CHAPTER 40: CHAPTER FORTY

The terrible, finality of Derek’s words—"Ryan would be dead"—sucked all the remaining strength from Lorena’s body. She was a hollowed-out shell, kneeling on the rich carpet of the Dowager’s chamber, her plot, her hatred, and her entire life exposed and in ruins.

Marissa took a slow step forward. Her voice was not loud, but it was filled with a cold fury that cut through the heavy silence of the room.

"Lorena," she said, her voice a low, trembling hiss. "You jealous and scheming woman. You framed me, you exiled me, all for your own selfish desire for power." She took another step, looming over the broken woman. "You could have done anything you wanted to me. But you involved a child. You dared to harm a child."

At the mention of Ryan, Lorena’s broken sobs redoubled. This was her last, her only, her most desperate plea. She scrambled forward on her hands and knees, ignoring Marissa, and clutched at the hem of Beatrice’s nightgown.

"Dowager, please, please forgive me!" she wailed, her words a torrent of desperate, terrified confession. "I was wrong! I was so wrong, but I swear on my life, I never poisoned him! I never meant to kill him!"

"Then who did it?" Marissa’s voice was a sharp crack in the room, demanding an answer.

"I don’t know! I don’t know!" Lorena shrieked, her face, streaked with tears and terror, turned up to Beatrice. "I was merely momentarily misguided! I was just... I was just so angry at her for taking my place!"

She pressed her cheek to the Dowager’s feet, her voice becoming a pathetic, pleading whimper. "Please, Dowager, spare me. Think of Ryan... think of all the years I have cared for him. I was the one who raised him, day and night. I was the one who held him when he was sick. Maybe I have no merit in your eyes... but surely, all those years of hardship... surely they count for something...."

"Shut up!"

The command was so sharp, so venomous, it silenced the entire room. Marissa stood over her, her body shaking, her hand pointing down at Lorena like a sword.

"You have no right to ever mention his name again," Marissa hissed, her voice trembling with a rage that was far more terrifying than any shout. "You have no right to use your ’care’ for him as a shield for your own crimes. You used him as a pawn. You gave him a sleeping draught, knowing it would make him ill. You left him alone and vulnerable. If I hadn’t discovered the second poison, the real poison, who knows what you would have planned next?"

Lorena stared up at her, her pleading expression crumbling. The last of her hope, her final, desperate gamble on Beatrice’s mercy, had been snuffed out by Marissa’s fury. She was on the floor, exposed, ruined, and with nothing left to lose.

A terrible, cold void opened in her heart. And in that void, a new, insane emotion sparked to life. It was undiluted hatred. She had done this. This outsider. This... this demon. She had come and, in a matter of weeks, had stolen everything. Her power. Her reputation. Derek. And even Ryan, the one person she truly loved, had called this witch ’Mother’.

"This is all because of you," Lorena whispered, her voice a low, unrecognizable growl. She slowly, shakily, got to her feet. The sobbing, pleading servant was gone, replaced by something wild and broken.

"All because of you," she repeated, her voice rising, "I have suffered! All of this is your fault!"

Her eyes, wide and crazed, darted around the room, searching for a weapon, for anything. They landed on a tall, priceless porcelain vase on a pedestal near the wall. Before Derek or the guards could react, she lunged at it, grabbing it with both hands and smashing it onto the marble floor.

CRASH!

The sound of it shattering was like a gunshot. The room was instantly filled with a spray of sharp, white shards.

"You will not live on!" she shrieked, her voice a raw, primal scream. She bent down, her hand closing around the largest, most jagged piece of porcelain, its edge as sharp as any knife.

Marissa’s eyes widened in genuine shock. She tried to step back.

But Lorena was too fast, fueled by a final, desperate burst of madness. She flew across the room, the porcelain shard held high, swinging it in a wide, vicious arc aimed directly at Marissa’s throat.

"Marissa!" Derek shouted.

He moved, his reflexes like a coiled spring. He grabbed Lorena’s wrist in a bone-crushing grip, his other arm wrapping around Marissa’s waist to pull her back from the attack.

He was fast. But he was just one fraction of a second too late.

He stopped the killing blow, his fingers digging into Lorena’s arm, but the sharp, jagged tip had already grazed Marissa’s neck.

Marissa cried out, a sharp, sudden gasp of pained surprise. Her hand instinctively flew to her throat, and when she pulled it away, her fingers were slick with her own bright, red blood. It wasn’t a deep, mortal wound, but it was a terrifying, definitive line of crimson against the pale skin of her neck.

The entire room froze. The sight of the Grand Duchess’s blood, drawn by a servant, in the Dowager’s own bedchamber, was a line that could never be uncrossed.

Beatrice, who had been frozen in horror, stood up from her bed. Her frail body was shaking, not with fear, but with rage that was more terrifying than any physical threat.

"Such audacity," she said, her voice low and trembling. "Attempting to assassinate the Grand Duchess. Under my own roof." Her voice rose, gaining the iron strength that had commanded this family for forty years. "This is a crime of the highest order!"

She turned her furious gaze to the two guards, who had already seized Lorena’s arms, twisting the porcelain shard from her limp, unresisting grasp. "Give her fifty lashes!" Beatrice commanded. "And her authority over this household, and all its properties, is hereby revoked, effective immediately!"

Derek, his arm still protectively clamped around Marissa’s waist, held his handkerchief to her bleeding neck. His face was a mask of cold, murderous fury. He looked at the panting, defeated woman, and he added his own, colder sentence.

"Throw her in the dark room," he ordered the guards, his voice a low, flat growl. "No food. No water."

The guards bowed. "Yes, Your Grace."

They began to drag the now-limp, unresisting Lorena from the room. She was defeated. But as they got her to the doorway, she seemed to find her voice one last time. Her madness, her hatred, her delusion—it all came flooding back in a final, desperate torrent.

"It’s not me!" she began to scream, her body thrashing uselessly against their powerful grip. "It wasn’t me! I didn’t poison him! I didn’t! She framed me! It was her!"

"Dowager!" she wailed, her head craning back as they pulled her through the doorway, her eyes wild. "It wasn’t me! Not me! Please, hear me out!"

Her voice muffled as they dragged her down the long, dark corridor, her desperate, insane screams of "Not me!" echoing back into the silent, shocked room, until they faded, finally, into nothing at all.