Episode-858
Chapter : 1715
Mina gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. She hadn't known this part. Lloyd had spared her the violence of the encounter until now.
"She tried to kill you?" Nilufa whispered, her face pale.
"She thought she did," Lloyd said, his voice dropping to a haunt. "I had to... trick her. To stop her without hurting her. I used a doppelganger. She strangled it. She thought she was strangling me. And when she realized what she had done... when she thought I was dead..." He trailed off, the image of Rosa’s scream echoing in his memory. "She broke. She couldn't face it. She fled. She flew north, into the wastes. She thinks she is a murderer."
The room was silent. The horror of the image—Rosa, the dutiful daughter, the perfect Ice Queen, driven to madness and believing she had killed the man she loved—hung heavy in the air.
"So that is why," Nilufa whispered, tears streaming down her face. "That is why my winter flower has withered in the dark. She is not just in exile. She is in hell."
She looked at Lloyd, and for the first time, there was no anger in her eyes, only a profound, devastating pity. "You didn't just break her heart, Lloyd. You broke her mind."
"I know," Lloyd said. The admission was a physical weight. "I tried to find her. I searched for days. My spies are still searching. But she is gone. She has erased herself."
"She is punishing herself," Nilufa said, her voice cracking. "She was always like that. Even as a child. If she failed a lesson, she would stand in the snow for hours. She demands perfection from herself. And you... you made her a monster in her own eyes."
Mina stood up, her legs shaking. She walked over to her mother and knelt beside her, burying her face in Nilufa’s lap. "I'm sorry, Mother," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry. I didn't want this. I never wanted to hurt her."
Nilufa stroked Mina’s hair, her touch mechanical. "We never want the avalanche, Mina. But we shout in the mountains anyway."
She looked up at Lloyd. "You saved my life, Lloyd. You pulled the curse from my veins. I owe you everything. And yet... looking at you now... I wish you had never come to the South."
The words were a spear through Lloyd’s chest. He bowed his head, accepting the judgment. "I cannot change the past, Lady Nilufa. I can only try to protect what remains. I will protect Mina. I will protect the child. And if Rosa ever returns... I will face her judgment."
"She won't return," Nilufa said, her voice hollow. "Not the Rosa we knew. That woman died in Serrum Town."
The emotional atmosphere in the solar had shifted from high-stakes political tension to a thick, suffocating grief. The revelation of Rosa’s true fate—the violence, the madness, the self-imposed exile born of guilt—had stripped away the last layers of defense from everyone in the room. They were no longer nobles plotting a strategy; they were a family standing over a spiritual grave.
Mina remained kneeling at her mother’s feet, her sobbing having subsided into quiet, rhythmic hitching breaths. She felt like a thief. She was carrying a new life, a symbol of hope and future, but it had been purchased with the currency of her sister’s destruction. Every time the baby moved or she felt a flutter, she would remember that her happiness was built on the scorched earth of Rosa’s sanity.
"I feel her," Mina whispered, her voice muffled by the silk of her mother’s dress. "Sometimes, at night. I feel her cold. It’s like... like a phantom limb. We were always connected. Even when she was the Ice Queen and I was the scholar... I always knew she was there. A wall protecting me. Now... the wall is gone. And it’s just cold wind."
Nilufa continued to stroke Mina’s hair, her eyes fixed on the middle distance. "She protected us all," Nilufa said softly. "When I was sick... she froze her own heart to survive. She became a weapon so that we could remain human. And now..." She looked at Lloyd, her gaze piercing. "Now the weapon has shattered."
Lloyd stood by the window, feeling like an intruder in his own tragedy. He wanted to offer comfort, to say something that would fix it, but his engineer’s mind offered no solutions. There was no lever to pull, no circuit to rewire. This was a catastrophic structural failure of the human heart.
Chapter : 1716
"We have to move forward," Lloyd said, though the words tasted like ash. "We cannot live in the wreckage. We have to build something new."
"Spoken like a man," Nilufa said, a flash of her old fire returning. "Always building. Always fixing. But some things, Lord Ferrum, are not meant to be fixed. They are meant to be mourned."
She gently pushed Mina away and stood up, smoothing her skirts. The movement was slow, heavy with age and sorrow, but dignified. "However," she continued, her voice gaining strength, "Duchess Milody is right. We cannot let the world see us bleed. If we falter, the sharks will come. For the sake of this unborn child... for the sake of the only daughter I have left... I will play my part."
She walked over to Lloyd. She was a small woman, frail from her years of illness, but in that moment, she seemed ten feet tall. She looked up at him, her dark eyes searching his face.
"You are a good man, Lloyd," she said. "I believe that. You fight monsters. You save kingdoms. But you are dangerous. You are a storm. And storms destroy everything in their path, even the things they love."
She reached out and took his hand. Her grip was cold. "Promise me one thing. Not as a Lord, but as a father."
"Anything," Lloyd said.
"This child," she said, glancing at Mina’s stomach. "This child will never know the cold. You will not let them become a weapon. You will not let them become a sacrifice. You will give them the one thing you never gave Rosa."
"What is that?" Lloyd asked, his voice thick.
"Peace," Nilufa said. "You will give them a boring, safe, peaceful life. Promise me."
"I promise," Lloyd vowed. "On my life. On my honor. This child will be safe."
Nilufa nodded, releasing his hand. "Then we have an accord. We will tell the lie. We will say Rosa left peacefully. We will say you and Mina found love in the quiet hours. We will smile at the wedding, and we will toast the union." She looked at Mina. "Get up, daughter. Dry your face. A bride does not weep for the sister she replaced. Not in public."
Mina scrambled to her feet, wiping her eyes frantically. "Yes, Mother."
"Go," Nilufa commanded. "Both of you. I need to be alone. I need to... say goodbye to my daughter in my own way."
Lloyd nodded. He took Mina’s arm, guiding her toward the door. As he reached for the handle, he looked back. Nilufa was standing in the center of the room, alone in the fading light. She looked small, fragile, and infinitely lonely.
He opened the door and led Mina out into the corridor. The air in the hallway was cooler, fresher. It felt like stepping out of a tomb.
"Are we terrible people?" Mina asked, her voice trembling as they walked.
Lloyd stopped. He looked at her—the woman he loved, the mother of his child. He saw the fear in her eyes, the guilt eating at her. He pulled her close, resting his chin on her head.
"We are survivors, Mina," he said quietly. "And survivors don't get to be saints. We just get to be alive."
He didn't tell her that he felt like a monster. He didn't tell her that every time he closed his eyes, he saw Rosa’s face in the blizzard. He kept that to himself. That was his burden to carry. He would carry the ghosts so she wouldn't have to.
"Come," he said, gently steering her down the hall. "We have a wedding to plan."
As they walked away, the shadows of the estate seemed to lengthen, stretching out like dark fingers trying to grab their ankles. The house felt empty, echoing with the silence of the missing queen. But in the center of that silence, a new heart was beating. Life, stubborn and relentless, was pushing forward, growing over the ruins of the past. They would survive. They would build a fortress of lies to protect their truth. And they would pray that the winter never came back to claim its due.
If the solar had been a place of emotional devastation, the Duchess's private study, where Lloyd and Mina were summoned the next morning, was a war room. The air smelled of ink, sealing wax, and cold ambition. Duchess Milody sat behind her massive oak desk, surrounded by stacks of parchment, looking less like a mother and more like the CEO of a ruthless corporation preparing for a hostile takeover.