Chapter 6

In the middle of the night, Giselle was fast asleep when frantic pounding on her door and Lila's terrified cries jolted her awake.

"My lady! My lady, something terrible has happened! There's been an accident in the west wing!"

Giselle woke with a dull ache in her head. "What's all this commotion about?"

Lila's face was deathly pale, and her words tumbled out in a frantic rush. "Lady Chrysanthe got up in the middle of the night and slipped on the stairs! She hit her head, and there was blood everywhere!

"The physician just discovered she was pregnant, only a month along, but now she's lost the baby!"

Giselle frowned.

Viviana had been pregnant? And now she'd lost the child?

Tears streamed down Lila's cheeks as she spoke. "My lord is furious! He's investigating the incident right now, and they've discovered that someone deliberately poured oil on the stairs!

"When they caught the culprit, they claimed you ordered them to do it! My lord demands that you come at once!

"My lady, someone is clearly trying to frame you! You must go and explain yourself to him!"

Giselle closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her gaze was clear, though a trace of exhaustion lingered in its depths.

She made her way to the west wing and pushed open the door. Every eye in the room turned toward her at once. Some regarded her with suspicion, others with fury, and a few even with pity.

Lythas looked up at her, his cold, piercing gaze sharp enough to cut through her. "Giselle. Explain yourself."

She stood in the doorway, met his gaze, and asked evenly, "Explain what?"

Lythas shot to his feet, his chest heaving with rage. "Explain why you ordered someone to pour oil on the stairs Vivi uses every day! Why she fell and lost our child!

"All this time, you've been sulking and lashing out with that sharp tongue of yours, trying to force Leoric and me to bow to your whims. I overlooked it. I indulged you.

"But this? How could you stoop to something so vile? That was my own flesh and blood! An innocent life!"

Leoric glared at her, his eyes red and his voice thick with accusation. "Mother! How could you be so cruel? Lady Chrysanthe has always treated you well! She even kept telling me to visit you!"

A profound weariness washed over Giselle, seeping into her very bones.

"If I explain myself, and tell you I didn't do it, would you believe me?" she said, her voice as cold as the night air.

Her flat, almost mocking indifference pushed Lythas' fury to its limits. "The evidence is irrefutable, yet you still dare deny it?

"Giselle, I used to think you were merely spoiled, that beneath all your faults, you still had a good heart. Now I see how wrong I was. You're venomous to the core!"

'Venomous to the core…' The words pierced her heart like a fine needle, sending a sharp ache through her chest. Yet the pain soon faded beneath a deeper, more pervasive numbness.

The corners of her mouth lifted into a faint smile. "Well, then? How does my lord intend to punish me? Please, get it over with. I'd like to return to bed once you're finished."

"You..."

Her utter indifference shattered the last of Lythas' restraint.

He raised his hand and slapped her hard across the face.

The force of the blow snapped her head to the side. Her cheek reddened and began to swell almost immediately, while a thin trickle of blood seeped from the corner of her mouth.

Slowly, she turned back to face him.

There was no resentment in her eyes, no trace of hurt. Only a hollow, lifeless stillness remained.

"Are you finished punishing me?" She raised a hand and wiped the blood from her lip with her fingertip, her voice as flat as ever. "Then I'll take my leave."

Her complete lack of reaction, as though nothing he did could reach her anymore, drove Lythas into an even greater frenzy.

Savage fury overwhelmed him, and he roared an order without a second thought. "Guards! Drag her out! However much blood Lady Chrysanthe lost, I want the same amount taken from her!"

The moment the words left his mouth, he froze.

He stared at Giselle, whose face had turned as white as paper, and felt something wrench painfully in his chest. A sudden wave of regret threatened to overwhelm his anger.

He opened his mouth to retract the order.

At that very moment, Viviana let out a weak, pained moan from the bed. "My lord… No, my lord, please spare my lady. She merely lost her senses for a moment. As for our child... perhaps it simply wasn't meant to be..."

Lythas immediately hurried to her side and supported her.

The sight of her frail, pitiful condition, coupled with the thought of their unborn child's death, hardened his heart once more.

He turned toward Giselle, who still stood with her back straight, and spoke through gritted teeth. "Get on your knees, apologize to Vivi, and promise never to do anything like this again. If you do, I'll spare you this once."

Giselle slowly raised her eyes.

Her gaze passed over Lythas and Viviana, who clung to each other, then shifted to her son, who continued to glare at her with undisguised fury.

Finally, she looked at Lythas as though he were a complete stranger.

Without another word, she turned and walked away.

A cold blade sliced into the skin of her arm.

Warm blood spilled from the wound and trickled down her arm, dripping onto the stone pavement and forming a dark red pool beneath her.

Lila screamed and tried to rush to her mistress's side, but the guards forcibly restrained her.

Leoric ran outside after them. When he saw the steady stream of blood from his mother's arm, a flicker of pain and hesitation crossed his young face.

But the memory of Viviana's pitiful, suffering condition quickly extinguished those feelings.

He recalled what Viviana had secretly told him. His mother behaved this way because she harbored a deep grudge, and unless someone taught her a proper lesson, she would continue to hurt others.

With that thought, he abruptly turned and ran off.

A moment later, he returned with a bowl of dark, murky medicine and marched straight toward Giselle.

By then, she had lost so much blood that darkness crept into the edges of her vision. Her consciousness was already beginning to fade.

"Mother, when you do something wrong, you have to learn your lesson. Father is teaching you a lesson by making you bleed. Now it's my turn to teach you one," Leoric said from above her.

He crouched beside her, pried her mouth open, and forcibly poured the medicine down her throat.

She no longer had the strength to resist.

The bitter liquid sent her into a violent coughing fit, and medicine mixed with flecks of blood spilled from the corners of her mouth.

Almost as soon as the medicine reached her stomach, a sharp, twisting pain tore through her abdomen.

Moments later, angry red welts erupted across her skin, accompanied by unbearable itching. Her chest tightened, and she struggled to draw breath.

The medicine contained mugwort, and she was allergic to it. Both Lythas and Leoric knew that.

This was the son she had carried in her womb to full term, the son she had nearly lost her life to bring into this world. The son she had loved, cherished, and doted on for five years. Yet for the sake of another woman, he had personally forced her to swallow something he knew could cause her unbearable suffering.

'How dutiful of him…' she thought bitterly.

Excruciating pain, relentless itching, suffocation, and the dizziness from severe blood loss overwhelmed her all at once, dragging her toward unconsciousness.

In the final moments before darkness claimed her completely, the last thing she saw was Leoric's blurred face.

And on that face, she could just make out an expression that resembled satisfaction. Perhaps even relief.