Chapter : 945
They traveled for two days without incident, the assassins’ network seemingly shattered or in full retreat. Ken drove with his usual stoic vigilance, but Lloyd could sense the deep, resonant fatigue in his soul from the spiritual severing and the brutal physical fight. Habiba remained a quiet presence in the cabin, her meditative stillness a stark contrast to the storm of emotions Lloyd knew must be raging within her. She was a warrior who had faced a foe far beyond her station and held her own through sheer, brilliant tenacity. Amina was a puzzle of serene focus, her gaze often turned outward to the passing landscape, her mind clearly working, processing the new variables, recalibrating her own grand strategies in light of the day’s revelations.
Lloyd himself felt a strange sense of dislocation. He had won. He had captured a high-value target and gained a treasure trove of intelligence. He had forged a true, battlefield-tested alliance with a powerful princess. By all tactical measures, the operation had been a resounding success. Yet, he felt no triumph. Only a profound, bone-deep weariness and the cold, hard certainty that this victory was merely the opening skirmish in a war that would be longer, bloodier, and more terrible than he had ever imagined. The Curator. The name echoed in his mind, a ghost from a past he could not fully remember, a promise of a future filled with shadow and death.
As the familiar, formidable silhouette of the Ferrum estate rose on the horizon, a new and more immediate tension began to fill the carriage. The war of assassins and empires was, for a moment, eclipsed by the impending domestic crisis. He was returning not just as a victorious lord, but as a man bringing home a foreign princess to whom he was now, in the eyes of a powerful kingdom and through a cage of ancient magic, unofficially betrothed.
He had sent the coded letters. He had warned his father. But a warning is not a solution. He imagined the scene that awaited him: the cold, political fury of his father; the quiet, analytical curiosity of his mother; and, most terrifyingly, the absolute, glacial silence of his wife.
Their arrival was not the triumphant return of a hero. It was the quiet, tense arrival of a storm. There was no fanfare, no welcoming party at the main gate. They were met by the estate’s Captain of the Guard and escorted directly to the Grand Hall, a clear sign that this was not a family reunion, but a formal, high-stakes political debriefing.
The Grand Hall was silent, empty save for two figures standing before the massive, carved stone throne. Arch Duke Roy Ferrum was a statue of judgment, his hands clasped behind his back, his face an unreadable mask of granite. His gaze was not on his son, but was fixed, with a cold, assessing intensity, on the veiled princess who stood at his side. He was not seeing a potential ally; he was seeing a diplomatic catastrophe, a foreign entanglement that threatened to drag his house into a war it was not prepared for.
In stark, beautiful contrast, Duchess Milody stood beside him, a vision of serene, welcoming warmth. Her smile was genuine, her eyes, those same unsettling black-ringed portals to another reality, held not suspicion, but a deep, profound curiosity. She was not seeing a problem. She was seeing a magnificent, powerful, and fascinating new asset that had just been delivered to her doorstep.
The four travelers entered the hall, their travel-stained clothes a jarring anomaly in the pristine, formal space. They stopped a respectful distance from the ducal thrones. The silence stretched, thick and heavy with unspoken accusations and political calculus.
It was Roy who broke it. He dispensed with all pleasantries. He lowered his eyes in a curt, minimal nod of respect to Amina’s royal station, a gesture so brief and cold it was more of an insult than a welcome. "Princess," he said, his voice a low, tight rumble. He then turned his gaze to his son. "I received your letters." The words were clipped, each one a piece of chipped stone. "An alliance with Zakaria, forged through… personal means. A bold stroke. A strategic coup." He paused, letting the weight of his disapproval fill the hall. "It is also a diplomatic disaster of the highest order. A public, magically binding betrothal to an heir who is already married threatens to make this house, and by extension this kingdom, the laughingstock of the continent."
Chapter : 946
Lloyd, weary from his journey, from the battles both external and internal, felt a flicker of his old, defiant spirit. He met his father’s icy glare without flinching. "When has my reputation ever been anything but a mess, Father?" he countered, his voice a quiet, tired truth. "This is just a louder one."
A flicker of something—surprise? amusement?—crossed Roy’s granite features. He conceded the point with a grim, almost imperceptible twitch of his lips. “A fair point,” he admitted. Before the tense political debrief could continue, however, a new, more absolute authority intervened.
Duchess Milody glided forward, her movements a silent, flowing river of grace and power. She placed a gentle hand on her husband’s arm, a simple gesture that nonetheless stopped his words cold. "The men can play their war games later," she declared, her voice a soft, melodic sound that held the unshakeable authority of a true matriarch. She turned her warm, intelligent gaze to her son. "You are home, Lloyd. And you are exhausted. Go to your rooms. Rest. We will speak of this when you have recovered." Her voice was not a suggestion; it was a command, a dismissal that left no room for argument.
She then turned to Amina and Habiba, her smile becoming a thing of genuine, disarming warmth. "Princess. Lady Habiba. You must be equally weary from your journey. You do our house a great honor with your presence. Allow me to escort you to the guest suites myself. I am certain you will find them to your liking."
It was a masterful, political masterstroke. In a single, graceful move, she had de-escalated the confrontation, asserted her own authority, and publicly, unequivocally accepted the foreign princess into her home. She was not just a Duchess; she was a Queen, and this was her court.
She took Amina’s arm, and the two powerful women, followed by the silent Habiba, swept from the hall, their quiet conversation already building the foundations of a new, feminine alliance.
Left alone with his son, Roy Ferrum let out a long, heavy sigh, a sound of profound, world-weary exhaustion. The granite facade cracked, revealing the tired father beneath. "Go," he commanded, his voice now softer, laced with a genuine concern. "Your mother is right. We will untangle this mess later."
Lloyd nodded, a wave of gratitude for his mother washing over him. He turned to leave, his body aching for the simple, mindless oblivion of sleep.
"And Lloyd…" his father’s voice stopped him at the door.
He turned back. Roy’s face was grim, his eyes holding a new and different kind of warning.
"Rosa knows," he said, the words falling like stones into the silent hall. "Everything."
The words hung in the air, a final, perfectly aimed blow that landed with more force than any assassin’s strike. Rosa knows. Everything. Lloyd felt a cold, familiar dread snake its way up his spine, a feeling he hadn't experienced since he was a boy facing his father after some spectacular failure. The grand, geopolitical storm he had just navigated seemed, in that moment, like a gentle summer shower compared to the personal, arctic hurricane that now awaited him in his own suite.
He walked the familiar, silent corridors of the estate, each step feeling heavier than the last. His mind, which had been a whirlwind of strategy and planning, was now a battlefield of conflicting, chaotic thoughts. He told himself he didn't care. What could she possibly say? Their marriage was a contract, a sterile political document. Her silence had been her most potent weapon for years, a wall of ice he had long ago given up trying to breach. What was one more layer of frost on a frozen wasteland?
He tried to build a fortress of indifference, to re-inhabit the cold, detached persona that had served him so well. He was the lord of the house, the architect of its rising fortunes. He was a warrior who commanded demons and walked with princesses. He would not be intimidated by the cold glare of a woman who had offered him nothing but disdain.
The fortress crumbled the moment he opened the door to their suite.
The room was the same, yet fundamentally different. The invisible line that had always divided their territories, the unspoken armistice that had defined their coexistence, felt… gone. The air itself felt different, charged with a new, unreadable energy.
And she was there.
She was kneeling on a simple, grey meditation mat in the center of the room, on what had always been his side of the unspoken border. Her back was to him, a perfect, straight line of regal discipline. But it was her hair that shattered his carefully constructed composure.