Chapter 4

I opened my mouth to respond, but Mia suddenly began demanding to play on the terrace swing.

Ethan set down his crystal goblet without hesitation and rose at once, lifting her into his arms and saying he would take her upstairs.

The moment he disappeared with the child, the dining hall fell into silence.

Only Ella and I remained.

The tears vanished from her face as if they had never existed. She looked at me with open mockery.

“Vivienne, how does it feel to spend five years as a counterfeit consort?”

She took a slow step closer, her tone soft but venomous.

“Oh, and Mia is my daughter. You didn’t know that, did you?”

She moved nearer until I could clearly see the contempt in her eyes.

“My Blood Covenant with Ethan is the one recorded in the Blood Registry. You were never entered into the Blood Registry. You’re nothing but a ceremonial illusion. If you have any dignity left, you should leave on your own instead of clinging to a throne that was never yours.”

“Even the Covenant’s official Blood Registry list my name as his bonded partner. You’re the one who doesn’t belong.”

As she spoke, she lifted the goblet laced with silver-moon extract and pressed it against my lips.

She pressed it against my lips.

“After ninety-nine failed attempts to carry his heir, this is all your blood is worth.”

The bitter liquid flooded my mouth. Within seconds my throat tightened, my airways constricting as the unstable alchemy ignited inside my veins. I collapsed to the marble floor, my breathing ragged and chaotic.

Ella tilted her head, listening for movement above. Then she drew a slender silver dagger from her sleeve and sliced it across her own chest.

Dark crimson spread rapidly across her dress.

“Vivienne, please don’t kill me! I shouldn’t have stayed in your manor. I’ll leave. Just let me go!”

“Ella!”

Ethan appeared instantly from the upper level, crossing the hall in a blink. He lifted her from the floor and when his gaze turned to me, there was not fury but disappointment.

He demanded to know whether I had lost my mind. He reminded me that Ella had kindly prepared the elixir and stayed to help the child settle. He said that when they returned, I would apologize to her.

Ella lay weakly in his arms, but as she lowered her lashes, I saw the flicker of triumph in her eyes.

Ethan carried her out without so much as glancing at me as my blood burned from within.

My abdomen felt as though molten iron had been poured through my veins. I forced myself upright and staggered back to the bedroom. From the hidden compartment beside the bed, I retrieved a vial of blood-stabilizing serum formulated by Royal Court alchemists. Only after swallowing it did the constriction in my lungs begin to ease.

In that moment, something inside me died.

I gathered every gift Ethan had ever given me—the crystal signet he placed on my finger before the Coven, the enchanted obsidian pendant carved with his crest, the silken cloaks stitched in his colors—and fed them one by one to the fire.

Then I went to the garden and tore out every moonlit rose he had planted for me.

Everything he had given me, I relinquished.

Including him.

From tomorrow onward, he would no longer exist in my eternity.

My birth Coven moved swiftly. By afternoon, my father’s envoy arrived at the manor with formal writs of severance, delivering notice that I had dissolved all allegiance to the Nightfall Dominion. I left with them without turning back.

That same night, inside the Dominion’s medical tower, Ethan sat at Ella’s bedside.

He remained restless through the hours. Ella called his name more than once, yet he barely responded.

She whispered that her chest still hurt and urged him not to blame me, saying I had only been jealous of her presence beside him and Mia.

Before she could continue, a sharp knock struck the chamber doors.

His adjutant entered, visibly unsettled, and reported that Vivienne had vanished. Confirmation from the Royal Court stated that she had formally renounced her bond to the Nightfall Dominion that afternoon and departed the territory under escort.