Chapter : 1301

His words were cold and practical, the logic of a doctor explaining why a limb must be removed. And the most terrible part was that she understood. As a woman who had dealt with dangerous court politics her whole life, she saw why the move was brutally necessary. Rosa had been allowed to hope. That hope, given his impossible political problems, had become a poison. This was the only cure.

"I understand," she whispered back. The words tasted like ash in her mouth. Her heart ached with a deep, burning pity for her sister. But her mind, the cold, logical part she got from her father, could not deny that his strategy was correct.

They continued to dance, moving in a silent, graceful circle around a black hole of unspoken tragedy. She could feel the warmth of his hand on her lower back, a steady, solid presence. She could smell the faint, clean scent of his AURA soap, mixed with the northern smell of pine and cold steel. He was so real, so solid, so different from the ghosts that were now part of her own life.

"I have decided to formally ask for a divorce from Rosa," he said. It was not a confession, but a simple, unemotional statement. "The contract did its job. It is time for it to end."

The finality of his words felt like a heavy weight in her chest. The small, secret, and very disloyal part of her that had come to life at his crazy suggestion on the balcony was now completely gone. "I see," she managed to say. Her voice was a perfect, empty echo of his own coldness.

"After the way she treated you… the years of coldness… she is not worthy of you," Mina heard herself say. The words were a surprising and fiercely loyal defense of the man who had just destroyed her family. The contradiction made her feel dizzy and sick. "But still… it makes me sad. For her. For the girl she used to be. For what could have been."

"Some things are not meant to be," he replied, and the tiredness in his voice sounded ancient and endless. "Some stories are sad from the very first page."

The music started to build towards its end. The notes from the violins were like a final, crying goodbye. The dance was almost over. The show was almost finished. And in that last moment, something inside Lloyd seemed to break.

He looked at her. His eyes were no longer those of a soldier or a planner, but of a desperate, drowning man. The control, the masks, all the layers of pretending—they all fell away. All that was left was a raw, bleeding honesty that was more shocking than any show of power.

"Mina," he began, his voice dropping to a low, intense whisper. It was not a political move. It was a prayer, a confession, and a terrible, beautiful question he had no right to ask. "If a time comes… when your time of sadness is over… when you feel ready to open your heart again…" He paused, his gaze holding her, trapping her. "And if I were the one to ask… if I came to you, not as a lord, but as a man… would you accept?"

The world did not just stop. It broke into pieces.

The music, the lights, the whispers, the very air she was breathing—it all disappeared. There was only his face, his eyes filled with a lifetime of pain and a single, desperate spark of hope, and the impossible, world-breaking question hanging between them.

A huge wave of pure, hot anger crashed over her. How dare he? The pure, monstrous arrogance of it. To destroy her sister with one hand and offer her a kingdom with the other. He was a king of ruins, asking her to be his queen.

But then, the anger was gone, washed away by a second, stronger wave. A memory. The sound of a silver flute on a rainy night. A song so full of loneliness that it had spoken to the deepest, most secret parts of her own sad soul. He had not just played a song; he had shown her his heart, and it was as broken and lonely as her own.

The anger and the sadness fought inside her. It was a huge battle that left her feeling empty and shaking. She was angry at him for his cruelty. She was sad for her sister. She felt sorry for the lonely man in her arms. And she was scared of the small, disloyal, and completely crazy part of her that wanted to say yes.

She could not say yes. It would be a betrayal of her sister, her family, and her own honor.

Chapter : 1302

She could not say no. It would be a lie to the man who had just shown her the raw, true version of his own broken soul.

The music ended. The final note hung in the air, a perfect, sad, and unanswered question. Mina just stared at him. Her face was a perfect, beautiful mask of calm that hid the disaster raging inside her. She had not given him an answer. She had given him a silence that was worse than any refusal, and more hopeful than any acceptance. The dance was over. The real torture had just begun.

The fancy glass doors of the balcony closed behind him with a soft click. The sound was a final end to the disaster he had just created. The warm, golden light of the ballroom was gone. Now, there was only the cool, silver light of the moon. Lloyd stumbled forward and grabbed the cold marble railing. He held on to it like a drowning man holding a piece of a wrecked ship. The city of Bethelham spread out below him, a shining, uncaring blanket of a million small lights.

His mind was a loud, chaotic fire. He felt drunk, a dizzying, sick feeling that had nothing to do with the one beer he had hours ago. This was a mental drunkenness, a storm of emotions so strong it had broken the cold, logical part of his mind. The general, the planner, the man who was always ten steps ahead, had been completely and terribly defeated. Not by an enemy army, but by a ghost.

He had done it again. He had seen Mina’s face, and he had lost control.

It was a huge failure of self-control, a mistake he could not forgive. He had spent months, years in this new life, carefully building a wall around his heart. He buried the memories of that other world under tons of duty, plans, and the need to survive. He had used his past life like a book of facts, a source of knowledge for his plans, not a painful wound to look at again.

But seeing Mina tonight… it was not just a small memory. It was like she had come back to life completely. The wall around his heart had not just been broken; it had been destroyed. It was turned to dust by a huge wave of sadness he thought he had gotten over long ago.

He closed his eyes, and the memories, as sharp and clear as broken glass, cut through him.

He was not in the Royal Palace. He was in a dusty, sunny training area, listening to the familiar sound of swords hitting each other. Mina, her hair in a simple braid, had sweat on her forehead. Her smile was bright and competitive as she beat him for the third time that morning. Her laugh, which sounded like clear, running water, echoed in the small, simple room they shared. It was a rare moment of peace in a world full of war.

He was on a rare day off, walking through a busy market, holding her hand tightly. He remembered the smell of roasting nuts and spices. He remembered the feeling of her fingers in his as they talked. They were not talking about battle plans, but about the color they would paint the walls of the small house they dreamed of buying after the war. It was a quiet, simple, and beautiful future that had been their light in the darkness.

He was in a field hospital. The air was thick with the smell of medicine and death. He was holding her hand. Her skin was cold, and her breathing was weak and difficult. He was watching the life leave her eyes. She had been killed by a random piece of an exploding shell, a meaningless act of violence in a war that had taken everything. He was making a desperate, silent prayer to a god he did not believe in, a prayer that was not answered.

The sadness was not a memory. It was a real thing, a heavy weight on his chest that made it hard to breathe. The love he had felt for her, a love he had carried like a secret, holy wound for over fifty years in that other life, had exploded tonight. Its force had destroyed his reason, his control, and his very idea of who he was.

He had looked at Mina Siddik, a woman he barely knew, a woman who was his wife’s sister, and he had seen a ghost. A beautiful, loved ghost. And in a moment of pure, complete madness, he had proposed to her. He had not been asking a living woman to marry him. He had been kneeling at a grave, begging a memory to come back to life.