CHAPTER 190: CHAPTER 191: HIS AMBITION

The great doors of the Leonidus mansion sighed open with a sound like breath escaping from an ancient beast.

The wind followed Sabrina inside, carrying with it the scent of wet stone and rain-slicked iron.

Her boots left faint prints across the marble floor, each step whispering a story of struggle, of something undone.

The maids were the first to see her — and the first to fall silent. They moved toward her like shadows trained to serve, their eyes flicking over her torn sleeves, the loose buttons, the faint smear of earth on her cheek.

One of them reached to take her hood, fingers trembling before she caught herself. They did not ask questions; their silence was the etiquette of the noble house, a silence that spoke of both discipline and fear.

Sabrina’s breath came shallowly. The mansion was warm, scented faintly of wine and lilac oil, but she felt cold under her skin.

The kind of cold that clings not to flesh but to thought — the aftermath of being touched. Touched in places, where she didn’t dare name.

When she entered the living room, Catherine was already there. The firelight gilded her hair in molten gold as she lounged upon the crimson settee, a queen enthroned not by title but by presence.

Scrolls and letters covered the table before her like a map of intrigues — the empire itself spread out in parchment and ink. She looked up at the sound of Sabrina’s approach.

For a moment, her gaze sharpened. She saw the disarray in Sabrina’s clothing, the faint mark along her collarbone where something hard had brushed skin too long, and in that instant Catherine understood more than words could convey.

Still, she asked, her voice low, precise, cutting the silence like a knife across silk.

"Did you convince him?"

Sabrina stopped. The fire crackled. Shadows trembled on the velvet curtains. She did not answer.

Catherine’s lips curved — not in mockery, but in something darker. She leaned back, the jewels on her wrist catching the firelight. "I see," she murmured. "Haaa....he damned you, then. as a man damns his woman, like an idea claims a soul."

Sabrina’s fingers curled at her sides. There was truth in those words — more truth than she cared to admit.

Catherine looked away, eyes narrowing on the fire. "In the end, you failed to bring him back..."

The question was more ritual than rebuke. Both of them knew the answer. Aiden — or Lucifer, as he now called himself within the cloistered walls of the Church — was not a man easily turned.

Sabrina sat slowly across from her, the chair creaking beneath her weight. She felt a dull ache at her temples, the kind that comes from wrestling with something holy or cursed.

"He won’t return," she said finally. Her voice was softer than usual, distant, as if she were speaking from a dream.

Catherine sighed. "Of course not." Her tone was threaded with both irritation and a strange envy. "He’s made you believe in him too, hasn’t he?"

Sabrina looked up, startled. "Believe?"

"Yes." Catherine’s gaze held hers. "Believe that his madness is purpose. That his ideas are our salvation." She poured herself a glass of wine, the red liquid trembling as it caught the light.

"Tell me, Sabrina, what did he whisper to you this time? Another sermon or he just thrusted deep enough that you forgot everything..?"

Sabrina didn’t reply immediately. The memory of his voice was still in her — deep, certain, carved into her still gushing pussy.

But in the middle of it all, A false prophet, he had said. And she had felt the world tilt beneath those words.

Her silence was answer enough. Catherine’s mouth twitched — a flash of something between admiration and bitterness.

"I should have gone myself," Catherine murmured, swirling the wine. "Maybe then I’d know what spell he’s weaving."

"You think you’d have done better?"

"I think I would have understood him," Catherine said simply. "Or at least fallen for him properly." The smile that followed was edged with irony, but her eyes betrayed a glint of genuine jealousy.

Sabrina’s heart tightened. For a moment, the two women stared at each other — reflections of the same wound, different shapes of devotion.

"As we already know, He’s building something," she began. "A guild. A gathering that unites the Church, the nobles, the adventurers... even the merchants."

Catherine’s brows lifted. "Yes...."

"It’s more than ambition, one of the reasons he joined the church..." Sabrina said, her voice growing steady as she spoke. "It’s... deliberate. He’s weaving power itself, Catherine. But I don’t think it’s for greed."

Catherine tilted her head. "Then for what?"

Sabrina hesitated again, eyes flickering toward the window where rain streaked the glass in thin silver lines. "That’s what I don’t understand...."

Catherine frowned, the name Aiden tasting bitter and sweet in her mind. He had spoken once — only once — of such things, on a night lit by candle smoke and laughter before it was broken by duty.

She remembered the flicker in his eyes when he said, If war comes, it won’t just kill kings. It will end everything.

And now Sabrina was confirming that same fear.

Catherine set the wine down, her fingers tapping lightly against the rim. "He mentioned something once," she said slowly, as if the memory were a fragile glass she feared to break. "A civil war. Said it would come soon — that it wouldn’t just wound the empire, but destroy it."

Sabrina’s gaze snapped up. "A ...civil war?"

"Yes. Between the sons of the Emperor." Catherine’s voice was low, the firelight dancing against her face. "The old man is dying. Seven heirs, each with a claim, each with a hunger sharper than the last. And behind them — the Archdukes.

Four serpents, each coiled around a throne they’ll never sit upon, but willing to bite anyone who does."

The fire hissed softly as if in warning.

Sabrina’s thoughts spiraled. The rumors had been whispers in the taverns and guild halls, but if Aiden had spoken of it with certainty — then it was not rumor. It was prophecy.

"Then that’s why," she murmured. "He’s trying to prepare for it. To control the chaos before it begins."

Catherine laughed softly, but there was no amusement in it. "Control chaos? He doesn’t control it, Sabrina. He is it. He thrives in it. You’ve seen it — that glint in his eyes when the world trembles. He’s not resisting the storm; he’s becoming it."

Sabrina’s pulse quickened. "...Then maybe that’s what we need," she whispered.

Catherine froze. "What did you say?"

"Maybe the world needs someone who doesn’t fear the storm," Sabrina said, her words trembling as they formed. "Someone who can walk into the fire and not burn."

The room seemed to darken around them. Outside, thunder grumbled distantly, a low murmur like the voice of a sleeping god.

Catherine looked at her for a long time. "You sound like you’ve already chosen your side."

Sabrina exhaled, shaking her head. "No. I’m just trying to understand his."

Catherine stood and moved toward the window. Her reflection shimmered against the glass — elegant, composed, a woman carved from the very stone of the Leonidus name. But in her eyes burned a shadow of something older, hungrier.

"He once told me," she said softly, "that when the world ends, it won’t be because of monsters or demons. It’ll be because of people — because no one will have the courage to stand when the gods fall silent."

Sabrina looked up at her. "You believe him?"

Catherine turned. "I don’t know," she said. "But I believe he believes it. And that makes him dangerous."

The words hung heavy between them.

For a long moment, neither spoke. Only the fire filled the silence, its flames bowing low like courtiers before a throne.

Then Sabrina’s voice came again, quiet but certain. "Do you think he could stop it? The war?"

Catherine didn’t answer at first. She crossed to the table, gathering the scattered papers — reports from spies, letters from the guild, messages bearing royal seals. She looked at them as if they were bones cast for divination.

"I don’t know," she said finally. "But I think he will not stop it...but....use it instead..."

Something in her tone — half admiration, half fear — made Sabrina shiver.

Catherine looked up, her lips curving faintly. "Maybe he’s trying to prepare, for what’s coming, Or rule what comes after."

Sabrina laughed softly, though the sound carried no joy. "You think he wants the.. throne?"

"Why not?" Catherine said. "He has the mind for it. The vision. The audacity. Perhaps even the blessing — or curse — of fate."

Sabrina shook her head, the faintest smile touching her lips. "He’s a commoner."

"Commoners build empires more often than nobles admit," Catherine replied. "But no... I don’t think he wants to be Emperor. He wants something larger — to sit above thrones, not on them."

Sabrina wrapped her arms around herself, feeling a strange unease settle over her. The world felt as if it were holding its breath.

"Do you ever think," she said softly, "that we’re standing too close to something divine? Or...something...damned?"

Catherine smiled faintly, her gaze distant. "Both, perhaps. But tell me, isn’t that what makes it so .. gushingly fun?"

For a moment, Sabrina didn’t answer. She remembered his eyes — that cold blue fire that looked through her, not at her. Fucking her deep inside that confession room. Infront of an abbess no less.

"Catherine..." she began, but the other woman raised a hand, silencing her.

"No more," Catherine said. "We’ll speak of him again when he makes his next move. Until then, let the world think him as the prophet...we will move when he asks us to.."