I will be the perfect wife this time

Chapter 198: ​A Spark of the Sun

The Emperor stepped forward. Without a word, he grabbed Olivia’s arm and pulled her firmly behind him, using his weight to shove Roland back.

"Even if she is your daughter, Duke," the Emperor said, his voice dropping into a flat, dangerous quiet. "You do not treat her like this. She is the Duchess of Locron."

Roland staggered back a half-step. His posture stiffened, and he immediately dropped his head into a low, rigid bow. "Your Majesty. Forgive me, I did not notice you enter."

"And that gives you the right to lay hands on her?" the Emperor cut him off, standing like a wall between them. "Apologize to her. Now."

Roland kept his head down, but his eyes shifted upward, locking onto Olivia where she stood under the Emperor’s protection. The silence stretched in the office, tight and thin.

"You are right, Sire," Roland said, straightening up with a tight, bloodless smile. "I lost my temper for a moment. You know how fathers can be."

He turned fully toward Olivia, his shoulders stiff under his heavy coat, and forced his back into a sharp, resentful bow.

"I apologize, Your Grace. Please forgive my lack of restraint."

Olivia managed a tight, mocking smile, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness that didn’t reach her cold eyes. "Very well. Your apology is accepted... *Father*."

She heavily emphasized the last word, throwing it like a silent insult into Roland’s face. "You may leave now. Since His Majesty is here, we shall speak of our family matters later."

Roland’s jaw tightened, his fake smile twisting into a grimace of pure malice. He knew exactly what she was doing, but with the Emperor standing right beside her, his hands were tied.

"Of course," Roland forced out, his voice sharp enough to draw blood. "We will certainly speak later."

With his pride shattered, Roland turned on his heel and walked out of the office, dragging the bitter taste of defeat behind him.

Olivia watched his retreating figure, her heart pounding frantically against her ribs. The adrenaline that had kept her standing was rapidly fading, leaving behind a cold, paralyzing terror.

If Roland ever found out about her pregnancy, if he discovered the fragile life she was desperately trying to protect... the old nightmares of her childhood would repeat themselves. He would destroy her completely.

Suddenly, a strange, suffocating darkness began to creep into the edges of her vision. The bleak morning light filtering through the window turned blurry, and the grand office began to spin violently around her. Her knees buckled.

Lucius turned to look at her, his brows furrowing as he noticed her staggering state. "Hey, Duchess. Your face is stark white. Are you—"

Before she could form a single word, her strength gave out entirely. Her body went completely limp, collapsing forward into the cold air.

Lucius reacted on pure instinct, stepping forward and catching her before she hit the marble floor. Her unconscious weight fell heavily against his chest.

"Hey... Duchess?" Lucius’s voice lost its usual imperial calm, shifting into a sharp, frantic panic as he gathered her into his arms. "Olivia? Olivia, can you hear me? Answer me!"

Turning toward the open doorway, his voice boomed through the quiet corridor with a furious authority that made the remaining servants flinch. "Guards! Someone bring a physician to the ducal chambers immediately! Now!"

Leon, who had been watching the confrontation intently from the threshold, stepped forward with a tight, guarded expression, intending to intervene and shield her secret. But before he could speak, a weak, trembling touch brushed against the fabric of the imperial coat.

Lucius looked down. Olivia had managed to partially open her eyes, her gaze glassy and unfocused, filled with a desperate, raw vulnerability he had never seen in her before. She looked entirely defenseless, stripped of all her cold armor.

"Don’t..." Olivia whispered, her voice barely a cracked breath against his chest as her fingers feebly tightened on his sleeve. "Please... do not call a physician. I beg of you..."

Lucius froze. Her soft, pleading words seemed to hit something deep within him, striking a chord of protective instinct that defied all imperial logic. He stared into her pale face for a tense, silent second, looking at the dark circles beneath her eyes and the sheer terror laced in her plea.

He glanced at Leon, his eyes signaling the man to ensure their absolute privacy and secure the perimeter. "Very well," Lucius murmured, his voice dropping into a softer, grounding tone. "I won’t."

Carrying her frail body, Lucius strode out of the office and down the dimly lit corridors of Locron Castle, with Leon following closely behind like a silent, protective shadow. He didn’t stop until he reached the heavy doors of her private bedchamber.

Stepping inside, he carefully laid her down onto the soft velvet mattress, treating her with a gentleness that was entirely uncharacteristic of the absolute ruler of the empire, while Leon quietly stood guard at the entrance.

Olivia lay there, completely exhausted, her body sinking into the sheets as she weakly fought the heavy darkness pressing against her mind, stubbornly struggling just to keep her eyelids open.

Her breathing grew dangerously shallow. Her skin was ice-cold, and her body began to shiver violently on the bed—a severe reaction to the combination of her pregnancy, exhaustion, and the terror she had just faced.

Lucius frowned, standing by the edge of the bed. He had promised not to call a physician, but watching her slip into what looked like a fatal shock made his chest tighten with an unnatural, frustrating anxiety.

Driven by an impulse he couldn’t control, Lucius sat on the edge of the mattress. He reached out and placed his large, warm hand over her frozen forehead, intending to channel a small, controlled fracture of his imperial mana to warm her core and stabilize her breathing.

It was a dangerous gamble. The Imperial family’s mana was notoriously volatile, like a raging fire; if poured into an ordinary person, their blood vessels would reject it instantly, causing agonizing pain.

Lucius braced himself to withdraw his hand the moment she flinched.

But she didn’t flinch.

The moment his golden aura seeped into her skin, Olivia’s shivering stopped. Instead of rejecting the foreign power, her body opened up to it. Her veins absorbed his mana hungrily, purring in perfect, flawless harmony with his own life force. It wasn’t just acceptance—it was a resonance. The energy flowed between them like water returning to its own river.

Lucius snapped his hand back as if he had been burned, his heart hammering violently against his ribs.

He stared down at his own palm, then at the sleeping girl whose pale cheeks were now gaining a faint, healthy warmth. His mind raced into a dark, chaotic spiral.

’This is impossible...’ Lucius thought, his eyes widening as a chilling realization crept down his spine.

Only those carrying the direct, unadulterated bloodline of the Sun Throne could absorb imperial mana without a backlash. Yet, this girl—the daughter of his enemy, the widow of Locron—had just synchronized with his power as if she had been born from it.

Lucius looked at her features again, but this time, the veil of his old assumptions was shattered.

Once he was entirely certain that her breathing had steadied and the icy shiver had left her frame, Lucius slowly stood up. He stared down at her sleeping, pale face, a strange, suffocating weight pressing on his chest. He couldn’t decipher the foreign emotions turbulent inside him, nor could he understand why his heart had panicked so brutally at the sight of her collapsing.

Driven by this unexplainable, heavy guilt, the absolute ruler of the empire did something he had never done for anyone.

He leaned down slightly over her sleeping form, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly whisper. "Please... forgive me for being the reason you lost your husband. Despite everything, you are still Kyle’s sister. You are like a daughter to me... so I beg you to forgive me."

With those final, heavy words, Lucius turned on his heel and quietly walked out of the bedchamber, the gnawing setup of doubt and unresolved questions killing him from the inside.

The moment the heavy oak door clicked shut, the stillness in the room shattered.

Olivia opened her eyes.

She hadn’t been asleep. She had heard every single word that had left Lucius’s lips. Slowly, a heavy, suffocating wave of frustration washed over her face. She raised a trembling, cold hand, pressing it firmly over her eyes as if she could blot out the reality crashing down upon her.

"Damn it..." Olivia choked out into the empty room, her voice trembling with a volatile mixture of grief and pure spite. "Why do things keep getting worse and worse?"

A bitter, humorless tear slipped down her temple. Why did he have to say those words? Why did he have to look at her and say he saw her as a daughter, when he was the very monster who had sent her husband to his execution?

It hadn’t been long since she had uncovered the horrific truth that Lucius was her biological father. And now, she was left entirely torn—shattered between a buried, instinctual longing for his affection and a roaring, justified hatred for his actions.

But as she lay alone in the dark, clutching her abdomen, the scales heavily tipped toward hatred.