Hours passed in the Astran duchy.
By the ti the afternoon had fully settled, the castle had grown noticeably quieter. The rush and urgency of the morning had faded, leaving behind a calr, more controlled environnt.
In one of the guest rooms of the castle’s western wing, Liam sat at the small table facing the backyard window.
The grounds below were empty at this hour. Two of the Duke’s gardeners moved along the far wall doing sothing with the row of bushes. Beyond them, the duchy stretched in its afternoon light, with paved roads, active streets, and the distant shape of the gate where everything had started yesterday morning.
Liam looked at none of it particularly.
His hands rested flat on the table surface, and his eyes were directed at the middle distance as if lost.
"I did not expect him to co out this developed."
His voice was low and quiet.
A lodic voice ca from behind him.
"Neither did I."
Louisa stood before the large mirror set against the eastern wall, her back partially turned to the room.
The warm golden light spilled through the tall window and reflected softly off the glass, filling the room with a gentle, hazy glow. It softened everything it touched, tracing her body in a way that made everything about her even more tempting.
Her expression in the reflection was a mixture of irritation and calculation — two things she rarely allowed to occupy her face at the sa ti.
Her fingers moved to the delicate ties at the back of her bodice. She didn’t need to look; she had undressed herself like this for years.
One slow tug. Then another.
Each ti a tie ca loose, the tightly fitted fabric sighed and relaxed its fierce grip on her lush figure.
With every release, her body began to breathe again.
The bodice had been hugging her so tightly all day that the mont it began to give way, her full breasts started to swell forward, eager to escape. The deep, creamy valley of her cleavage grew softer and more inviting as the pressure eased.
Her nipples, already sensitive from the long day, began to pebble under the loosening silk.
Her hands then paused at the last tie.
She glanced at her husband’s reflection. Liam sat with his back to her, his posture straight but tense, as if sothing in his thoughts held him tightly in place.
A flicker of annoyance crossed her face.
Her hands continued. The final tie ca free.
The bodice instantly surrendered.
It loosened completely, held up now by nothing more than two thin straps resting on her shoulders. Louisa hooked her fingers beneath them and slid the straps down her arms with deliberate, sensual slowness, letting the mont stretch.
The bodice slipped forward.
Her bare breasts tumbled out in a lush, heavy bounce. They were large and perfectly shaped with pale skin that glowed in the afternoon light. Her nipples, now completely exposed, stiffened instantly into tight pink peaks.
Louisa looked at herself in the mirror for a mont. What looked back was a composed, attractive, and sensual woman in her middle years. Her mature breasts hung proudly on her chest, the weight of them making them sway slightly with every small movent. Below, her narrow waist flared into wide hips, and the lower half of her green dress still clung tightly to the generous curve.
She reached for the fresh dress laid on the chair beside the mirror and held it in her hands for a mont as if considering it. Then, with a small shake of her head, she set it aside.
Not yet.
She looked at her husband’s reflection.
"What is he planning?" she asked.
Liam was quiet for a mont. Outside, one of the gardeners moved further along the garden.
"That is the question," he said. "The one I have been sitting with since breakfast."
"And?"
"And I don’t have a clean answer." He turned the cup on the table once, slowly, a small habitual motion. "Which is itself the answer, in a way. If his intentions were simple, I would have read them by now.
Louisa moved gracefully toward the wardrobe, still completely bare from the waist up. She opened the doors and ran her fingers slowly along the row of dresses.
"He is not like old Kraven," she said.
The words landed plainly.
Liam looked at the window. "No," he said. "He is not."
"The Kraven I knew," Louisa continued, pulling a deep blue dress from the wardrobe and holding it at arm’s length, "was a young man entirely governed by appetite. Intelligent, perhaps, but that hunger sat on top of everything else and made the intelligence useless."
She looked at the dress for a mont, then sighed and set it aside.
"The man who sat across from us at breakfast this morning was governed by nothing I could identify. And that... makes him considerably more dangerous."
"Yes," Liam said.
She selected another dress—darker, simpler—and turned back toward the mirror. She held the garnt against her bare chest for a mont, the soft fabric brushing teasingly over her stiff nipples.
"The cultivation," she said. "Archmage."
She began stepping into the new dress. The material slid smoothly up her waist, then settled over the curve of her breasts as she pulled it higher.
"How?"
"That is the second question," Liam said. "A man does not reach Arch Mage by accident. It requires years of continuous commitnt and effort. Discipline. Sacrifice. None of which describes the Kraven who was sent to Ezakael."
"So either the reports from Ezakael were wrong," Louisa said, reaching back to tie the laces herself, "or sothing changed him significantly enough that his cultivation spiked."
"Or both," Liam said.
She looked at his reflection, and their eyes t in the mirror.
After a brief mont, he turned away from the window and stood. He crossed the room without hurry, stopping just behind her where she stood before the mirror.
His hands reached for the ties at her back and began working through them, tightening each one slowly.
"Thank you," she said.
He said nothing, his fingers moving through the ties thodically.
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