Chapter : 705

A flicker of something—annoyance, perhaps—stirred within her. It was a deviation from the established routine, and she did not appreciate deviations. Her husband was an early riser, yes, but he was usually a creature of habit. He would read on the sofa until the first servants began to stir, then retreat to his manufactory or his study. For his space to be so completely and utterly vacated at this early hour was an anomaly.

She dismissed it. He was a grown man, the heir to the Duchy. His schedule was his own. It was illogical to waste mental energy on such a trivial change in his routine. She finally rang the small, silver bell.

Laila entered a moment later, as silent and efficient as ever, carrying a tray with a steaming pot of herbal tea and a single, perfect white pastry. She curtsied deeply, her face a mask of professional deference.

“Good morning, my lady,” Laila said, her voice a soft murmur.

“Good morning, Laila,” Rosa replied, her tone cool and even. “Has Lord Ferrum already departed for his manufactory?” It was a simple, logistical question, a way of updating her mental model of the day’s events.

Laila paused, her hands stilling over the tea service. There was a flicker of hesitation in her eyes, a brief moment of uncertainty that was highly unusual for the impeccably trained handmaiden.

“Lord Ferrum is not at the manufactory, my lady,” Laila said, her voice carefully neutral. “His Lordship… he departed the estate several hours ago. Before the dawn.”

Rosa’s hand, which had been reaching for the teacup, froze. “Departed?” she repeated, the single word sharp and clear in the silent room. “Departed for where?”

“I am not privy to His Lordship’s travel plans, my lady,” Laila replied, her gaze fixed on the floor. “The Master of the Household was informed only that he was leaving on ducal business, on the Arch Duke’s authority. He was accompanied by his guard, Ken Park. They took the main southern road.”

The southern road. Towards the new salt works, perhaps. Or further. To the capital. Or beyond.

He had left. On a long journey. Without a word.

Rosa slowly withdrew her hand. She stared at the steaming teacup, the intricate patterns on the fine porcelain suddenly seeming alien and meaningless. Her mind, her great, logical, analytical engine, was struggling to process this new data point. It did not fit any of her established models of his behavior.

He was often awkward. He was sometimes impulsive. But he was never discourteous. He was a man steeped in the traditions and protocols of his class. To leave on an extended journey without formally informing his wife, the political partner in his arranged marriage, was more than just an oversight. It was a breach of etiquette so profound, so deliberate, that it could only be interpreted as a message.

Her gaze drifted to the small table by the sofa, where he sometimes left things. Then to her own writing desk. She scanned the surfaces, looking for the inevitable note. The formal, stilted, but socially correct piece of parchment that would inform her of his plans and fulfill his duty.

There was nothing.

Only the polished wood, the silent books, and the single, perfect bar of his new soap that he had left for her two days ago. It sat there, a silent, pearlescent monument to their strange, unspoken form of communication. But this time, it was not accompanied by any new offering, any new word.

The silence in the room deepened, pressing in on her. It was no longer just an absence of sound. It was an absence of him. A deliberate, pointed, and deeply insulting absence. He had not forgotten to inform her. He had chosen not to. He had looked at the cold, silent world she had built around herself, and he had responded with a cold, silent act of his own. He had simply… erased himself.

“My lady?” Laila’s voice was filled with a faint, hesitant concern. “Is the tea not to your liking?”

Rosa looked up, her expression as serene and unreadable as ever. But her eyes, her beautiful, winter-sky eyes, were filled with a new, chilling light. It was the light of a frozen lake just before the ice begins to crack.

“The tea is fine, Laila,” she said, her voice a perfect, crystalline calm. “You may leave me.”

Laila curtsied and retreated, closing the door softly behind her, leaving the Ice Princess alone in her silent, opulent fortress.

Chapter : 706

Alone. The word had never held much meaning for Rosa. Solitude was her natural state, a carefully cultivated environment that allowed for clarity of thought and purity of purpose. She had always preferred the clean, uncluttered landscape of her own mind to the messy, unpredictable chaos of other people. Loneliness was a concept for the weak, the emotionally dependent. She was neither.

And yet, as she sat in the perfect, golden silence of her morning suite, the word began to take on a new, unfamiliar, and deeply unwelcome texture. The silence that had once been her shield now felt like a weapon turned against her. The emptiness of the room was not a peaceful void; it was an active presence, a statement of her own irrelevance.

He was gone.

The fact of it was a small, hard stone in the pit of her stomach. She tried to apply logic to it, to deconstruct the event into a series of rational data points. Fact: Her husband had departed on a journey. Fact: He had done so without informing her. Fact: This was a breach of established social and political protocol. The logical conclusion was simple: it was a deliberate act of disrespect. An insult.

Her first reaction should have been anger. A cold, precise fury at the audacity of the man. He was her political partner, a variable in the complex equation of her family’s alliance with the Ferrums. His actions had consequences that extended far beyond this room. To act with such unilateral disregard was a sign of political immaturity. It was a foolish, emotional move, and she disdained foolishness.

But the emotion that rose within her was not the clean, sharp anger she had expected. It was something else. Something muddier, more complex, and infinitely more unsettling. It was a feeling that started as a tight knot in her chest and radiated outwards, a strange, hollow ache.

She rose from the bed, her movements as fluid and graceful as ever, and walked across the room. She was a vision of northern perfection, her long, silver-white hair cascading down her back, her simple silken nightgown clinging to her form. She moved like a queen in her own castle, her composure an impenetrable fortress. But inside that fortress, a quiet, bewildering siege was underway.

She stopped at her writing desk. The surface was immaculate. Her reports were stacked, her quills were sharpened, her inkwell was full. It was the workstation of a mind that valued order above all else. But her gaze was drawn to the one object on the desk that was not hers. The small, folded note that her husband had not left. The empty space where it should have been was a shouting void.

Why? Why did it bother her?

She had spent months cultivating a wall of ice between them. She had met his every awkward attempt at conversation with a chilling silence. She had treated his presence as a necessary but unwelcome imposition. She had, in every conceivable way, made it clear that she desired nothing from him but his name and the political alliance it represented.

She had gotten exactly what she wanted.

He had finally learned the rules of her game. He had finally accepted the silent, distant armistice she had imposed. He was now treating her with the same cool, profound indifference she had always shown him.

This should have been a victory. A successful re-calibration of their dysfunctional relationship to her preferred settings.

So why did it feel so much like a defeat?

She ran a hand over the smooth, cool surface of the desk. The sting of his silence was a strange, unfamiliar sensation. It was not a burning pain, but a cold one. It was the sting of being outmaneuvered. The sting of having her own weapon used against her with a precision she could not help but, on some deep, tactical level, admire.

He had not shouted. He had not argued. He had not made a scene. He had simply… left. He had judged her, found her wanting, and had silently walked away. It was an act of dismissal so complete, so absolute, that it was more insulting than any curse, more cutting than any blade. He had looked at her, the legendary Ice Princess of the South, the prodigy of the Siddik clan, and had decided she was not even worthy of a farewell.

A new, unfamiliar heat began to rise in her cheeks. It was the flush of a profound, and deeply personal, humiliation.