Leaving Talia's chambers with a heart heavy with unspoken truths, Olivia marched toward Amelia's room. She did not knock; the gravity of her news had stripped away the need for pleasantries.
As she swept inside, Amelia rose to greet her, but Olivia's gaze remained cold, fixed on a singular, grim purpose.
"Emelia," Olivia began, her voice cutting through the quiet of the room like a blade. "The Dowager Duchess has passed."
The color drained from Emelia's face. Her eyes widened, shimmering with a sudden, sharp disbelief. She swallowed hard, her voice a mere fracture of its former self. "What? How?"
"It happened today," Olivia replied curtly. "And I am not here for idle talk. Come. We are going."
Emelia blinked, her confusion mounting. "Going? Where?"
"To see her, of course. Where else would I take you at this hour?"
"In the dead of night?" Emelia recoiled, her breath hitching.
"I... I do not wish to go."
Olivia's brows knit together in incredulity. "What?"
"I cannot look upon her again—not like this," Emelia whispered, her gaze trembling.
Olivia crossed her arms, a sharp, impatient sigh escaping her lips.
"Listen to me. I came here for your sake. Tonight, they place her in the casket, and it shall never be opened again. If you do not look at her one last time now, the chance is gone forever. By tomorrow's dusk, she will be under the earth. Come with me now, before regret becomes your only companion."
Emelia cast her eyes to the floor, her throat tight. "I do not believe I shall regret it... we met but once in an entire lifetime."
A long, weary sigh escaped Olivia, the edges of her frustration softening into something akin to pity. She stepped forward, her hand firmly yet gently encircling Emelia's wrist.
"Follow me. I have something to tell you on the way. You need to see her."
Despite her protests, Emelia found herself led away, her footsteps echoing hollowly against the polished stone floor. They walked in a silence that felt thick, almost suffocating, until Olivia spoke, her voice low and edged with a memory too sharp to bear.
"Seeing someone only once in your life," Olivia said, staring straight ahead with eyes that shone with unshed tears, "does not grant you immunity from the sting of a missed farewell."
She paused, her breath hitching. "Many months ago, I brought a child into this world. A boy. But he was... stillborn.
" The word seemed to fracture in the air. "I saw him but once—just as you saw her. We shared only minutes in this life. There was a funeral, but I stayed away. I wasn't strong enough. I never visited his grave. Not once. Not to this very day."
She stopped and turned to Emelia, her gaze searching. "Do you know why?"
"Why?" Emelia asked, the weight of the confession settling heavily upon her.
"Because," Olivia whispered, "to this day, I perish under the weight of my own silence. He deserved that goodbye. He was my son, and I should have let him go with dignity. Instead, I let regret gnaw at my heart for months. Your brother tried to plead with me, but I was stubborn. I told myself it was easier this way."
She took a steadying breath and placed a hand on Emelia's arm. "Now, you stand where I once stood. Do not make my mistake. Bid your mother farewell—if only to honor the brief minutes life allowed you both."
They reached the heavy oak door. Olivia's hand lingered on the latch before she pushed it open.
The room was bathed in a dim, spectral light. The air was heavy with the stillness of a place holding its breath. In the center, the Duchess lay in her final, frozen repose.
Emelia stepped forward. Her voice was a fragile thread in the silence.
"Hello... I am your eldest daughter."
A faint, tragic smile touched her lips. "I don't suppose you'll answer. This is our third meeting... and our last. I've come to see you one more time... or perhaps I should call it a goodbye. So... Mother... rest in peace."
Without looking back, she turned toward the door.
Olivia stared at her, stunned by the brevity of the moment. "Is that all?"
Emelia's lips curled into a pained smile. "That is all I have to say. I think it is time for me to leave."
Olivia stepped aside to let her pass, catching the glint of tears that Emelia fought so desperately to hide. No one truly escapes their roots, Olivia thought.
Before following her out, Olivia cast one final look back into the room.
"We may not have been the finest of kin, Lady Eloise," she murmured with elegant solemnity. "But sleep now. All your children have said their goodbyes."
She closed the door with a quiet, reverent click, and the two women walked away into the shadows of the corridor, cloaked in a silence that was finally at peace.
Olivia drifted back to consciousness, her eyelids fluttering open like the wings of a moth.
Across the room, he stood—a silhouette carved from shadows and grief, entirely unaware that the veil of her sleep had lifted. She watched him in a silence so fragile it felt as though a single breath might shatter it.
His frame was rigid, arms locked tightly across his chest, his gaze anchored to some invisible point far beyond the windowpane. In the pale, filtered light, the wreckage of his vigil was laid bare: the bruised hollows beneath his eyes, the lingering crimson of clandestine tears, and the subtle, rhythmic tremor of a jaw held tight against an impending collapse.
A thin, ghostly spiral of smoke rose from the cigarette forgotten between his lips.
For a long moment, she remained still, feeling like a trespasser in the sanctuary of his sorrow. When she finally rose, her footsteps were mere whispers upon the floor, yet he remained submerged in his own world, deaf to the present.
With a gentle, deliberate motion, she reached out and plucked the cigarette from his lips, crushing its glowing amber heart against the tray.
"This is no good for you," she murmured, her voice a soft friction in the quiet.
Only then did he stir. He turned his head slowly, like a man waking from a fever dream. His eyes softened at the sight of her, though his smile was a pale, fractured thing.
"Ah, you're awake," he said, his voice rasped raw by exhaustion. "I hadn't realized."
He glanced around the room, searching for an anchor, before exhaling a breath that seemed to carry the weight of a lifetime. "Since you are up... you must prepare yourself. Today, we shall hold the funeral for the late Duchess. Just among ourselves."
"The funeral?"
"Yes," Matthias continued, his tone hollow. "It will be a private affair. No other family members will attend."
Olivia felt a cold prickle of defiance. "I see. It is necessary, I suppose... but what do you mean by 'prepare myself'? I will not be attending. You know well enough that I do not do funerals."
Matthias drew a long, ragged breath, his chest heaving with a mixture of restraint and despair. His brows knit together, and when he spoke, his voice was a low, firm vibration—heavy with the burden of duty rather than the heat of anger.
"Olivia, you are the Duchess. You cannot be absent. This is not a matter of choice."
"Do not try me, Matthias," she countered, turning away. "You know my loathing for these spectacles. It isn't as if there was a bond between the late Duchess and me. It is a private service; you, Leon, and the others can see to it."
She moved to retreat, to slip back into the safety of her indifference, but he moved faster. He reached out, his hand a desperate anchor, pulling her back until he could bury his face in the curve of her neck.
"Olivia... I need you," he whispered, his breath hot against her skin. "I cannot bid her farewell alone. Please... do not do this again. Do not leave me to walk behind another casket by myself."
The words struck her like a physical blow. They echoed through the chambers of her mind, a haunting refrain of the day she had stayed behind while he stood solitary at the grave of their child. The memory of her desertion bled into the present.
She resisted for a heartbeat, her body stiff with the instinct to flee. But then, the iron walls of her will began to crumble under the sheer gravity of his need. She lowered her gaze, the surrender tasting like ash in her mouth.
"Fine," she whispered to the empty air. "I will be there."
Matthias loosened his grip, his hands falling away as if the strength had finally bled out of them. He turned to leave, his final words lingering in the air like fading smoke, haunting the space between them.
"I will wait for you at the rear gate," he said, his voice a low vibration. "You will come... won't you?"
The door clicked shut, leaving Olivia anchored in a hollow silence. It wasn't long before her maid entered, carrying the weight of the morning in her arms: a mourning gown of heavy, midnight silk.
It was a shroud of a dress, its fabric seemingly woven from grief itself. At the sight of it, Olivia's breath hitched; a tidal wave of memory threatened to breach the fragile dam of her composure.
She remembered the last time she had been forced into such attire—how she had clawed at the fabric, tearing it to shreds in a desperate, manic rejection of a reality she could not bear. But today, the fire was gone. She did not flinch. She did not resist. She allowed the cold silk to slide over her shoulders, her face a mask of porcelain pallor, her silence far heavier than any lamentation.
Kira, noting the ghostly hue of her mistress's cheeks, hesitated as she fastened the final button. "My Lady," she ventured softly, "you are so pale. Shall I apply a touch of rouge? Something light, that no one would notice?"
Olivia raised a hand, a slow and ghostly gesture of refusal. "No," she murmured, looking not at her reflection, but through it. "I do not wish to wear a mask when I meet him."
The carriage jolted through the grey umbilical light of dawn. The first rays of the sun were just beginning to bruise the horizon with shades of silver and slate. It was a calculated hour; the burial would pass like a secret whispered in the dark.
The ceremony was a skeletal affair—brief and agonizingly quiet. Earth fell upon earth with a dull, final thud. Prayers were murmured through bowed heads. Matthias stood beside Olivia, his shoulder brushing hers as if he were a drowning man and she the only solid ground.
Kyle and Lily approached, their movements stiff with the solemnity of the hour. Even Lily, who had never known the late Duchess, seemed touched by the shadow of the grave. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.
Leon clung to Isabella, leaning into her as though the very bones of his grief had robbed him of the strength to stand. His eyes, bloodshot and glassy, were fixed upon the freshly turned earth of his mother's resting place. Nearby, Emilia watched the proceedings with a terrifying stillness—no tears, no joy, just a face wiped clean of all humanity.
The gloom of the service passed with a merciful, yet haunting, swiftness. Emilia and Lily departed almost immediately, the former refusing to linger a moment longer than protocol demanded.
The end had come.
A few paces away, Olivia found herself drifting. Her gaze was not anchored to the sorrow of the living, but drawn toward a different headstone, a different name. It was as if an invisible hand were tugging at her soul.
"Elias Luceron." Son of Mathias and Olivia lucerone.