Olivia stood there, a statue of velvet and bone, the copper-stained locket still heavy in her palm. When Kyle reached out, his hand trembling with a need to offer some fragment of comfort, she recoiled. Her hand snapped up, cutting through the air like a blade.
"Do not touch me," she commanded. Her voice was flat, devoid of the jagged edges of grief, echoing with a hollow, crystalline clarity.
She turned her back on the weeping servants, her gaze sweeping over them with the detachment of a stranger. "Prepare for the funeral," she said, the words as cold as the morning mist.
Then, her eyes fell upon Leon. He was still collapsed in the dirt, a wreck of a man. "And you," she said, her tone unwavering. "Get up."
Leon looked up at her, his eyes bloodshot and swimming with a volatile mixture of agony and rage. He lunged toward her, a strangled cry tearing from his throat. "He is dead! Dead! Are you happy now? Are you truly this stone-hearted? Does this satisfy you?!"
