Chapter : 675

He knelt once more, so he was looking her directly in the eye. "You have two paths before you. You can leave this room, and we will arrange for you to disappear. We will give you enough gold to start a new life in a distant land, far from the reach of the Altamirans. You will be free of them, but you will also be free of us. You will live the rest of your life as a ghost, always looking over your shoulder, and you will never see your family again."

He paused, letting the bleak reality of that "freedom" sink in. "Or," he said, his voice dropping to an intense, compelling whisper, "you can choose the second path. You can stay. You can work for me. You can become a true agent, a double agent, my eyes and ears inside the enemy's network. You will feed them the information I want them to have. You will help me dismantle their entire operation from the inside out. It will be the most dangerous thing you have ever done. You will be living on a razor's edge every single day. But if you choose this path, I give you my solemn vow, as the heir to House Ferrum."

He leaned in closer, his eyes burning with a terrifying, righteous fire. "I will not just protect your family. I will liberate them. I will bring the full weight of this house, and all the power at my command, down upon the heads of the men who have held them hostage. I will hunt them down, and I will bring your family home. I will give you back your life."

He laid the two choices before her: the lonely, empty freedom of exile, or the terrifying, perilous path to true redemption. He was offering her a chance not just to atone for her betrayal, but to become the instrument of her own family's salvation. For the first time in years, Pia was not being given a command disguised as a choice. She was being given a real one. Her future, and her very soul, hung in the balance of her answer.

The silence in the study was absolute, a perfect vacuum in which Lloyd’s offer hung, shimmering with both terrifying peril and incandescent hope. Pia stared at him, her tear-filled eyes wide with a mixture of disbelief and dawning, fragile awe. For years, her life had been a narrow, dark corridor with no exits, her every step dictated by the will of her shadowy masters. Now, this man, this lord she had so thoroughly betrayed, was offering her not one, but two open doors.

One led to a grey, lonely twilight of survival. A life of quiet anonymity, haunted by the ghosts of the family she had abandoned. It was safety, of a sort. An escape from the immediate threat. But it was a life severed from its roots, a life of perpetual looking-over-the-shoulder. It was the freedom of the exile, which was no freedom at all.

The other door opened onto a path paved with fire and shadow. It was a path of immense danger, where a single misstep would mean a horrific death not just for her, but for everyone she loved. But it was also a path that led towards the sun. It was a path to redemption, to reunion, to a future where she could look her siblings in the eye without the crushing weight of her shame. It was a chance to fight back.

She thought of the cold, dead eyes of her Altamiran handlers, their voices like the scrape of stone on stone, their threats delivered with a casual, monstrous cruelty. They saw her as a tool, an expendable asset, a thing to be used and discarded.

Then she looked at Lord Ferrum. He was offering her not just a mission, but a vow. He spoke not of using her, but of liberating her. He was offering her the one thing she craved more than safety, more than gold, more than life itself: justice.

The choice, in the end, was no choice at all.

Slowly, shakily, Pia got to her feet. She was no longer the weeping, broken girl on the floor. A new light was kindling in her eyes, a tiny, flickering flame of resolve in the vast darkness of her fear. She met Lloyd’s intense gaze, and for the first time, she did not flinch.

"I will stay," she said, her voice a reedy whisper, but infused with a strength that surprised everyone in the room, most of all herself. "I will serve you, my lord. Truly, this time. I will be your agent. I will help you destroy them."

Chapter : 676

A slow, satisfied smile touched Lloyd’s lips. He had not just gained an intelligence asset; he had gained a fiercely motivated ally. He had taken her despair and reforged it into a weapon.

"Good," he said, his voice losing its intimidating edge and becoming that of a commander briefing his soldier. "Your mission begins now. You will continue your duties as before. You will maintain your cover. When your handler contacts you for a report on Project Sunstone, you will tell them you were only able to copy a portion of the plans before you were almost discovered. You will provide them with the schematics for the Infusion Chamber, but claim you could not get the core alchemical formulas. This will force them to keep you in place. You are too valuable an asset for them to discard."

He turned to the other women. "From this moment forward, Pia is under my direct protection. She is no longer a traitor; she is an operative engaged in a critical mission for this house. You will treat her with the respect that position deserves. The secret of her true role does not leave this room. Is that understood?"

Jasmin and Tisha nodded immediately, their relief and admiration for their lord’s mercy evident on their faces. Mei Jing gave a single, sharp nod of assent, her mind already reconfiguring her strategic plans to incorporate this new, high-risk intelligence operation. They were a team once more, their broken trust now being rebuilt on the foundation of a shared, dangerous new secret.

Lloyd looked back at Pia. "You have made a brave choice, Pia. The path ahead will not be easy. But you will not walk it alone." He reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder, a gesture of solidarity and acceptance. "Welcome back to House Ferrum."

It was at that precise moment, as a fragile sense of hope and renewed purpose began to settle over the room, that the world ended.

It began with a flicker. A dark, almost imperceptible pulse of energy that seemed to emanate from Pia herself. She gasped, her eyes widening not in fear, but in a sudden, sharp surprise. Her hand flew to the back of her neck, her fingers scrabbling at the skin just below her hairline.

"What is it?" Jasmin asked, her voice tight with alarm.

Pia couldn't answer. A low, guttural groan escaped her lips. Her body began to tremble, then to convulse. On the pale skin of her neck, under her frantic fingers, a pattern began to glow. It was not the pure, clean light of spirit magic, but a sickly, necrotic black luminescence, like light shining through a diseased soul.

The pattern resolved itself into a complex, spidery seal, an intricate web of dark, jagged lines. It was a curse mark. Ancient, potent, and utterly malevolent.

"A failsafe," Mei Jing breathed, her face a mask of horror as she recognized the nature of the magic. "A curse of silence. They booby-trapped her."

The black light of the seal intensified, pulsing in time with Pia’s now-frantic heartbeat. She clawed at her throat, a choked, gargling sound escaping her lips. Black foam began to bubble at the corners of her mouth. Her body arched backward in an impossible, agonizing spasm, her muscles locked in a brutal, unwinnable war against the dark magic consuming her from within.

The room was plunged into chaos. Lloyd, his face a mask of cold fury, realized what was happening. This was the Altamirans’ final, cruel piece of insurance. If their agent was ever captured, if she ever confessed, the curse would activate, silencing her permanently and destroying the evidence.

He was watching his new, valuable asset being executed by remote control.

The sickly, black light pulsing from the curse seal on Pia's neck cast grotesque, dancing shadows across the study. The air grew thick and heavy, charged with the malevolent energy of a forbidden, ancient magic. The scent of ozone and something else, something that smelled like rot and despair, filled the room. Pia's convulsions grew more violent, her body a puppet being jerked about by invisible, demonic strings. Her eyes, wide and white with terror, were fixed on Lloyd, a silent, desperate scream trapped within them.

For a frozen moment, everyone was paralyzed by the sheer, horrific suddenness of it. This was not a battle with swords and spells; this was a body-snatching, a soul-stealing, an act of intimate, biological warfare being conducted from a hundred leagues away.

Lloyd was the first to break through the paralysis, his mind a thunderclap of rage and frustration. He had just reclaimed this asset. He had just forged her into a weapon. He would not allow his enemies to snatch her away from him, to execute his soldier in his own command tent.