Mathias sank onto the edge of the mattress, the springs groaning under a weight that had nothing to do with his frame.

"They’re becoming a nuisance," he said, tugging at his collar as if the very air in the room had grown too thick to breathe. "I’ll handle Leon. You deal with Isabella. We have an understanding?"

"Fine," Olivia murmured. She didn’t look at him. Her focus was anchored to the small, obsidian shape curled in her lap. She ran a thumb over the creature’s fur, her touch rhythmic and distant.

Mathias tilted his head, his gaze sweeping over the kitten with a clinical, detached curiosity. "So... do you like it?"

"What? Oh. He’s... fine." She hesitated, the silence stretching thin. "Have you thought of a name? He needs one if he’s staying."

Olivia traced the curve of the cat’s ear. For the first time in days, the ice in her voice seemed to thaw, if only for the animal. "I don’t know. ’Black,’ perhaps. It fits."

"Simple. Direct." A ghost of a smile brushed Mathias’s lips—gone before it could be questioned. "I’m leaving."

He made it halfway to the door before her voice caught him. It wasn’t the strength of the words that stopped him, but their fragility—a jagged, heavy thing she could no longer keep buried.

"Mathias?"

He froze. He didn’t turn back, his shoulders squaring as if bracing for a physical blow he had felt coming for miles.

"Are you certain?" she asked, the words scratching at her throat. "I know I’ve asked a thousand times, but the world is different now." She swallowed hard, driven by a masochistic urge to twist the blade in her own ribs. "The succession follows his blood. Are you truly sure you won’t seek out a mistress? A second wife? Someone to give you what I failed to provide?"

The atmosphere in the room shift.

Mathias didn’t waste breath on an answer. He turned, his movement a sudden, violent blur. He crossed the space between them in two predatory strides and lunged. He caught her with a force that knocked the air from her lungs, his mouth crashing against hers—not with tenderness, but with the desperate gravity of an anchor. It was a collision of fury and absolute, scorched-earth loyalty, a kiss meant to seal a pact that neither law nor the lack of an heir could ever breach.

For a long, breathless eternity, he held her there, pinning her to the moment.

When he finally pulled back, he didn’t let go. He pressed his forehead against hers, his breath hot and jagged against her skin. "Consider that your confirmation," he hissed, his voice vibrating with a rare, dangerous edge. "And this will be the last time—the absolute last—that you ever breathe a word of this."

His fingers dug into her arms, forcing her gaze to meet his. "I am finished with the talk of legacies. We have bled enough. If children come, they inherit. If they don’t, I will watch the succession crumble and the titles burn to ash before I turn to another. I don’t care, Olivia. You are the only thing that matters. Is that clear? I am sick of it."

A wave of relief crashed over her, sharp and overwhelming. She tried to pull her mask back into place, but her eyes betrayed her, softening despite herself. "Fine, fine... there’s no need for such temper."

"There is every need, Olivia," he snapped. "You deserve to be happy, and I will spend my life ensuring it. So get these cursed thoughts out of your head. No mistresses, no second wives, no adoptions."

He stood abruptly, pacing the floor with a restless, nervous energy. Olivia watched him, a quiet warmth blooming in her chest; she found she quite liked the way he fought for her.

He stopped suddenly, turning back to her. "You know what? Black."

"Black? What about him?"

Mathias returned to her, dropping to one knee at her feet. He looked at the creature, then back at her. "We don’t need bloodlines to be parents. We have him. He’s our son from this moment on."

Olivia looked at him for a beat before a genuine, startled laugh broke from her throat. "You’ve completely lost your mind. Truly." She leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek, her eyes lingering on his. "Fine. This little thing will be our son."

In that moment, a strange, hollow ache that had followed them for years finally vanished. They sat there in the quiet, staring at the small patch of black fur as if he were indeed the prince of a kingdom they had decided was no longer worth saving.

Mathias stood, smoothing the creases of his coat. "Right then. I have to go. We’ll reconvene once you’ve had your... chat with Isabella. Agreed?"

"Yes," Olivia said softly. "You can go."

He vanished into the hallway, leaving behind a silence that felt, for the first time in years, less like a void and more like peace. Olivia lifted the small black kitten, holding him up against the pale morning light. As she stared into his emerald eyes, the permafrost around her heart finally began to crack.

"They say black cats bring nothing but rot and ruin," she whispered to the room. "But this is the first time I’ve felt a lick of luck in my life."

Then, she rose. The softness vanished, replaced by her usual, razor-sharp precision. "Now," she said to the kitten, her voice regained its edge, "let’s see what can be done about these two lunatics."

Mathias marched toward the study. He paused at the door just long enough to gather the shards of his patience before throwing it open without the courtesy of a knock.

Inside, Leon was half-drowned in a sea of parchment, using the mundane rhythm of administration as a barricade against his own nerves.

"How is my little brother?" Mathias asked, his voice bouncing off the high, vaulted ceiling.

Leon offered a smile that didn’t even attempt to reach his eyes—a pale, synthetic thing. "Fine."

He looked miserable. He had looked that way since the fallout with Isabella, wearing his bitterness like a shroud.

"Drop the pen," Mathias commanded. "I need a word."

"Talk from there," Leon replied, his eyes anchored stubbornly to the ledger. "I don’t have the luxury of idle chatter today."

Mathias ignored the dismissal and sank into the chair opposite him. The air between them grew thick, saturated with a tension Leon was desperately trying to pretend didn’t exist.

For a rare heartbeat, Mathias hesitated. He looked at his brother—really looked at him—wondering how to dismantle the wall of denial Leon had spent years perfecting.

"Leon..."

Leon finally looked up, his eyes weary. "Why the hesitation? Nothing could be more terrifying than that Imperial decree from yesterday." He sighed, tossing the document onto the heap and leaning back to rub his temples. "You really should face His Majesty, brother. Go out and meet the storm instead of hiding here."

"Yes, yes, the Emperor. I’ll get to him," Mathias flicked his hand dismissively, cutting through the suggestion. "But that isn’t why I’m here."

"Then what is it? What could be so urgent?"

"Leon... when am I going to see children running through these halls? *Your* children?"

The sound of Leon’s pen hitting the mahogany desk was as sharp as a gunshot. He let out a jagged, frustrated groan. "For God’s sake, are we digging this up again?"

"Yes," Mathias said. His voice dropped an octave, shedding its warmth and turning dangerously, surgically cold. "We are opening it now."

"I told you," Leon snapped, his eyes flashing with a sudden, desperate defiance. "Not until *you* produce an heir. I want no part in the succession wars. No complications, Mathias. That was the arrangement. You know I can’t do this—not like this."

Mathias let out a long, weary sigh, his gaze drifting to the shadows pooling on the wall behind Leon. "Then you’ll be waiting an eternity," he said quietly. "Because it isn’t going to happen."

Leon’s brows knitted together, his fingers white-knuckled against the edge of the mahogany. "What exactly is that supposed to mean?"

"We cannot have children," Mathias replied. His voice was flat, stripped of the luxury of emotion. "The damage to her body was too great. After Elias died... our chances became nonexistent. Truly, Leon, I don’t care whose blood secures the succession, but this Duchy needs an heir. From me, or from you."

The color drained from Leon’s face. The stubborn defiance that had sustained him moments ago evaporated, replaced by a raw, unvarnished grief. He looked at Mathias then—not as his Duke, but as his brother. "Mathias... I had no idea." After a heavy, suffocating silence, he asked in a hollow whisper, "How is she? How did Olivia...?"

"She offered to let me take a mistress," Mathias said, a bitter ghost of a smile haunting his lips. "Or a second wife. She was ready to step aside just to hand me the heir she thinks I ’deserve.’"

"She offered that?" Leon breathed, visibly recoiling from the weight of such a sacrifice.

"She did. And I refused, naturally," Mathias said. Then, the register of his voice shifted. The brief flicker of vulnerability hardened into something sharper, something predatory. He leaned forward, the grief in his eyes replaced by a cold, calculated focus. "But as I said... I didn’t come here to mourn our tragedy. Ours is settled. It’s your tragedy we need to discuss."

Mathias leaned back, his eyes narrowing as he pinned Leon with a look that left no room for retreat. "The Duchy requires an heir, Leon. Whether it suits you or not, the succession rests on your shoulders now. There is no one else."

Leon took a jagged breath, his eyes wide and bright with a frantic, old fear. "I can’t, You know better than anyone what I endured under our father. You were the shield, Mathias. You could stomach his cruelty, his coldness... you became like him to survive it. But I? I nearly lost my mind in this very house. I will not bring a child into this world only to watch this legacy erode their soul the way it did ours."

"And what of Isabella?" Mathias’s voice was a low, dangerous hiss. "Have you spared her a single thought? Or are you so drowned in your own martyrdom that you can’t see you’re suffocating her with your choices?"

Leon faltered, his gaze flickering guiltily toward the heavy, closed door of the study. "She... she... I don’t know. Perhaps she doesn’t want children either. She agreed to my terms from the start, didn’t she? She knew exactly what this marriage would be."

Mathias stared him down, his expression carved from cold, unyielding stone. He let the silence stretch, heavy and suffocating, until the very air in the room felt too thin to breathe.

"She’s pregnant, Leon."