I will be the perfect wife this time

Chapter 189: The Chandelier’s Shadow

Here is the English version, refined for a deep, sensory experience:

Olivia wept until there was nothing left inside her but a hollow, aching silence.

At some point during the depths of the night, sheer exhaustion dragged her into a fitful, uneasy sleep against Isabella’s shoulder. But even sleep offered no sanctuary. Every time her eyelids closed, she saw him—witnessing his departure through the palace gates again and again. He would turn back one final time, wearing that infuriatingly gentle smile that promised a future he could no longer give.

"I’ll return."

The words clung to her spirit like a curse, a debt that would never be repaid.

When morning arrived, Olivia did not rise.

The servants moved in and out of the room in a state of fearful, hushed silence. Trays of untouched food began to pile up near the fireplace, cold and neglected. The curtains remained pulled tight, suffocating the chamber in a darkness thick enough to swallow time itself.

By the second day, a strange and dreadful quiet had settled over the entire Locron estate.

No orders came from the Duchess.

No footsteps echoed through the grand halls.

No sharp, commanding voice cut through the servants like a blade.

It was as though the heart of the estate had ceased to beat the moment its Duke drew his last breath.

Isabella sat motionless by the bed, watching Olivia’s catatonic figure with a fear that clawed at her throat. Olivia had not eaten. She had barely spoken. Even her breathing felt distant and mechanical—the rhythm of someone enduring the burden of life rather than living it.

"Olivia..." Isabella whispered, her voice cracking in the gloom. "Please. At least drink some water."

There was no response.

Olivia simply stared toward the window with eyes that saw nothing. Her fingers, pale and trembling, clutched the bloodstained locket against her chest with a desperate, weak strength.

It was as though she believed that if she let go, even for a second, she would lose the last anchor holding him to this world.

Isabella watched helplessly as Olivia withered, a flower stripped of its soil.

The tears had dried, and the screams had died in her throat. Since the night of her first attempt, Olivia had descended into an unnatural, petrified silence—a stillness that frightened Isabella far more than any outburst of grief ever could. Olivia would sit for hours, a statue of porcelain and pain, staring at a void only she could see, speaking only when the world forced a response from her.

Bound by a gnawing dread, Isabella no longer dared to leave her side, as if her own breathing was the only thing keeping Olivia’s lungs moving.

A sharp knock fractured the quiet.

Kira stepped inside, her head bowed as if entering a shrine. "Your Grace... Crown Prince Kyle and Lady Leila are requesting an audience."

Olivia didn’t blink. She didn’t even pull her gaze from the grey horizon beyond the glass.

"Isabella," she murmured, her voice a flat, lifeless vibration. "Send them away. I have no words for anyone."

"Of course," Isabella replied instantly, rising with a protective urgency. "You needn’t force yourself, Olivia. I will handle them. I’ll be just outside, alright?"

Olivia offered no anchor, no nod.

Isabella hesitated at the threshold, casting a sharp, silent warning toward Kira. The maid remained behind, hovering nervously near the door like a sentry guarding a relic made of spun glass.

The minutes stretched, thick and stagnant.

Then, cutting through the silence—

"Kira."

The maid nearly jumped. "Y-Yes, Your Grace?"

"Bring me some tea."

Kira blinked, her confusion momentary. "But... Your Grace, there is a fresh pot already on the table."

Slowly, with the chilling grace of a predator, Olivia turned her head. Her eyes, usually clouded, were suddenly, terrifyingly clear.

"I said," she repeated, the words dropping like stones into a well, "bring me another pot. Fresh. Now."

For the first time in days, the Duchess of Locron had returned to her voice. It was sharp. It was cold. It was a command that brooked no shadow of a doubt.

Kira’s heart leaped with a foolish, desperate relief. She mistook the ice for strength, thinking her mistress had finally found her footing.

"R-Right away!"

She vanished from the room, her footsteps hurried, leaving the Duchess alone in her kingdom of shadows.

The second the door clicked shut behind the maid—

’Click.’

Olivia turned the key. The sound was small, yet it echoed like a final gavel strike.

Silence swallowed the chamber once more, but it was no longer heavy. It was hollow. Then, slowly, a smile ghosted across her lips. It wasn’t the jagged grin of madness, nor the warmth of happiness; it was the serene, terrifying composure of a soul that had already stepped across the threshold of the living.

She began to wander. Her movements were fluid, almost ghost-like, as her fingertips brushed absentmindedly against the mahogany furniture. Finally, her gaze drifted upward toward the iron frame of the ceiling chandelier.

A soft, broken breath escaped her.

"Hah... Isabella," she whispered to the empty room, her voice tinged with a tragic sort of affection. "You truly did think of everything. You even ordered them to remove the mirrors."

But Isabella had forgotten to look up.

As Olivia’s eyes settled on the sturdy anchor of the chandelier, a genuine emotion flickered across her face for the first time in days: **Relief.** The weight of the world seemed to lift, replaced by the beckoning promise of the void.

"I’m sorry," she whispered, her smile trembling at the edges as her eyes welled. "But I truly cannot endure this a moment longer."

Her fingers tightened, twisting the silk fabric of her sleeve with a sudden, practiced resolve. Her gaze darkened, the pupils dilating as she stared into the abyss of her own thoughts.

"There was no meaning in surviving this hell once," she murmured, her voice dropping to a chillingly calm undertone.

"...Let alone twice."

Olivia came to a halt before the wardrobe, her movements no longer sluggish but imbued with a hurried, terrifyingly practiced grace. She pulled several long silk scarves from the shelf, their fabric sliding like liquid through her fingers.

Her hands, which had been a map of tremors for days, were now perfectly still.

The chair made a soft, mournful scrape against the floorboards as she dragged it directly beneath the heavy chandelier. With methodical precision, she began to twist the scarves together, binding them into a single, unbreakable tether. She looped the silk through the iron scrollwork of the frame above, tightening the knot with a strength born of finality.

It was efficient. It was clean. It was the work of someone who had rehearsed her own end a thousand times in the theater of her mind.

When the preparations were complete, she paused.

Her gaze drifted across the room, taking a final inventory of her existence: the cold, untouched tea set; the stifling weight of the curtains; the dim, grey light that seemed to be drowning the walls in a sea of silence.

Then, her eyes found Black.

The cat remained curled by the dying embers of the fireplace, his unblinking crimson eyes fixed upon her with an ancient, knowing intensity. For a fleeting second, the armor of Olivia’s resolve cracked, and her expression softened into something human.

"Take care of yourself, Black," she whispered, the words barely disturbing the air. "And... I am sorry."

A faint, ghostly smile touched her lips—a final, bitter irony.

"I was never a very good mother, was I?"

Black let out a low, guttural sound, rising abruptly to his feet as the instinct of the predator sensed the arrival of death. He let out a sharp cry, his fur bristling in the gloom.

But Olivia had already stepped onto the chair.

She slipped the silk loop around her neck, adjusting it with the same indifference one might use for a piece of jewelry. There was no hesitation in her heart. There was no fear in her eyes. There was only an immense, bone-deep exhaustion that could only be cured by the dark.

Then—

She kicked the chair away.

Meanwhile, down the corridor, Isabella stood before Kyle and Leila, her hands clasped tightly to mask the tremor in her fingers. She forced a hollow composure, though a cold, primal unease was beginning to claw at the lining of her ribs.

"So she refuses to see us?" Leila asked, her voice tempered with caution.

"I’m afraid so," Isabella replied, her tone thick with apology. "Olivia’s spirit is... fragile. Brittle. It would be best for everyone if you returned when the air isn’t quite so heavy."

Kyle’s brow furrowed, a silent shadow crossing his face, but he remained quiet.

Then, the world seemed to tilt.

Isabella’s gaze drifted past them, locking onto a figure at the far end of the corridor. It was Kira. The maid was walking away, a silver tea tray balanced in her hands.

She was alone.

The chamber door was unguarded.

The blood fled from Isabella’s face so violently she looked like a ghost among the living.

"No..."

The word was a strangled breath, a ghost of a sound.

"No, no, no—"

"Lady Isabella?" Leila’s voice rose in alarm, reaching out as if to steady her. "What is it? What’s wrong?"

But Isabella was already gone.

All noble restraint, all the carefully practiced etiquette of the court, vanished in a heartbeat. She was running—a frantic, desperate blur down the hallway. Kyle’s expression darkened instantly; he didn’t ask for an explanation. Instinct overthrew reason, and he surged after her, his heavy boots thundering against the carpet.

And somewhere ahead, at the end of that long, suffocating hall—

A door remained deathly, stubbornly locked.

Within seconds, they were gathered before the chamber, the air tasting of ozone and panic.

"Isabella!" Kyle snapped, his hand clamping like a vice around her arm to stop her from bruising her fists against the wood. "Tell me what is happening! Speak!"

But Isabella was beyond the reach of his voice. She lunged against the door again, her cries turning into a rhythmic, terrified wail.

"Olivia!" she shrieked, the sound tearing through the silent estate. "Olivia, please—open the door! Olivia!"

No answer came.

Not a footstep, not a breath, not even the rustle of silk. The silence from within was absolute—a heavy, unnatural thing that tasted of the grave.

A look of pure, unadulterated terror crossed Isabella’s face as she turned toward Kyle, her eyes wide and pleading.

"Kyle..." her voice cracked, splintering into a thousand pieces. "Please. Break it down. Open the door!"

She continued to strike the locked door, her hands trembling so violently they barely seemed her own.

"Olivia!" she cried out, the desperation in her voice rising to a jagged scream. "Olivia, please open the door—Olivia, answer me!"

Silence.

No sound of movement, no frantic response, not even the rustle of a gown. The silence was heavy, oppressive, and fundamentally wrong. It was the kind of silence that only exists when the life in a room has been snuffed out.

A look of pure, unadulterated terror crossed Isabella’s face as she turned toward Kyle.

"Kyle..." Her voice cracked, a raw and violent sound. "Please. Open the door. Now!"

He didn’t waste a second on words.

Kyle stepped back, his expression hardening into a mask of grim focus, before driving his boot into the heavy wood with a focused, desperate power. The frame groaned, the lock splintering into a dozen shards of metal and oak.

The door burst open, swinging back on its hinges to strike the wall with a hollow thud.

And the world stopped.

For one terrible, frozen second, none of them breathed. None of them moved.

Olivia’s body hung motionless beneath the chandelier. She was a pale ghost in the gloom, swaying with a faint, rhythmic lethargy in the dim light.

The color vanished from Isabella’s face, leaving her a hollowed-out shell. Kyle froze, his lungs hitching as the sight burned into his mind.

Then, the paralysis broke.

"No!"

The cry tore from his throat. He lunged forward with such violence that the overturned chair skidded and nearly shattered beneath his boots. His hands, shaking with a terror he had never known on any battlefield, clawed at the silk wrapped around her throat. He sliced through the tension, catching her limp, falling body against his chest before she could hit the floor.

"Olivia—!"

His voice broke, the sound of a man being dismantled from the inside.

"Olivia, please... please don’t do this. Don’t do this to me..."

In that moment, he was no longer the Crown Prince, no longer the future of a kingdom; he was merely a terrified boy, clinging to the only world he cared to inhabit.

By then, Leila had rushed into the room, her breath coming in ragged gasps from the run.

"What happened—"

The words died, turning to ash in her throat.

Her gaze locked onto Olivia, lying pale and still in Kyle’s arms, the silk remnants still dangling from the chandelier above like a tattered shroud. Isabella stood beside them, a statue of grief, unable to look away yet unable to move.

Years of training overrode Leila’s shock. She dropped to the floor beside them, her fingers—chilled but steady—pressing against the delicate skin of Olivia’s neck.

Seconds stretched into an eternity.

Then—

"Put her on the bed. Quickly!"

Kyle looked at her, his eyes glazed and uncomprehending, as if she were speaking a language he had never heard. "What?"

"She’s alive," Leila snapped, the sharp authority in her voice cutting through his hysteria like a blade. "She has a pulse, Kyle, but I need to treat her *now*. Hurry!"

The relief that swept across Kyle’s face was a fleeting spark, instantly eclipsed by a terror twice as potent. He gathered Olivia into his arms, carrying her to the bed with a delicate, haunting care, as if she might shatter if he gripped her too tightly. Isabella followed, stumbling through the room like a somnambulist.

"Both of you, outside," Leila ordered, already tearing at her medical kit. "Please. Now!"

For once, the weight of the moment silenced all pride. Neither man nor lady argued.

The heavy oak door swung shut, clicking into place like the seal of a tomb.

Inside, the silence was replaced by the frantic, clinical sounds of survival. Leila worked with a desperate, feverish intensity, her hands stained with the evidence of Olivia’s struggle.

She fought to stabilize the shallow, ragged breaths that rattled in Olivia’s throat, each gasp a precarious bridge over an abyss. For the first time in her career, the abstract duty of a physician became a crushing, physical burden—the terrifying clarity that life was nothing more than a flickering candle, and her hands were the only thing shielding it from the wind.

Then, without warning—

Leila’s movements seized.

The room grew unnervingly still. Leila’s eyes widened, her pupils dilating as a realization struck her with the force of a physical blow. Her gaze dropped from Olivia’s bruised neck to the stillness of her frame.

"Oh no..."

The whisper was barely a breath. She stared down at the Duchess in disbelief, her trembling hand moving almost of its own accord, pressing slowly, tentatively, against Olivia’s lower abdomen.

"Dear God..."

Minutes bled into what felt like hours for those waiting in the corridor. Finally, the latch turned. The door groaned open.

Leila stepped out, looking like a woman who had seen a ghost. Strands of hair clung to her damp, perspiring forehead, and her skin had taken on a translucent, waxen pallor.

Kyle was on his feet before the door had fully opened.

"Is she alright?" he asked, his voice hoarse, stripped of its royal resonance. "Leila... I beg of you. Tell me."

"She is alive," Leila answered, her voice soft and hollow.

Beside him, Isabella let out a shuddering, shaky breath of relief, her shoulders finally dropping. But the comfort was short-lived; it vanished the instant she caught sight of the haunted expression in Leila’s eyes.

"...Then why do you look like that?" Isabella whispered, the dread returning to her voice.

Leila pressed a hand against her forehead, her eyes closing as she tried to steady herself beneath the crushing weight of the revelation. She seemed to be searching for words that didn’t exist, her lips moving soundlessly for a moment.

Finally, she opened her eyes and looked at them—really looked at them.

"I... I honestly do not know how to say this," she stammered.

Kyle’s chest tightened, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. "Say what, Leila? Out with it!"

Leila swallowed hard, .

"She’s pregnant."