The weight of her confession seemed to hang in the air, but Mathias's reaction did something unexpected. It acted as a catalyst, stripping away the ghost of her father and the shame of her mother. If he didn't care for the crown or the lineage, then why should she? In that moment, the crushing guilt began to dissolve. She didn't have to be a Tharon or an Imperial—she could just be Olivia. Her life belonged to her, and her alone.
"Are you truly indifferent to my lineage?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper, testing the sincerity of his silence.
"Not in the slightest," Mathias replied with a steady, unyielding conviction. "I am perfectly content with Olivia—just Olivia—without a family, without a name, without anything else."
A sense of relief, strange and unfamiliar, washed over her, chasing away the grief that had draped over her like a shroud. Though his sudden shift into tenderness felt almost illogical given their history, she felt the tension in his grip.
