Episode-856
Chapter : 1711
"This isn't about business," Lloyd said, his voice dropping an octave, stripping away the sarcasm and the bravado. "And it isn't about the war. It's about the future of our Houses."
Milody raised an eyebrow. "You’re being dramatic, Lloyd. It doesn’t suit you. Get to the point."
"Mina is pregnant," Lloyd said.
The words hung in the air. They didn't land with a thud; they landed with a complete, vacuum-sealing silence. It was as if he had sucked all the oxygen out of the room. The dust motes seemed to stop dancing. The faint sounds of the estate outside—the distant clang of the smithy, the chirping of birds—vanished.
For a long, agonizing minute, nobody moved.
Milody didn’t gasp. She didn’t scream. She simply froze, her hand halfway to the teapot she had been reaching for. Her eyes, usually so warm when looking at him, turned into chips of absolute zero ice. She wasn’t looking at her son anymore; she was looking at a catastrophic error in a ledger. She was calculating. Lloyd could practically see the gears turning behind her eyes—damage assessment, risk management, fallout containment.
Nilufa’s reaction was more visceral. She slumped back against the cushions as if she had been physically struck. Her hand went to her mouth, stifling a small, sharp intake of breath. She looked from Mina to Lloyd, and then back to Mina, her eyes filling with a profound, crushing disappointment. It wasn't anger. Anger would have been easier to handle. It was the look of a mother realizing her daughter had just walked willingly into a fire.
"Lloyd," Milody said finally. Her voice was terrifyingly calm. It was the voice she used when ordering an execution or rearranging the seating chart for a hostile banquet. "Please tell me you did not just say what I think you said."
"She is pregnant," Lloyd repeated, not backing down. "With my child."
"With your child," Milody echoed, testing the words as if they were poisonous berries. "You are married to Rosa Siddik. Mina is Rosa’s sister. You are currently in a magically binding engagement with Princess Amina of Zakaria. And you have... impregnated your sister-in-law."
"Technically," Lloyd started, his defensive sarcasm flaring up despite his better judgment, "Rosa and I are separated. And the engagement with Amina is—"
"Silence," Milody commanded. It wasn't a shout. It was a whisper that carried the weight of a guillotine blade. She turned her gaze to Mina. "And you? You, the scholar? The sensible one? You allowed this?"
Mina looked down, tears welling in her eyes. "It... it wasn't a calculation, Duchess. It just... happened."
"Nothing 'just happens' when you are dealing with the heir to an Arch Duchy!" Milody snapped, her composure cracking for the first time. She stood up and began to pace the room, her movements sharp and agitated. "Do you have any idea what this means? Do you understand the sheer, unmitigated disaster you have created?"
She whirled on Lloyd. "Polygamy is one thing, Lloyd. Men of your station take second wives. It is expected. It is managed. But this? A child out of wedlock? With the sister of your legal wife? While you are negotiating a royal marriage with a foreign power?" She laughed, a short, harsh sound. "You haven't just created a scandal. You've handed our enemies a loaded cannon and invited them to shoot us."
Lloyd stood his ground, though he felt about two inches tall. "I know the implications, Mother. That's why we called you. We need to handle this."
"Handle it?" Nilufa spoke up, her voice trembling. "How do you handle ruin, Lord Ferrum? How do you handle shame?" She looked at Mina, her eyes wet. "Mina... how could you? Rosa... she is your sister. She saved me. She carried the weight of this family for ten years while I slept. And this is how you repay her? By stealing her husband and bearing his bastard?"
The word 'bastard' hit Mina like a physical blow. She flinched, a sob escaping her throat. Lloyd moved instantly, placing a hand on her shoulder, squeezing tight.
"Stop," Lloyd said, his voice hard. "Do not call the child that. And do not blame her. This was my choice as much as hers. If there is blame, place it on me."
"Oh, I have plenty of blame for you, Lloyd," Milody said, stopping her pacing to glare at him. "But blame is useless right now. We are past blame. We are in the realm of survival."
Chapter : 1712
She walked over to the window, staring out at the manicured gardens. Her reflection in the glass was grim. "The nobility feeds on scandal like sharks feed on blood. If this gets out—the truth of it—House Ferrum will be a laughingstock. Our honor will be shredded. The Zakarians will see it as an insult to their Princess and could withdraw the alliance. The King... the King might even strip you of your command to save face."
She turned back to them, her face a mask of cold pragmatism. "We are not celebrating a grandchild today, Lloyd. We are containing a biological weapon that threatens to blow up two Great Houses."
Lloyd felt a cold knot in his stomach. He had faced armies of undead, fought fire demons, and stared down gods. But standing here, in this quiet, velvet-draped room, facing the disappointment of two mothers and the ruin of his reputation, he realized that this was the one battle he had absolutely no idea how to fight. He was a master of logistics, of engineering, of war. But this? This was a mess of human hearts and social laws, and there was no algorithm to solve it.
"We need a plan," Lloyd said, his voice sounding hollow even to his own ears.
"No," Milody corrected him, her eyes narrowing. "You need a miracle. And since you seem to have used up your supply of those in the Jahl Arena, you are going to have to settle for a lie."
The silence that followed Milody’s declaration was heavy, thick with the unsaid and the unthinkable. A lie. It was the currency of the nobility, the mortar that held the great houses together, but Lloyd had spent the last year trying to build his life on hard truths and steel. To revert to deception now felt like a defeat, yet looking at the tear-streaked face of Mina and the grim visage of his mother, he knew he had no other ammunition.
Lady Nilufa was the first to break the silence, her voice trembling with a mix of maternal heartbreak and aristocratic horror. "A lie?" she asked, her gaze drifting to the window as if searching for an escape route from this conversation. "What lie could possibly cover this? The child exists. It will grow. It will have his eyes, or her chin. You cannot hide a life, Duchess."
"We hide sins every day, Nilufa," Milody replied, her voice cooling into the tone of a general surveying a map. She walked back to the center of the room, her movements precise. "We dress them in silk and call them politics. This is no different. We just need to find the right silk."
She turned her gaze on Lloyd, dissecting him. "Before we construct the narrative, I need to know the full extent of the damage. The board must be clear. Where is Rosa?"
The question hung in the air like a guillotine blade. Lloyd felt Mina stiffen beside him. This was the second bomb, the one that would detonate the wreckage of the first.
"She’s gone," Lloyd said, his voice flat. He didn't want to elaborate, didn't want to relive the frozen hell of Serrum Town, but he knew Milody wouldn't accept vagueness.
"Gone is a direction, not a location," Milody snapped. "Is she dead? Is she in a convent? Is she raising an army?"
"She is... exiled," Lloyd chose the word carefully. "Self-imposed. We had a confrontation. It was... violent. She left. I do not know where she is, and I do not expect her to return."
Nilufa let out a low, pained sound, pressing a handkerchief to her lips. "My winter flower..." she whispered. "Driven away."
"She wasn't driven away," Lloyd defended himself, though the guilt tasted like ash in his mouth. "She chose to leave. She couldn't accept the reality of the situation."
"The reality being that you were sleeping with her sister," Milody interjected dryly. "Let’s not mince words, Lloyd. You broke the contract. You broke the woman. And now you’ve broken the rules of succession."
She sighed, rubbing her temples. "But her absence... that is actually a variable we can use. If she is gone, she cannot contradict us. She cannot scream. She cannot deny."
Mina looked up, her eyes wide with fear. "What are you suggesting?"
Milody didn't answer her directly. She looked at Lloyd. "Does anyone else know? About the pregnancy?"
"Just us," Lloyd said. "And now you two."