Chapter 227: The Weight of the Inheritance
The heavy door settled back into its frame with a dull, final thud. Inside the office, the silence that followed was heavy and cold, broken only by the low whistle of the winter wind cutting through the open balcony.
Olivia remained by her chair, her hand still resting against her throat. The skin beneath her fingers felt warm, a stark contrast to the sudden chill of the room. She stared at the empty threshold where Matthias had stood just moments ago, his words still hanging in the air like a bitter draft.
Your body remembers the monster, even if your heart wants to forgive him.
She cursed herself silently. She didn’t feel fear—not anymore—but her body had betrayed her. That single, instinctive flinch when she remembered his hands around her neck had been enough to undo him. She had wanted to demand answers, to break through his wall of self-sacrificing silence, but instead, she had driven him right out into the dark.
"Foolish, stubborn man," she murmured, her voice tight with a mixture of anger and regret.
She turned her back to the balcony, her silk gown rustling against the quiet of the room. She should have held his ground. She should have told him that she wasn’t a fragile thing to be protected by his absence. But her pride, matched with the sudden rush of old memories, had kept her frozen.
The latch clicked again.
Olivia snapped her head toward the door, a sudden flicker of expectation rising in her chest. But it wasn’t Matthias.
Leon stepped into the room, closing the door quietly behind him. The easy, mocking grin he usually wore was entirely gone, replaced by a flat, unreadable expression. He looked at Olivia, then at the open balcony, taking in the scene without a word. He walked over to the desk with slow, unhurried steps and pulled out the chair opposite hers.
"He won’t be coming back tonight," Leon said, his voice flat. "You can stop watching the door."
Olivia sat back down, her posture straightening as she pulled her usual mask of indifference over her features. "Did you stay behind just to deliver the obvious, Leon? Or did you enjoy watching your brother walk out?"
"There wasn’t much to enjoy," Leon replied, leaning back and rubbing his temples. "I knew how this would end the moment you pushed him for answers. Matthias has been trying to live a normal life, but normal isn’t something our name allows."
"Stop talking in riddles," Olivia said coldly. "He spoke as if he were a threat to my life. I know what happened the night he lost control, and I chose to stay. Why is he running now?"
Leon looked up, his eyes dull. "Because he realizes he cares about you too much. And in our family, that’s usually where the blood path begins."
Olivia crossed her arms, her gaze narrowing. "The Lockron name carries weight, Leon, not a ghost story. What exactly are you trying to hide behind all this dramatic talk of monsters?"
Leon rested his elbows on the desk, his fingers interlacing. The playful, irritating brother-in-law had vanished completely; in his place sat someone who looked thoroughly exhausted by his own lineage.
"It’s not a story, Olivia. It’s a flaw in the blood. The men of our house have always been formidable on the field—faster, stronger, entirely unyielding. But it comes with a price that falls due as we age. The mind begins to fray under pressure. It starts with paranoia, minor delusions, a constant internal noise. Eventually, under enough stress, the barrier snaps."
He gestured vaguely toward the window.
"When that happens, the mind doesn’t recognize friend from foe. The instinct is purely destructive. Our ancestors didn’t just die in battle; they destroyed their own households. The tragedy is that the madness triggers fastest around the people we actually care about. The sheer stress of trying to protect someone, of keeping the darkness contained while near them, is exactly what breaks the seal."
Olivia listened, her fingers tightening against her sleeves. She remembered the vacant, unseeing look in Matthias’s eyes during that night of madness. It hadn’t been malice directed at her; it was the look of a man drowning in his own skin, fighting a war she couldn’t see.
"Matthias didn’t leave because he grew tired of you," Leon continued quietly. "He left because he saw you flinch. He realized that the more he attaches himself to you, the closer the monster gets to the surface. He’s terrified that one day the noise in his head won’t stop, and he won’t realize what he’s done until it’s too late."
Olivia looked away, a sharp knot forming in her throat. He saw it, she realized. My body betrayed me, and he took it as proof.
"There is no cure for this, sister-in-law," Leon added, his voice dropping any pretense of comfort. "It is محتم . An inherited debt we can’t pay off. We don’t fix it; we just endure it until the end comes."
"And your solution is for him to freeze to death in the isolation of some distant estate?" Olivia’s voice cut through the room, sharp and demanding. "We are supposed to navigate this house together."
Leon let out a dry, humorless breath. "You need to look at this clearly, Olivia. Not every marriage in our circle comes with a quiet retirement. Sometimes the only real choice left is distance. For your safety, and for the child you’re carrying, his absence is the only guarantee you have. Sometimes, being apart is simply the better option."
Olivia didn’t answer. Her mind flatly rejected Leon’s grim philosophy. She was a woman who dealt in leverage, strategy, and absolute control; she had never allowed her life to be dictated by vague notions of fate or inevitable tragedies.
Desiring to break the stifling weight of the conversation, her eyes drifted across the cluttered mahogany desk. Among the older ledgers and open inkwells, a single piece of heavy parchment caught her attention. It had been partially shoved aside, likely during her argument with Matthias.
At the bottom of the page, stamped clearly into thick, dark blue wax, was a crest she recognized instantly. A serpent coiled around a broken crown.
The House of Allister.
Olivia’s expression hardened. Duke Cedric Allister was not a man to be ignored. He was the quiet pivot around which much of the court’s underlying corruption turned—a dangerous, calculating political player who kept his hands exceptionally clean while others did his work.
Her eyes skimmed the lines of text. It was a formal, peremptory summons, but it wasn’t addressed to the Duke of Lockron.
To the High Sentinel, Ambus Seraph.
The name Leon had been mocking earlier.
Before Leon could notice her shift in attention, Olivia reached across the desk and pulled the paper toward her. Her eyes moved quickly over the elegant, threatening language. Cedric was demanding a private, unescorted meeting with this specific sentinel who had been interfering with his business in the lower districts. It wasn’t an invitation; it was a trap designed to isolate a nuisance.
She looked up, her gaze pinning Leon to his seat. "What is this?"
Leon reached for the paper, his nonchalant demeanor cracking for a fraction of a second. "It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with, Olivia. Just guard business. Leave it alone."
"Don’t lie to me, Leon," she said, her voice dropping into a dangerous, measured tone. "This is Cedric’s personal seal. And ’Ambus Seraph’ is the name Matthias is using while he operates in the shadows, isn’t it? Cedric hasbaited a hook, and your brother is on the line."
Leon drew a sharp breath, his jaw tightening as he realized he had lost the leverage.
"You’re going to sit there and tell me to let him go?" Olivia leaned forward, her eyes fixed on his. "Let me ask you something, Leon. If Isabella were the one holding this paper—if she were about to walk straight into an ambush set by Cedric Allister—would you sit back and tell yourself that some stories just have sad endings?"
Leon’s entire frame stiffened at the mention of the name. His eyes darkened significantly. "Leave her out of this."
"I won’t," Olivia countered, her voice entirely steady. "Because the hypocrisy is identical. You expect me to play the compliant, distant wife while Matthias walks into a slaughterhouse? Have you forgotten who altered the transit logs to keep Isabella clear of the ministry’s investigators last winter? It was me, Leon. I used my family’s credit to cover your tracks. Now look at me and tell me what he intends to do with this letter. You owe me that truth."
Leon stared at her for a long, silent moment, his knuckles turning white against the wood of the desk. The silence stretched between them, heavy with past debts and the realities of their survival. Finally, the tension left his shoulders, and he let out a defeated sigh.
"Fine," Leon muttered, looking away. "It’s him. Cedric caught wind of someone high up in the sentinel ranks pulling files on his shipping manifests. He doesn’t know it’s Matthias—he thinks it’s just a guard captain getting too bold—but he wants the problem handled permanently."
"And what does Matthias think he’s doing?"
"He’s going to the meeting," Leon said, his voice entirely devoid of its usual irony. "He told me before you walked in. He claims that ignoring a direct order from a high Duke will compromise his cover and draw suspicion to the estate. But that’s the excuse. The truth is, he doesn’t care about the risk anymore. He told me he’d be more than happy to take Cedric down with him."
Olivia’s fingers tightened on the edge of the desk, the polished wood digging into her palms. She didn’t gasp; she simply went cold.
"Cedric Allister isn’t a target you ambush in an alley, Leon. He’s a statesman who keeps an army of killers in his shadow. If Matthias goes there under a fake name, he’s not walking into a duel. He’s walking into an execution."
"I know that!" Leon retorted, his temper finally breaking through his stoic front. "I told him he was being an idiot. I told him it was a suicide run. But he’s not listening to me, Olivia. He has no desire to survive this winter."
"Because of me," she whispered, the pieces falling into place with a chilling clarity.
Matthias hadn’t just walked out to save her from his madness. He was using Cedric’s trap as a convenient exit. He saw himself as a ticking fuse, a danger to his wife and his unborn child, and he had decided that dying while removing a major threat to the realm was the cleanest resolution available to him.
"He thinks he’s settling his accounts," Olivia said, her voice turning completely level, her panic hardening into a cold, sharp focus. She looked down at the crushed parchment in her hand. "He thinks if he dies at Allister’s hands, the Lockron title passes cleanly, the threat is gone, and we are safe from him."
She stood up slowly, her dark violet silk catching the dim light of the candles. She tossed the ruined letter back onto the desk, a dangerous, mocking tilt touching the corner of her lips.
"Alright. If Matthias wants to play it this way," she murmured, her voice smooth, almost detached, "I suppose it’s time I finally make use of my title as the Emperor’s daughter."