[BL]Reborn as the Empire's Most Desired Omega Chapter 230: Pretty girl (2)

She followed him.

The hallways of House D’Argente never creaked. No matter the hour or the season, the floors stayed polished to an impossible shine, the rugs too thick to betray a footstep, the air too carefully stilled to let anything echo. There was no wind, no warmth. No accidents. Just control in every thread and tile, wrapped around her like a leash no one spoke about.

The only sound now ca from Daniel’s steps ahead of herand the soft tap of her own shoes.

Ophelia kept her chin level and her spine straight, because anything less would be obvious. Because weakness, even the shape of it, was sothing Serathine would never na but always see.

Even when Serathine had told her that her mother, her own mother, had been executed, nothing in her had cracked aloud. No trembling voice, no stifled sobs. She hadn’t asked to see the body or the ash. She hadn’t begged to know if Misty had been afraid, if they let her speak before the sentence was carried out, if she’d been granted dignity or just processed like a sealed box disappearing through the back doors of the capital. Those questions had been the only thing she could hear in her mind for days, but she hadn’t let them slip. Not once. Not in front of her.

She hated Serathine as much as he hated Lucas.

Serathine had taken everything from her with grace. With that distant elegance she wielded even in the lazy mornings she liked to savor her coffee. She hadn’t humiliated Ophelia. Hadn’t insulted her. She’d done sothing worse.

She’d made her irrelevant.

Lucas had done the sa.

He was supposed to stay where he belonged, in the margins, in the shadows, obedient and pliable, the perfect investnt folded into Misty’s long ga. But he hadn’t. He’d changed the terms. He’d been claid, crowned, praised.

He’d been seen.

And that was never part of the plan.

She was supposed to get all that.

She was the one who learned how to hold a teacup without trembling, how to speak in front of investors without sounding too sharp or too soft. She morized bloodlines and marriage prospects and the difference between strategy and affection before she turned sixteen. She was supposed to finish the petty academy she was in now with quiet distinction and step into the exclusivist college they’d already chosen for her, a place where the girls were pedigreed and the boys had futures printed on their letterhead. She was supposed to fall in love with soone worthy, soone planned, not bought. She was supposed to be the one with titles, with power, with real choice.

While Lucas...

Lucas was supposed to rot under Christian’s thumb.

And when that failed, he was supposed to be passed to Odin, broken in quietly, used carefully, the way all beautiful mistakes were.

But sohow, he was the one in silk now.

He was the one with the crown in his na, the public at his feet.

He was the one they whispered about in the marble halls of power, no longer a product, but a symbol.

She was the one they whispered about last year.

Now, they smiled past her.

Daniel stopped in front of the tall double doors, the brass handles shaped like vines curling toward a stem that didn’t quite et. He didn’t look at her, didn’t say anything. Just opened one side of the door and stepped aside like a servant in a theatre play, practiced, ceremonial, bloodless.

Ophelia stepped in.

The study was dimly lit, the curtains half-drawn against the dusk. Pale gold spilled through the gaps in soft streaks that fell across the carpet, too warm for the room it touched. Everything inside slled like bergamot and old wood polish, that subtle scent of control Serathine wore like a second skin.

She didn’t rise.

Serathine was seated in the chair by the fireplace, not at the desk, not flanked by docunts or reports. Her legs were crossed, one hand draped over the armrest, the other resting on a porcelain saucer beside a cooling cup of tea she hadn’t touched. Her robe was slate gray, darker than usual, almost charcoal in this light. There was sothing final about the stillness of her posture.

"Sit," Serathine said, not unkindly.

Ophelia did, quietly, her shoes sinking into the rug, her skirt brushing the edge of the wingback chair across from the fire. She folded her hands. She didn’t speak.

Serathine didn’t look at her right away.

"You’ve been here for five months," she said. "I trust you’ve found the accommodations acceptable."

It was a test. It had to be. Everything in this house was.

"Yes, Your Grace. Thank you."

Serathine nodded once, but still didn’t et her eyes.

"You’ve kept up appearances," she said next. "No public incidents. No unwanted headlines. The court is no longer interested in you. That is a kind of freedom you may not yet appreciate."

Ophelia said nothing. She wasn’t foolish enough to mistake that for a complint.

There was a pause, long enough to let the silence weigh down the room.

"You’ll be transferred to the Academy dormitories tomorrow morning," Serathine said, simply. "At seven."

The words struck like cold water across her chest, but she didn’t move. Didn’t even blink. Only her pulse betrayed her, thrumming once at the base of her throat before slipping back into rhythm.

"I see," she said.

"You’ll retain your stipend," Serathine continued. "Your tuition will be maintained through House D’Argente’s bursary. But you will no longer be under my direct supervision. That arrangent has served its purpose."

She said it like she was closing a file.

"You had a chance to beco sothing more," she said, voice quiet, not even cruel. "But unfortunately for you, Lucas has made it clear he doesn’t want to see or hear about you again."

Ophelia flinched and for the first ti in last two months her control slipped.

"I didn’t do anything to deserve all of this," she said.

Her voice wasn’t raised, but it cracked on the edge of sothing raw, too brittle to swallow back in ti. It was closer to disbelief, the kind that had been sitting in her chest like a splinter that finally twisted the wrong way.

Serathine didn’t look surprised. She looked... tired. Like the conversation had finally reached the place she had expected it to start.

"No," the duchess said evenly. "You didn’t do anything. That’s precisely the problem."