Chapter 171: Breaking Through His Walls
"I know you are not a mere wooden doll!" Leroy’s voice cracked, laced with bitterness. "You hate your father, and yet... you don’t hate me? Have you ever asked why?"
Lorraine blinked, utterly lost in his words. She couldn’t grasp what he was trying to say.
His hand pressed harder on her shoulder, the grip sharp, almost violent, biting into her skin.
She had so much to say to him. So many questions, so many confessions, yet this—this—was how he chose to act after meeting the Dowager?
Nothing made sense anymore.
Her breath caught in her chest, and instinctively, she wrenched herself free of his hold.
Something was deeply wrong with him, and her heart ached for him.
His eyes... they lacked the clarity they always carried.
It was as if some dam had shattered deep within his mind, and all his carefully contained emotions were flooding out in uncontrolled torrents of anger, despair, and self-loathing.
She did not recognize the man before her. This was not the Leroy she knew, the composed, intelligent, and strong husband who loved her in his quiet way. This was someone broken, fragile, and blind to the pain he was inflicting.
"Enough!" Her voice rang sharp in the heavy air, cutting through the chaos of his words and his touch.
She stepped back, her gaze unwavering. Her husband would not and should not hurt her. She wouldn’t mind it much, but seeing how he kissed her and held her the past few days, she knew it would break him.
She needed to end this. She couldn’t physically overpower him, but she could jolt him awake from whereever hole in his mind he was hiding in. She wanted her husband back.
"I am no fool, Leroy." Her tone was steady, but it carried the weight of ten long years of sorrow and silent endurance.
"When you brought Zara into my home... When you barred me from choosing which ball to attend... When you made me a bystander in my own life... I had decided to leave you."
Her eyes flared with a fierce light, as though daring him to deny it. "That meeting in the tower... I was never going to let you see who I truly was. I was going to leave you. Let you cry for me in my absence. I wanted to be cruel to you!"
She spoke every word like it was a declaration of war and freedom intertwined. "So no. No one else was puppeteering me. I am still here, because I want to."
Her chest rose and fell, trembling not from fear, but from the effort of holding her resolve.
"It was all me. I chose to love you. I chose to protect you. I chose to wait, stubbornly, for your return, to see the one who was living solely for you."
Her voice grew quieter, more intimate, almost confessional. "It might not have been solely my effort, and there might be other forces at play... but I planned it. I wanted it to happen."
"No! It was some prophecy! Some woman who wants you manipulates you. She needs you for her plans, and I am another pawn~"
Her eyes, fierce and shimmering, bore into his, interjecting him. "Leroy, I am not a puppet. And you... You are not a puppet either. Your love is not the result of manipulation either. I am the one who manipulates, but never with love. You fell for me, and you are mine just like I am yours. Don’t you dare, don’t you ever ever diminish my authority over myself, as if I am some pathetic, weak little lady... incapable of distinguishing love from manipulation! Don’t you dare doubt my love!"
Her words hung between them, heavy and undeniable.
Leroy’s eyes flickered, perhaps with shame, perhaps with confusion, before clouding over again.
And in that moment, Lorraine understood something more painful than hatred or doubt.
Her love for him, her will to stand by him, was not weakness. It was her fiercest rebellion.
Her most profound strength.
"Wait..." Her voice wavered, but her eyes were sharp, demanding. "Do you think I love you unconditionally just because of some prophecy? That the Swan Oracle had some hand in our emotions?"
The question wasn’t accusatory, but probing, desperate to uncover the truth hidden beneath his despair. Was that what gnawed at him so relentlessly?
Leroy looked away, his fingers unconsciously rubbing his chin. His eyes, for the first time in a while, seemed clear.
Only then did Lorraine realize something staggering: he knew. She had told him about her plan to leave, about how she once resolved to make him regret her absence. She had decided to keep that a secret until the day she died. But she had revealed it to him directly.
She had expected anger. Sadness, perhaps. But instead... it seemed to have helped him understand.
Without hesitation, she stepped toward the desk where papers lay strewn, her meticulous plans for their survival, their future. She picked them up, her hands trembling but steady, and placed them deliberately in Leroy’s own.
"Look at this..." Her voice softened, but her tone remained firm. "I did this." Her hand hovered over the parchment, then pressed to her belly, instinctively shielding the life growing within her. "I made these plans to protect you. To protect me. To protect us..."
She sighed, the weight of unspoken emotion pressing in. "I do not want war, Leroy. I know you care for the lives of innocents. I designed every single one of these so it wouldn’t lead to bloodshed."
But then... her fingers lingered on a particular piece of parchment. Her brow furrowed, and her lips trembled as if the truth burned her from within. Leroy’s hand reflexively landed on the small of her back seeing her confusion.
"I don’t remember writing this..." Her voice was soft, broken. Her eyes reddened as she picked up the paper and pressed it into Leroy’s hand.
His eyes fell onto the words she hadn’t intended to write. The one scenario, a cruel inevitability, where war would ignite.
When the Dowager comes for Lorraine.
That one act would cause a series of events that would lead to war. A full-blown war involving all the nations under the Vaelorian Empire.
She hadn’t written that. Because she had other plans; plans meant to prevent exactly that outcome.
Did I blank out?
Did the Swan Oracle... write this?
Her hands shook violently, disbelief and fear mingling. She had spoken so confidently before, so certain that no one else was involved in their fate. But now... that certainty crumbled.
"Why did you meet the Dowager?"
Her voice was barely a whisper, but firm, pleading for an answer.
Leroy’s eyes lifted from the parchment, meeting hers with a new, heavier resolve.
The air between them thickened, charged with silence and the weight of truth about to unfold.
Then, without warning, Lorraine stepped forward.
Her hand moved sharply, slapping his cheek.
The sound of the slap echoed in the room, cutting through the tension like a blade.