Chapter 83: Stunned
—ARIA—
"You..." Cynthia shakily whispered with one hand pressed tightly against her reddened cheek. Her eyes were wide, fixed on as though I had transford into soone entirely unfamiliar, soone she could no longer control. "You...hit ?" She asked in disbelief.
I looked straight into her eyes and replied. "Yes, and I will gladly do it again."
The silence that followed was imdiate and suffocating.
It was as though even the air itself had stiffened, refusing to move between us.
Cynthia’s expression twisted sharply. For a brief mont, she just stared at , as if trying to reconcile the Aria she thought she knew with the one standing in front of her now.
Perhaps in her mind, I was still supposed to be the sa girl who smiled at her from the first ti she walked into this household. Perhaps she thought I never ant what I said back at father’s office when I decided I would step down. But that version of had already begun to fade the mont I realized I had nothing to gain by running away.
Cynthia’s breathing grew sharper. "How dare you?" she hissed, her voice cracking at the edges.
There was no elegance left in her tone now, no carefully curated softness.
Whatever mask she had worn before had long since shattered. "Do you even understand what you have done?"
A small, humorless laugh slipped out of before I could stop it. Even I was briefly surprised by it. The sound did not belong in this tense, suffocating atmosphere, and yet it ca anyway, uninvited and almost absurdly light.
Because suddenly, the situation felt ridiculous.
She had burst into a servant’s room in the middle of the night, accused of disgrace without evidence, invoked laws and divine punishnt as though she were already standing above judgnt itself, and now she was acting as though I had committed an unforgivable cri by punishing her with a slap?
"You should be asking yourself that question," I replied quietly, tilting my head slightly as I studied her.
That seed to ignite sothing in her.
Cynthia took a step forward to protest but my hand rose almost instinctively, which made her stop almost imdiately.
It was instantaneous.
Her entire body froze as though soone had locked her in place. The confidence that had been pouring out of her only seconds ago vanished so quickly it was almost satisfying to witness.
Her eyes dropped briefly to my raised hand, then flickered back to my face. The realization that I would not hesitate again seed to settle into her bones all at once.
A faint smile tugged at the corner of my lips.
So she did learn sothing after all.
"Take another step," I said evenly, my voice almost light, almost pleasant in contrast to the sharpness of the situation. "I dare you."
Cynthia’s pupils widened slightly and hesitated.
I could feel Ren’s presence behind .
He had not spoken since the confrontation escalated, but I was aware of him in a way that felt grounding. He was protective, as though even without words, he was prepared to stand between and anything that tried to harm . That awareness alone was enough to keep my breathing steady, even as everything else in the room threatened to spiral further out of control.
Honestly, if soone had told months ago that I would be standing here threatening Cynthia in a servant’s quarters after kissing Ren, I would have assud they had lost their mind.
Yet here we were.
Before I could decide whether that realization was amusing or deeply concerning, the tension in the room shifted again, this ti far more violently than before.
Cynthia’s composure finally snapped completely.
"You bitch," she spat, her voice rising. "You’re finally showing your true colors. And yet you still act like so innocent little sheep in front of Father, and sohow he only ever speaks your na!"
The words were no longer controlled. No longer calculated.
Whatever mask she had been wearing had shattered beyond repair. Her foot ca down hard against the floor in frustration, the sound echoing through the room as she clenched the fabric of her skirt tightly in her fist, trembling with pure, uncontrolled rage.
Then her gaze snapped toward Ren, who had remained silent the entire ti, standing just slightly behind with an unsettling calmness that seed to irritate her even more.
"I will take everything that should be mine," she continued, her voice shaking now with an emotion far more dangerous than anger. "And when that happens, I will have your head, Aria Valen. And your precious little servant too....he’ll be nothing but a toy I can break whenever I please. I’ll make sure of it. You—"
The mont the words left her mouth, sothing inside broke cleanly.
My hand moved before my thoughts could catch up.
The sound of the slap cracked through the room with such brutal clarity.
Cynthia’s head snapped to the side as she stumbled backward, her breath catching in her throat. The impact echoed not just in the room, but in my own body as well, my palm stinging from the force I had put into it.
But I barely felt it.
My hand trembled, suspended in the air afterward, not from hesitation but from the sheer intensity of my anger.
My lips quivered slightly as I fought to restrain myself from following through with sothing far worse, my chest rising and falling too sharply as my pulse thundered in my ears.
For a mont, I did not even recognize my own expression.
Cynthia slowly turned her head back toward , her eyes wide with shock, as though she had never once considered that I would actually be this mad. She staggered again, more from disbelief than from the force itself, her fingers twitching near her cheek.
And then I lifted my hand again.
The gesture alone was enough to make her freeze in place.
But suddenly, the door behind Cynthia creaked open further.
And then everything stopped.
Including .
Including Cynthia.
Including Ren.
For a brief mont, it felt as though ti itself had paused just to observe the scene.
I was standing with my hand still raised.
Cynthia was frozen mid-turn, her expression caught between fear and desperation. Ren was behind , tense and alert, ready for anything.
But in the doorway, frad by dim corridor light, stood three n I absolutely did not want to see right now.
Sebastian Blackwood.
Matthias Sinclair.
Ezekiel Rowe.
Sebastian’s gaze flickered first to my raised hand. Then to Cynthia’s face. Then slowly, deliberately, back to .
Matthias looked like he had walked into a situation he could not possibly interpret in a normal way, while Ezekiel rely crossed his arms, his expression unreadable but faintly amused, as if he were already ntally categorizing this as "Aria-related chaos."
Cynthia imdiately reacted the mont she saw them.
Everything about her deanor changed. It was as if a switch had been flipped inside her.
The trembling outrage disappeared, replaced instantly by her very calculated emotions.
Her eyes widened, tears gathering almost on command, her shoulders subtly dropping into a posture that suggested fragility rather than fury. It was astonishing how quickly she adapted.
"Your Grace!" she cried, voice breaking just enough to sound convincing. "Please!"
She rushed toward the doorway, nearly stumbling in her haste, her movents perfectly tid to appear distressed but not ungraceful. It was a performance. A very practiced one. And in another life, I might have almost admired how naturally she slipped into it.
"Your Grace," she repeated, reaching desperately toward Sebastian, her voice thick with emotion. "Please help . Aria—"
Sebastian’s expression did not change. He simply looked at her for a long mont, as though assessing the situation with the patience of soone watching a particularly complicated play unfold.
Then his gaze shifted again, past her, toward .
And then he smiled.
That was when my instincts scread that sothing was wrong.
"Oh dear," Sebastian said lightly, his tone far too casual for the situation at hand. "I believe we may have arrived at a rather inconvenient mont."
Cynthia blinked, montarily thrown off.
Matthias blinked too.
Even Ezekiel tilted his head slightly, as though trying to determine whether Sebastian was being serious or deliberately cruel.
Then Sebastian looked directly at .
His smile widened.
"You can proceed, sweetheart."
The room went silent again.
But this ti, it was different.
The tension has been broken.
Ren and I, even Cynthia were in complete shock.
My brain refused to process what I had just heard.
I blinked.
"I’m sorry," I said slowly, because surely I had misheard him.
Sebastian, however, only gave a thumbs-up.
A literal thumbs-up.
As though I were a student mid-performance in a competition he had personally entered into.
"You are doing a great job," he added encouragingly.
Cynthia made a strangled sound in front of him.
Before I could form a coherent response, Sebastian gently placed a hand on Cynthia’s shoulder, turned her around and pushed her back into the room.
Then he closed the door.
The sound of the latch clicking into place echoed far too loudly.
For several seconds, no one moved.
I slowly turned to look at Ren, then toward the closed door. Then toward Cynthia. Then back again. My mind attempted to catch up with reality, failed, attempted again, and failed even harder.
"What... just happened?" I finally asked aloud.
Cynthia looked like she was about to collapse from sheer disbelief and she ended up having no response at all.
Even I...was stunned.
User Comments
0 comments from readers