in the room grew thick, vibrating with the anticipation of an explosion.
Mathias crossed his arms.
He could have intervened to deescalate the fire, but part of him—the wounded child inside—wanted to see just how far his wife would go to defend his honor.
Talia's lips trembled.
She bit them so hard they nearly bled, as if she were wrestling with a tidal wave of guilt, rage, and regret.
For a fleeting second, a shadow of raw pain flickered across her features as she met Olivia's piercing stare.
"And who are you," Talia rasped, her voice shaking with suppressed emotion, "to sit in judgment of me?"
"Do you even know what I endured? The years of bearing the unbearable?"
Talia's breath became shallow, her legendary composure finally disintegrating.
"How was I supposed to love the children of a traitor?"
"I gave that man my heart, my years, my wealth—everything! And he drove a blade into my back."
"How could I love them when they are his perfect image?"
She gestured wildly, her voice rising to a frantic pitch.
"His face, his laugh, his very gait... every detail about them is a shadow that hunts me! Tell me, Duchess—how?"
The bitter, long-buried ghosts of her past were finally clawing their way out.
"Every time Leila looks at me with those eyes—that same look that destroyed my life—do you realize how agonizing it is?"
"To be unable to love your own daughter? To have her mere presence become my personal hell?"
Her voice cracked under the weight of the confession. She pointed a trembling finger at Mathias.
"And him? Look at him! He is a carbon copy of the man I despise."
"Tell me, how am I meant to love him? Just tell me how!"
A suffocating silence descended.
Mathias swallowed hard, his face an unreadable mask, though a flicker of ancient sorrow shimmered in his eyes.
Leila sat frozen, her face drained of color.
The woman who had raised her, the mother she had spent a lifetime trying to please, had never loved her.
Not even for a fleeting second.
The cold realization that her mother didn't just prefer her sister, but actively hated her, shattered something deep inside her.
Olivia's gaze shifted between Mathias and Leila.
Of everyone in the room, she understood their pain most acutely.
She thought of Amelia, who had always felt like an intruder stealing a mother who wasn't hers.
She thought of Leon, the quietest among them, caught in a storm he never asked for.
A broken family, bound by blood, but torn apart by the irreparable.
Without a word, Olivia's hand moved.
It was an instinctive, visceral reaction born of pure loathing.
Crack.
The sound of the slap echoed through the hall, leaving a ringing, absolute silence in its wake.
Talia stumbled back, clutching her cheek in disbelief.
"What is wrong with you?" Talia screamed, her voice vibrating with shock.
Olivia's eyes were twin furnaces, seemingly consuming the oxygen in the room.
She stepped forward, her body trembling with a rage that bordered on the divine.
"You hate them because they look like him? That is your reason?"
Olivia spat the words, gasping for air. "Is that truly it? That is all?"
Her chest heaved. She turned suddenly to Mathias, her voice reaching a near-hysterical pitch.
"Mathias and I—we are enemies!"
She roared the word, the sound sharp enough to draw blood. "Enemies! Do you understand?"
Then, her voice dropped to a raw, exposed whisper.
"We are fire and water. And yet... I was a mother once."
"Perhaps only for minutes, or hours, before my child was put in the ground. But I was a mother."
A pained, jagged laugh escaped her.
"And believe me, he looked exactly like his father. That sharp nose, that ink-black hair..."
She faltered, her gaze dropping as if she were looking into a past only she could see.
"I didn't even get to see the color of his eyes."
The room went deathly still.
"But I never hated him," Olivia whispered, her voice regaining a terrifying iron-clad resolve.
"Not for a moment. Not for a single heartbeat. He was my precious child."
She looked up at Talia again, her eyes burning with pure disbelief.
"There is no love between Mathias and me. This is a political contract."
"But I could never hate the child I carried simply because of who his father was."
"He was mine," Olivia hissed. "I carried him for nine months. I longed for him. I held him in these very hands!"
Her voice shook, but the fire in her eyes didn't dim.
"And you? You hate them because of a resemblance? Have you lost your mind?"
"Your children are alive and standing right in front of you! Your body was their first home!"
Talia remained frozen, her mind struggling to reject the truth in Olivia's words.
But Olivia wasn't finished. Her voice turned quiet, funereal.
"Do you know," she murmured, "if my life had been the price for his, I would have paid it without a second thought."
"That child was mine, even if he were sired by a demon. I would have given my soul just to hear his voice once."
She took a slow, shuddering breath and shook her head.
"I don't understand you. I never will. Why does life give the gift of motherhood to women like you?"
Those words, though spoken with a hushed finality, fell like a death sentence.
A heavy, suffocating silence descended upon the hall.
The very air felt leaden, pressing against their chests until breath became a chore.
Finally, Mathias, who had been a silent specter throughout the storm, noticed the frantic trembling of Olivia's fingers.
He stepped forward, pulling her gently but firmly behind him.
He took her hand, his voice resonant and cold as he addressed the room.
"Everyone, out. I have grown weary of this theater. Leave us."
Once the doors had groaned shut, Olivia stood before him.
Her small frame, usually so rigid with defiance, now appeared dangerously fragile.
Mathias let out a long, weary sigh and sank onto the sofa.
He watched her as she hesitated before she finally took a seat beside him.
"Why did you do it?" he asked.
His voice was calm, measured, yet underpinned by an uncompromising firmness.
Olivia turned to him, her brow furrowing in genuine confusion. "Do what?"
He exhaled deeply, running a hand through his disheveled hair.
"Why did you defend me? And Leila? You said it yourself—we are enemies. So why stand by my side?"
Shadows danced across Olivia's face. She averted her gaze, her voice a mere murmur.
"I have my reasons. Please... do not ask me of this again."
There was a finality in her tone that barred any further entry.
Mathias could have demanded the truth, but something in her shattered poise made him soften.
He simply nodded.
Silence settled between them, thick as dust.
Then, in a voice so low it was almost a secret, Mathias whispered:
"They were green."
Olivia's entire body went rigid. "What?"
He turned to her at last, his gaze heavy.
"His eyes. You said you never got to see them. They were green."
A sad, distant smile touched Olivia's lips.
"So, in the end... he truly did look like you."
A lump formed in Mathias's throat. He managed a slow, painful nod.
"Yes. He looked just like me."
A silence even heavier than the last settled over them.
Then, she spoke again. Her voice carried a vulnerability she rarely permitted.
"Mathias... I truly know we are enemies. But do you hate me?"
She laced her fingers together in her lap, her knuckles white.
"I know you do not love me. But do you hate me?"