[BL]Reborn as the Empire's Most Desired Omega Chapter 231: The bird is free

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

The fire cracked softly behind her words, as if even the room understood it was a closing argunt. Nothing cruel in her tone. No spike of anger, no satisfaction. Just a fact, delivered in that smooth, inexorable cadence Serathine used when decisions had already been made.

Ophelia stared at the shadows playing along the edge of the saucer beside the untouched tea. Her palms were damp now. She didn’t move them.

"You had one chance to make it right," Serathine said, her tone . "And you failed it. I would recomnd you be wiser from now on."

Ophelia said nothing; there was no way Serathine could know.

She had been careful. The burner phone never touched the manor’s network, never stayed powered more than a few seconds at a ti. She’d only used it once. A single ssage. Then she’d snapped the battery out and thrown the whole thing into the bin behind the arts building at school, between the empty paint tubes and leftover paper scrapings.

There were no fingerprints. No cara footage. No data trace. She’d checked. Twice.

Even now, as she reached for the envelope Serathine had placed on the armrest, her hands were steady.

She could still leave on her own terms.

Still vanish into the cracks of the capital, like Misty had taught her. Disappear through the routes no one watched because they were too old to matter, too familiar to be suspicious.

Serathine was wrong. She was finally free.

Ophelia stood. She bowed her head again and walked toward the door with the envelope tucked neatly against her chest, like an obedient child carrying a sealed grade report.

She didn’t look back.

The door closed behind her with a soft, final click.

—

Serathine waited until the footsteps faded.

She remained seated, hands resting lightly on the curve of the chair, eyes still on the tea she’d never touched.

"She’ll try to run to Odin," Daniel said quietly.

"Let her." Serathine didn’t blink. "Lucas doesn’t care about her, and after reading what she is capable of, neither do I."

The firelight caught in the edge of her hair, setting one strand aglow as it slipped against her cheekbone. The red glinted like fla but cooled at the ends, fading into shadow as her head turned slightly. Her amber eyes, so often mistaken for warm, had dulled into sothing colder, like the stone they resembled.

"If she so much as gave the first burner," Serathine murmured, more to the air than to him, "then the end would be different."

Daniel didn’t respond.

He knew better than to ask what "different" ant.

Serathine exhaled once, slowly, and finally leaned back into the chair, the weight of the conversation folding into the upholstery like sothing settled, finished, and beneath her concern.

"She is as greedy as Misty," she said, her voice stripped of warmth, the kind of tone she used for failed investnts and fading nobility. "And unfortunately for her, she will have the sa end."

The fire had thinned into a quiet orange glow, the scent of citrus and wood polish long dissolved into air that had gone too still to feel lived in. Daniel remained near the door, unmoving, his silence not one of deference but discipline. He didn’t ask.

"She doesn’t understand power," Serathine said after a mont, her amber eyes catching what little light remained, now duller than usual. "She doesn’t even want it."

Her fingers moved, idly adjusting the porcelain saucer, the motion so precise it might’ve been mistaken for thought.

"She wants what Lucas has. She wants the attention. The protection. The weight of other people’s decisions wrapped around her like purpose. She doesn’t care who it belongs to. She only wants to take it."

Daniel said nothing. She wasn’t finished.

"She thinks Odin will give her that," Serathine continued. "That if she runs to him fast enough, if she’s pathetic in just the right way, soone will lift her out of irrelevance and put her back where she believes she belongs."

She lifted the cup but didn’t drink. The tea was cold now. She held it anyway.

"But she never built anything of her own," Serathine said, softly, almost like she was correcting a report. "Well... no. She built Lucas’s demise with Misty."

She set the cup down without a sound.

Her hand reached for the phone on the side table, the glass catching the low light as her thumb unlocked the screen in one smooth motion.

She pressed one number.

It rang once.

Then again.

Trevor answered on the third, voice faintly amused. "And here I thought that after a month of tornt you would change your target to Dax and his new oga."

"Patience, my new son-in-law," Serathine said, with the kind of glee in her tone that made emperors flinch. "His turn is coming."

She leaned back slightly, the firelight catching in the edge of her lashes.

"I’ve set our bird free. Tomorrow morning, she’s to be moved to the dorms."

Trevor humd. "How long until she flies into the glass?"

"Oh, she won’t see the glass," Serathine said lightly, reaching for her tea again and tapping one painted nail against the side of the cup. "Not until she’s already bleeding, but that helps us in finding out how far Odin’s influence is reaching."

She played with the cup, turning it once, then again, as if the porcelain could answer the questions she never bothered to voice. Her fingers paused when Daniel reappeared, silent as ever, and placed a new cup beside the old one, steam rising in gentle spirals. Her hand shifted, and this ti, she took a sip.

Trevor chuckled low on the other end of the line. It was the kind of sound that ca just before soone vanished from court records. "Well, I dealt with Jason Luna," he said, like he was talking about trimming hedges. "And there’s a Cardinal waiting for ... and Odin."

Serathine exhaled faintly through her nose, more entertained than surprised. "Don’t forget about Christian and Vivienne."

"Oh," Trevor said, almost fondly. "They’re already learning. Slowly. Elegantly. The kind of punishnt that tastes like rcy until it doesn’t."

She humd into her cup. "Good. I’d hate to think they were getting bored without us."