IS LOVE OR REGRET ?

The night passed not in peace, but in a silence so heavy, so saturated with the weight of unspoken things, that it felt almost suffocating. Darkness clung to every corner of the room like a second skin. When dawn finally broke over the horizon, it did not come gently—it came like an accusation, pouring pale gold through the windows, banishing the comforting shadows with cruel precision.

A sudden, sharp knocking shattered the stillness.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

It was urgent. Desperate.

Olivia stirred from the edge of sleep, her mind slow to catch up with the moment. She sat up, her limbs moving with practiced grace even in fatigue. The bed beside her was empty—Isabella had left without a sound. Olivia's hand rose to her own face, then her neck, fingers brushing the skin where pain had once lived. The swelling was gone, the bruises faded into memory. She exhaled slowly, not with relief, but with resignation.

Then she noticed it—one of her earrings was missing.

She touched her earlobe thoughtfully. But the loss failed to stir much concern. There were larger matters to contend with.

Ann stirred beside her, the child's breathing shifting with the noise from outside. The knocking persisted—louder now, more frantic. And before Olivia could rise, the door burst open.

"Kira!" Olivia barked, her voice a low growl. "How dare you enter without permission?"

The young maid stood in the doorway, panting from her sprint through the corridors. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes wide with urgency. She bowed hastily, trying to catch her breath.

"My lady—I apologize—but the Duke... His Grace demands your presence. At once. He's… furious."

Olivia's blood chilled.

She rose instantly, brushing her gown smooth. "Why?"

Kira hesitated. "It's something… regarding the former Duchess."

Olivia's eyes darkened. "Get me dressed. Now."

The corridors seemed colder as the two women moved through them. The silence between Olivia and her maid was tense, wrapped in a thousand questions neither dared ask. The estate had not yet fully awakened, but the air felt thick with anticipation—something was wrong.

When Olivia entered the Duke's study, it was as though she had stepped into the eye of a storm.

Papers were strewn across the floor like fallen leaves in a gale. The great mahogany desk was bare in parts, clawed empty by angry hands. The morning sun pierced the tall windows, catching in the sharp angles of a man who had clearly not slept. Matthias stood at the center of it all—his expression a thundercloud barely restrained. His hair was tousled, his collar undone, and there was a wildness to his gaze that made even Olivia hesitate on the threshold.

Kira bowed quickly and excused herself, whispering, "I shall leave you both to speak freely."

The door clicked shut.

Matthias didn't speak at first. He simply stared at Olivia—studied her—as if she were a puzzle he could no longer solve. Then, slowly, he moved toward her, every step deliberate, purposeful.

When he stopped in front of her, he reached out—not harshly, but with a certain desperation—and took a strand of her dark hair between his fingers. His thumb brushed against it as though trying to remember something.

His eyes, usually so composed, were now broken glass.

"Tell me," he said, his voice raw. "Tell me it wasn't you."

Olivia stood still, unsure whether to step back or forward, unsure if she should meet his gaze or turn away. There was so much hurt in his eyes that it pierced through her own defenses.

"Tell me," he whispered, almost pleading now. "Tell me you didn't do it. That it wasn't you."

She opened her mouth—but no words came. The truth was a weight pressing against her ribs, too bitter to speak, too dangerous to deny.

His fingers lingered in her hair, trembling slightly.

"Why, Olivia?" he murmured. "Why would you do this?"

His voice cracked on the question, and for a moment, the storm of anger that had surrounded him collapsed into something far worse: disappointment. Grief. Betrayal.

And Olivia, so often the coldest soul in any room, suddenly found herself unable to breathe under the gaze of the man who now looked at her not as a wife, not as an enemy, but as a stranger.

A shadow of confusion passed across Olivia's face. She stepped back slightly, brushing his hand from her arm, her voice steady but sharpened with disbelief.

"Matthias," she said, eyes narrowing, "what are you talking about? You drag me from bed at dawn, accuse me of something I haven't even been told, and expect me to confess? To what, exactly?"

But instead of answering, the Duke reached for her wrist and grasped it tightly.

His grip was iron.

Olivia's breath caught, but she said nothing. She merely allowed herself to be pulled down the silent corridors of the estate, her heels echoing across polished stone. The palace was not yet awake, and the stillness was uncanny—too calculated. Too quiet.

They stopped before a familiar door. The door of the former Duchess.

Matthias's hand, once a fist of righteous fury, began to tremble. His fingers loosened around her wrist. He stared at the handle before him, the weight of it suddenly unbearable. For a moment, he seemed almost afraid.

Then he pushed it open.

Inside, the room was cloaked in a terrible calm. Heavy drapes muted the early light, casting the chamber in a sepulchral haze. A few men stood within—somber, quiet, avoiding eye contact. Among them, the duchy's chief coroner, his silver-trimmed uniform immaculate. His assistants stood by, motionless.

The coroner turned, stepped forward, and with a grim expression, handed Matthias a small violet-glass vial. He leaned in and spoke in a voice low enough to be a whisper, but Olivia caught enough.

"The poison of the Violet Hand," he said. "There is no doubt. It originates exclusively… from your duchy."

He didn't need to finish.

The moment Olivia's gaze fell on the vial, recognition struck her like a blow to the chest. Her throat closed.

She knew that bottle.

Knew it like one might know a childhood scar. That poison—silent, perfect, and cruel—had been used in the shadows of her father's reign to dispose of threats, rivals, and dissenters. It left little behind save a pale corpse and violet extremities, a telltale sign that air had failed to reach the limbs in the final hour.

And Isabella's father… had been one of its victims.

Olivia's heart began to pound.

She scanned the room, and then her eyes fell upon the still form lying on the canopied bed. A white cloth had been drawn across the Duchess's face, shrouding her features in eternal silence. One of her hands had slipped free—thin fingers stained a deep purple, curled slightly toward the ceiling in one last, unanswered plea for mercy.

It was unmistakable.

The Duchess was dead.

Dead by poison.

The weight of it crashed down on Olivia, a hundred memories screaming in her mind. A hundred fears she had buried deep. And standing beside her, Matthias stared at her as though the distance between them had become infinite.

She reached out, almost against her will, to touch the Duchess's hand, to feel if it was still warm—but he caught her by the wrist again, this time gentler, but with unmistakable hurt.

"Please," he said, his voice low and hoarse, "don't. Haven't you done enough?"

Her head jerked toward him, her expression carved from disbelief. "What—? What are you saying? You think I did this? Why in the gods' names would I ever hurt her?"

His voice was nearly a whisper. "You were seen entering her chambers last night."

Olivia froze.

"And this," he said.

He opened his palm.

Lying there, delicate and unmistakable, was her missing earring—the silver one she'd worn the night before.

For a moment, the room felt like it was tilting. The air thickened, stifling. And all the warmth that had once flickered in Matthias's gaze—those moments of softness, of belief—had vanished.

He stared at her now the way one stares at a ghost.

Or worse—a reflection of someone long despised.

Gone was the man who had whispered two nights before that she reminded him of no one—not even her father. That he saw something else in her.

Now, he looked at her exactly the way he used to look at her father: with a mixture of loathing, caution, and bitter, unspoken betrayal.