Chapter 158: Responsibility
The carriage didn’t just stop; it screeched, the iron wheels biting into the gravel of Tharon Palace like a predator marking its territory.
Serene stepped out. Her spine was a rigid line of defiance, her movements possessed by a cold, sharp confidence that felt like wearing a suit of armor made of glass. Leaving and returning—the old Serene would have perished at the thought. But she knew better now. This hellhole wasn’t just where she lived; it was the only soil where a weed like her could survive.
The moment she crossed the threshold, the atmosphere shifted. The air didn’t just feel cold; it felt thick, like breathing through wet wool. The servants didn’t look at her; they scuttled past, their faces drained of color, eyes wide and vibrating with a primal, unspoken panic.
"Seems Roland beat me back," she whispered, her own voice sounding alien in the oppressive silence.
She reached her chambers, her hand steady as she gripped the handle. She shoved. The door resisted. Something heavy and unresponsive was wedged against the wood. Serene gritted her teeth, throwing her shoulder into it. The wood shrieked against the floorboards, yielding inch by agonizing inch until the gap was wide enough.
Then, the world turned red.
A slumped, mangled heap lay at her feet. It wasn’t just a body; it was a ruin. The head was gone, leaving behind a jagged, visceral mess of neck and bone that looked like it had been torn rather than cut. The rug, once a delicate cream, was drinking from a widening, obsidian pool of gore.
It was the maid. The only soul in this gilded cage who had dared to offer her a cup of water without poison.
The air vanished from Serene’s lungs. Her throat turned to ash, and for a heartbeat, her heart didn’t beat—it clawed at her ribs, desperate to escape her chest.
"Hey, Mama. Do you like the surprise?"
The voice was sweet, melodic, and utterly devoid of a soul. Elvira was perched on the edge of the bed, her legs crossed with the casual grace of a bored queen. In her small, pale hand, she toyed with a dagger, watching a final, lazy bead of crimson slide down the steel and vanish into the silk sheets.
Elvira didn’t just sit; she reigned over the bed, her legs crossed with a sickening, royal nonchalance. In her hand, a dagger danced—a silver sliver of malice that let a single, heavy drop of crimson fall onto the white silk. It blossomed there like a dying rose.
She slid off the mattress, her footsteps as silent as a predator on velvet. The distance between them vanished before Serene could even draw a full breath.
"You really shouldn’t rely on rats to find a way out, Mama," Elvira whispered, her voice a sweet poison. "You should know by now... for you, every door in this world leads right back to me."
"I... I wasn’t trying to escape," Serene forced the words past the bile rising in her throat. Her voice was thin, a flickering candle in a gale.
"Of course not." Elvira tilted her head, a mockingly innocent gesture. "But tell me... where exactly does one go when they vanish from their own cage?"
Serene’s jaw locked. She anchored herself in silence, the only fortress she had left.
"The silent treatment? How nostalgic." Elvira’s eyes flared, shimmering with a sudden, jagged delight. "But then again, you don’t have to say it. It’s written all over your pathetic face. You went to see that bitch, didn’t you?"
Elvira let out a soft, airy laugh that made the hair on Serene’s neck stand up. "Actually, I should thank you. I’ve been looking for an excuse to have a little... reunion with her. Thank you for the reminder, Mama."
"Elvira," Serene’s voice cracked, a plea disguised as a command. "Leave Olivia alone."
The air in the room died. Elvira’s expression flattened into something ancient and lethal, her eyes turning into two cold voids.
"Don’t piss me off, Mother," she hissed, the word Mother sounding like a slur. "Unless you want me to bring you her head to match the one on the floor. Now, get inside. Clean yourself up."
She leaned in, her breath cold against Serene’s ear.
"And remember... this is what happens to anyone who dares to lift a finger for you. They don’t just die. They become a mess for you to step over."
Elvira stepped into the hallway, her teeth gnawing at her thumbnail with a frantic, rhythmic intensity. Her mind wasn’t just spinning; it was a storm of jagged gears, grinding against one another.
"Olivia... Olivia..."
She whispered the name like a curse, or perhaps a prayer. The empty corridor seemed to swallow the sound. "You’re becoming such a wretched headache. You think you won? You think those strikes you landed on me were forgotten?" A slow, distorted smile pulled at her lips. "I haven’t forgotten the sting. And I’ve always been a very generous soul when it comes to paying back my debts... in full."
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"Me?"
The word didn’t sound like a question; it sounded like the snapping of a frozen branch. A dry, hollow laugh rattled in Matthias’s throat, a sound that died long before it could reach his eyes. Those eyes—once brilliant, now being slowly devoured by an encroaching, obsidian rot that mirrored the darkness in the room.
"Honestly, Kyle," Matthias rasped, "what kind of feverish nonsense are you spewing now?"
Kyle didn’t flinch. He remained anchored to the floor, his posture as rigid and unforgiving as a headstone. His gaze was no longer that of a friend; it was a surgeon’s scalpel—clinical, cold, and utterly devoid of mercy. He wasn’t looking for a conversation; he was looking for a tumor to excise. The silence between them didn’t just stretch—it calcified, hardening into a silent accusation that tasted like iron.
"What’s with that look?" Matthias’s voice dropped, sharpening into a dangerous, jagged edge. "Do you actually suspect me? Truly? Let’s use that logical brain of yours, Kyle. If I were the one holding the leash of a rebellion, I wouldn’t be wasting my breath on your pathetic little schemes. And I certainly wouldn’t have handed you the Empress’s movements on a silver platter."
He leaned forward, the darkness in his pupils pulsing with a frantic, rhythmic heartbeat.
"Unless, of course, you’ve forgotten who exactly is keeping this Empire from collapsing under its own weight."
Kyle exhaled—a long, agonizing sound of weariness that seemed to age him a decade in a single breath. The air between them felt like it was running out. "Matthias... you are my friend. I want to believe you."
"Your eyes aren’t saying you believe me," Matthias shot back, his fingers twitching restlessly against the cold stone of the wall, scratching at the surface as if trying to find a grip on reality.
Kyle’s face didn’t just go neutral; it went dead. He stood taller, his shoulders squaring as the invisible weight of the crown settled over him—not as a glory, but as a leaden shroud that suffocated the man to make room for the King. When he spoke again, the friend was gone. Only the Crown Prince remained.
"I am the heir to this Empire, Matthias," Kyle’s voice was now a flat, terrifying monotone. "My duty isn’t to my heart, nor to the memories we shared. It is to the stability of this realm. To protect it, I have to kill my personal feelings—even if the man I’m forced to look at across this line is my oldest friend."
Matthias let out a dry, rattling breath. "So that’s it? After everything, I’m just a ’case’ to be solved? A variable to be eliminated for the sake of your precious stability?"
"I am giving you a chance," Kyle countered, his gaze never wavering. "But don’t mistake my mercy for weakness. If I find that the shadow of this rebellion belongs to you, I will be the one to sign the warrant. I won’t hesitate. I can’t."
"But you know it isn’t me," Matthias hissed, the words catching in his scorched throat. The ink-black rings in his eyes began to pulse—a frantic, rhythmic rot that beat in sync with the rising panic he was desperate to hide.
"I know that I don’t want to make my sister a widow," Kyle replied.
The words weren’t delivered with sympathy; they were dropped like stones into a grave. His voice was flat, dead, stripped of every trace of human warmth. The temperature in the room didn’t just drop; it froze. Matthias recoiled as if Kyle had reached out and physically struck him.
"What? Are you already drafting the treason charges?" Matthias spat, a desperate fire flickering in his obsidian gaze. "Have you already built the gallows in your head, Kyle? Are you measuring my neck while I’m still breathing?"
"The safety of an entire nation is balanced on my shoulders, Matthias." Kyle took a single, heavy step forward. His shadow stretched across the floor, long and predatory, until it completely swallowed the Duke. "If there is even a shred of evidence—a single grain of truth that links you to this—I won’t stop the guillotine. I can’t stop it. Not for friendship. Not for her. You know the laws of this Empire. You know exactly how this game ends for losers."
Kyle hesitated for a fraction of a second, his gaze flickering with a ghost of the boy he used to be, but the edge of his voice remained razor-sharp.
"Do you think the Emperor is blind? Or perhaps you think he’s gone soft? Those rumors haven’t just reached the gutters; they’ve reached the throne. His spies breathe the same air we do, Matthias. They are in your halls, in your shadow." Kyle leaned in, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "I’m giving you a warning, not an arrest. For now. Clear your name. Find whatever rat is using your face to lead this rebellion and kill them—before the Emperor decides that killing you is the easier solution. This isn’t a favor, Matthias. It’s a precaution."