"And who else," Olivia's voice cut through the air, brittle and indifferent as a winter frost, "could it possibly be?"
Isabella lunged forward, her fingers trembling as they seized the silk collar of Olivia's gown. Her eyes were twin embers of fury.
"Olivia, I am in no mood for your riddles! Where is my father? Do not think your petty deceptions will work on me anymore!"
Olivia did not offer the grace of an explanation. Instead, she slowly raised her hand, letting a delicate silver chain slide through her fingers.
It caught the dying embers of the afternoon sun, shimmering with a sickly pallor. At its end hung a small, engraved plate: Edward Norman.
In the corner, a tiny, meticulously etched feather—a mark as unmistakable as a heartbeat.
The fire in Isabella's eyes died instantly, replaced by a cold, paralyzing dread. Her grip slackened, her fingers slipping from the silk.
Her breath came in shallow, jagged gasps as her hands reached out, hovering in the air with a ghost of hope.
"No... no, it cannot be," she whispered, her voice fracturing. "He promised... he promised he would return. This is a nightmare, Olivia. Tell me you are lying. Please, look at me and tell me it is a lie!"
Her tear-stricken gaze searched Olivia's face for a crack in the mask. "Where did you get this? He gave it to you, didn't he? He sent it as a message?"
Olivia's expression remained an impenetrable void.
"I took it from his cold body," she replied, her tone devoid of mercy, "before he was committed to the earth."
The realization struck Isabella with the force of a physical blow. The world shattered.
"FATHER!"
A raw, primal scream tore from her throat—a sound so steeped in agony that even Olivia, in her icy detachment, felt a sudden, sharp constriction in her chest.
Isabella collapsed, her body wracked by tremors that seemed to shake her very soul. She threw herself upon the damp earth of the grave, clinging to the cold soil as if she could reach through the dirt to the man beneath.
"Please, Father... do not leave me alone. You promised!"
Olivia watched the ruin of the girl in silence. When the shadows grew long and the air turned bitter, she exhaled a weary sigh and knelt beside the broken figure.
Her voice softened, though it retained its iron edge. "This is the truth, Isabella. You must look at it. Now, rise. The sun has already dipped below the horizon; we must return to the manor."
But Isabella was a hollow shell. Her tears fell silently now, her strength spent. She stared through Olivia, her eyes vacant and haunted.
"What? I will not leave him. My father... he always hated being alone. I will stay. I've only just found him."
Olivia's patience snapped. She crossed her arms, her brow furrowing with irritation. "Splendid. Now she has lost her wits. Isabella, wake up! We cannot stay here!"
There was no answer.
Frustrated, Olivia seized Isabella's arm, attempting to haul her to her feet, but the girl fought back with a frantic, desperate strength, clawing at the earth as if trying to root herself to the spot.
"For heaven's sake, Isabella! Is this the hour for madness? The sun is gone! Do you think they will believe we spent this entire time at the market?"
Nothing. Not a flicker of reason.
With a sharp, huffed breath of surrender, Olivia turned and signaled to the coachman waiting in the gloom. "You! Come here. Carry her to the carriage."
The coachman hesitated for a heartbeat before obeying. He gathered Isabella into his arms, but she fought him like a wild creature, her fingernails scraping against the frozen ground, leaving trails of blood in the dirt.
"Please, no! Let me stay!" she wailed, her voice hoarse with a terrifying despair. "I haven't seen him in two years! I need to be with him!"
Olivia remained unmoved, a silhouette of stone against the twilight. She nodded to the driver, who hoisted the girl upward.
Isabella's fingers, torn and bleeding from her futile struggle, hung limp—a piteous sight that would have moved a heart of flint. Yet Olivia simply turned toward the carriage, her eyes already fixed on the road ahead.
Olivia climbed into the carriage and settled into the plush velvet seat opposite Isabella, crossing her legs with a practiced, feline grace.
Isabella had fallen into a deathly silence; her eyes were vacant, her limbs limp and heavy. She looked for all the world like a marionette whose strings had been cruelly severed, discarded in a corner.
Olivia studied her with a cold, analytical curiosity. A question flickered in her mind: Could any father truly be worth such a spectacle? Was there a man alive who deserved to have a soul shattered in his name? Olivia pondered her own father; she knew with a chilling certainty that she would shed no tears when his time came. On the contrary, his funeral might be the only day she felt like dancing.
The rhythmic clack-clack of the carriage wheels echoed through the desolate streets, the only sound in the oppressive silence. Isabella remained detached from reality, her face a mask of porcelain pallor, her frame still seized by sporadic, involuntary shudders.
"I cannot believe he is gone," Isabella whispered at last, her voice so frail it was nearly swallowed by the groaning of the carriage springs.
Olivia leaned back against the padded upholstery, exhaling a thin, weary sigh. "Believe it. The past is a tomb, Isabella. There is no key that can reopen it."
A long, jagged silence stretched between them before Isabella spoke again, her voice bleeding with raw hurt. "You do not understand. He was my entire world. My only family."
A fleeting shadow crossed Olivia's features, gone as quickly as it appeared. "Humans die, Isabella. It is the only thing they do with any consistency."
"Yes... I suppose you are right," Isabella murmured.
She leaned her head against the carriage door, her features slackening as she struggled to stifle the broken sobs that still threatened to rise. For a fleeting second, a flicker of somber understanding passed between them—a ghost of a connection that vanished like mist in the wind.
When the carriage finally lurched to a halt before the looming silhouette of the manor, the journey felt as though it had lasted an eternity. Isabella followed Olivia inside like a shadow, her movements mechanical, her eyes—once vibrant and full of fire—now hollowed out by grief.
The butler stood at the grand entrance, his face a practiced mask of neutral servitude. Yet, his eyes sharpened as they took in Isabella's disheveled hair, her ghostly complexion, and the dark, rhythmic drip of blood from her torn fingertips.
Had the Duchess finally broken the young lady? The suspicion stirred darkly in his mind, but he knew better than to voice such thoughts—not in the presence of Her Grace. Instead, he bowed with polished precision.
"Welcome back, Your Grace. I am to inform you that the Duke and Lord Leon shall remain at the Imperial Palace this evening."
Olivia brushed past him without a glance, her voice a monotonous chime of indifference. "Very well. It matters little to me. As for dinner, do not bother. I have no appetite for it."
The grand staircase loomed before them, a mountain of polished marble and cold shadows.
Olivia ascended with a steady, rhythmic pace, while Isabella trailed behind in a spectral silence, drawn along as if bound by an invisible, unbreakable thread. They crossed the threshold into Olivia's private chambers, a room that felt more like a sanctuary of secrets than a place of rest.
Olivia turned, her eyes sweeping over the trembling girl.
"May I ask," she began, her voice dry and biting, "why you have followed me to my sanctuary? Have you not had enough of my company for one day?"
"Olivia," Isabella murmured, the word finally breaking the suffocating stillness. "I must know. I want to know how he died."
Olivia exhaled a slow, weary breath, her fingers moving to rub her temples as if warding off a mounting headache. "Ah. The gruesome details. And to what end? Are you weaving a shroud of vengeance, or perhaps a cloak of martyrdom?"
Isabella's patience, thin as a fraying cord, finally snapped. "I want the truth! Only the truth. Tell me... I need to know."
Olivia leaned back against a heavy mahogany bureau, her features cast in an unreadable play of light and shadow.
"Mmm, I had hoped to avoid this tiresome conversation, but if you insist... very well. He died... struggling. He was strangled."
The air seemed to vanish from the room. Isabella's fingers twitched convulsively, her breath hitching in a series of jagged stutters.
Her voice was a mere ghost of a sound. "Then... your father... he is the one who—"
"My father?" Olivia interrupted, her tone bordering on a cruel sort of amusement. "No, Isabella. You are quite mistaken. My father would never be so careless as to kill a man from whom he could still wring a profit."
Isabella's brow furrowed in a mask of agonizing confusion. "Then who? If not him, then who could have done such a thing?"
A heavy, portentous silence fell over the room. For a heartbeat, something flickered in Olivia's gaze—a flash of something dark, ancient, and utterly inexplicable.
"It was I," Olivia said, her voice dropping to a calm that was far more terrifying than any scream. "I am the one who killed him."