Episode-780
Chapter : 1559
Marry me.
He could have said yes. He could have been King.
"No," Lloyd whispered. "That wasn't my story."
His story was here. In the mess. In the noise.
He shifted, trying to get comfortable.
A soft knock came at the door.
Lloyd froze. "Go away," he groaned. "I'm asleep."
The door opened anyway.
It wasn't Rosa. It wasn't Faria.
It was his mother. Duchess Milody.
She stepped inside, carrying a small tray with a steaming mug and a plate of biscuits. She wore a dressing gown of blue silk. She looked elegant, calm, and terrifyingly perceptive.
"I thought you might be hungry," Milody said.
"I'm fine, Mother," Lloyd said, sitting up.
"You are thin," she observed. "And you are sleeping on a sofa. Again."
She set the tray on the desk. She sat in the chair Rosa had occupied earlier.
"So," Milody said. "You survived."
"I did."
"And you saved the girl."
"Yes."
"And you accidentally got engaged to a Princess, divorced your wife who refuses to leave, and have a Marquess's daughter threatening to burn down the house."
Lloyd buried his face in his hands. "Is there a question?"
"No," Milody smiled. "Just an observation. You have had a busy month."
She handed him the mug. It was hot chocolate. Rich, dark, and sweet.
"Drink," she said.
Lloyd took a sip. It tasted like childhood.
"I saw them," Milody said. "The three of them. Leaving your study. They looked like generals leaving a peace conference where no one signed the treaty."
"It's a mess, Mother," Lloyd admitted. "I don't know what to do."
"You don't have to do anything right now," Milody said. "You are allowed to just... be."
She looked at him.
"I am proud of you, Lloyd," she said softly.
Lloyd looked up. "Proud? I caused a diplomatic incident. I lied to father. I risked everything."
"You acted with honor," Milody said. "You saved the innocent. That is what a Ferrum does. Your father... he shouted for an hour when he read the report. But then... then he went to the armory and polished his sword. He is proud too. He just doesn't know how to say it without growling."
Lloyd smiled weakly. "He growls well."
"He does," Milody agreed.
She stood up. She smoothed his hair, a gesture she hadn't done since he was a child.
"Rosa," Milody said. The name hung in the air.
"I'm not talking to her," Lloyd said instantly. The wall came up.
"I know," Milody said. "But she is talking to you. In her own way. She brought you water."
"She brought me a headache."
"She brought you sustenance," Milody corrected. "She is trying, Lloyd. She is broken, just like you. And she is trying to put the pieces back together in the dark."
"She betrayed me," Lloyd whispered. The hurt was still there, raw and bleeding.
"She betrayed a stranger," Milody said. "She saved the man she knows. Think about that."
She walked to the door.
"Sleep, my son. Tomorrow, the sun rises. And the war continues. But for tonight... you are safe."
She left.
Lloyd sat there, holding the hot chocolate.
She betrayed a stranger. She saved the man she knows.
It was a complex thought. Too complex for 2 AM.
He finished the chocolate. He lay back down.
The silence of the house settled around him. It wasn't the silence of the empty palace in Saber. It was the silence of a house that was full. Full of people. Full of problems. Full of life.
Lloyd closed his eyes.
"Okay," he whispered to the darkness. "I'm back."
He drifted off.
And for the first time in a month, he didn't dream of fire or cages or red eyes in the dark.
He dreamed of a garden. A strange, chaotic garden.
In the center was a block of ice. But the sun was shining on it. And inside the ice, something was moving. Something was trying to get out.
And standing around it were three flowers. One purple. One red. One white.
They were tangled together, their roots fighting for the same soil. But they were all growing.
Lloyd slept. The Lion of the North was resting.
But outside, in the dark, the world kept turning. The Curator was plotting. The Firefly Corporation was building.
And in her room down the hall, Rosa Siddik sat by her window, looking at the moon. She touched her lips, remembering a ghost of a kiss that hadn't happened yet.
"Zero," she whispered. "Zero is a starting point."
She closed her eyes.
"And I am very good at counting."
Chapter : 1560
The dust in the archives was the kind that didn’t just sit on surfaces; it seemed to hang in the air, judging you for disturbing its peace. It was a dry, heavy smell, like old paper and forgotten secrets. Lloyd Ferrum sat at a large wooden table, a stack of leather-bound books in front of him. He wasn't really reading them. He was staring at a page that detailed crop rotations from three hundred years ago, but his mind was thousands of miles away, back in the city of Saber, back in the heat and the noise and the anger of Altamira.
He rubbed his eyes. The mission to rescue Risa had been a success. They had pulled it off. The bad guys were dead or neutralized, the girl was safe, and they had even managed to install a friendly queen on the throne. By all accounts, it was a victory that should be celebrated with wine and songs. But Lloyd didn't feel like celebrating. He felt like he had just walked through a sewer and was still trying to scrub the smell off his skin.
The door to the archives creaked open. It wasn't a loud noise, but in the silence of the room, it sounded like a gunshot. Lloyd didn't jump. He just sighed, closed the book on crop rotations, and leaned back in his chair.
"You know," Lloyd said without turning around, "sneaking up on a man who just spent weeks fighting assassins is a good way to get a book thrown at your head. And these books are heavy. They have metal corners. It would hurt."
Jasmin stepped into the light of the glow-stones. She looked small. That was the first thing Lloyd noticed. She had always been small, of course—she was a handmaiden, not a warrior like Ken or a princess like Isabella—but today she looked fragile. Her shoulders were slumped, and her usually bright eyes were clouded with something dark. She wasn't wearing her usual cheerful expression. She looked like someone who hadn't slept in days.
"I wasn't trying to sneak, Master Lloyd," Jasmin said softly. Her voice echoed slightly in the large room. "I just... I knew you would be here. You always come here when you don't want to talk to people."
Lloyd smirked. "You make me sound antisocial. I love people. I just prefer them when they aren't asking me difficult questions or trying to get me to plan a wedding." He gestured to the empty chair across from him. "Sit down. You look like you're about to fall over. If you faint, I'll have to carry you, and my back is still sore from sleeping in carriages."
Jasmin sat down. She didn't smile at his joke. She just stared at her hands, which were resting on the table. She looked at her fingers as if they belonged to someone else.
"Master," she started, then stopped. She took a breath and tried again. "Lloyd. In Saber... when we were in the capital..."
Lloyd watched her carefully. He knew what was coming. He had seen it in her eyes ever since they crossed the border back into Bethelham. She was a kind soul. She believed in the goodness of people. What she had seen in Altamira—the hatred, the vitriol, the sheer, unadulterated loathing directed at anyone from Bethelham—had shaken her to her core. It didn't fit into her worldview.
"Spit it out, Jasmin," Lloyd said gently. "We've been through hell together. You don't need to filter your words with me."
Jasmin looked up. Her eyes were wet. "Why do they hate us so much?"
The question hung in the air. It was a simple question, five words, but it carried the weight of the entire world.
"I mean," she continued, her voice trembling, "I understand politics. I understand that kings fight over land and resources. I get that. But this... this was different. The people in the streets, the shopkeepers, even the children... when they heard our accents, when they realized where we were from... it was like they were looking at monsters. It wasn't just anger. It was disgust. It was like we were a disease."
She paused, wiping a tear from her cheek. "We saved them. We helped them. But even then, I could feel it. The hatred. It was so deep, Lloyd. It was personal. Why is this war so personal? Why do they hate the name Ferrum like it's a curse word?"