The air was still for half a heartbeat—then Mirelle's voice snapped through it like a whip.

"So it was you, you little rat?" she hissed, pointing a trembling hand at Noir. "The one that's been crawling through the shadows, spying on me like some filthy beast?"

Noir's fur bristled, but her eyes stayed sharp, unflinching. She took a step forward, her tail swaying slowly behind her.

'You're just angry because Dad saved me before your friends could finish the job,' she said evenly, her tone laced with quiet defiance.

Mirelle froze for a moment—then laughed, a dry, broken sound. "Dad? So you've even taught your monster to talk now?"

Noel didn't flinch. "She's more honest than most humans I've met," he said coldly.

That was all it took. The facade she'd worn for years—the calm, graceful mask of the perfect wife—cracked and shattered like glass.

"You think this is honesty?" Mirelle screamed. Her mana burst outward, flaring crimson around her. "You dare to judge me after everything I've done for this family?! For you, Albrecht?!"

Albrecht's eyes widened. "Mirelle—enough!"

But she wasn't done. She turned her fury back to Noir, spitting each word like venom. "If that beast hadn't interfered, none of this would've fallen apart! All of it—years of work, wasted!"

Noir let out a low growl, shadows rippling at her paws, but Noel raised a hand to stop her. His eyes never left Mirelle's.

'So this is the real you,' he thought.

Mirelle's breaths came quick, her chest heaving as mana flickered uncontrollably around her.

And for the first time, Albrecht looked at her not as his wife—

—but as an enemy.

"You ruined everything!" Mirelle's scream cut through the night like a blade, her voice raw and trembling with rage.

Her eyes burned as she glared at Albrecht, then at Noel. "Why her, Albrecht? Why that girl and not one of my sons?! They were supposed to inherit House Thorne!"

Mana flared violently around her arms, the red glow painting her pale face in fury.

Albrecht's tone was sharp but composed. "Mirelle, calm yourself."

"Calm myself?" She let out a strangled laugh, unhinged and hollow. "You stripped Kael and Damon of their right! You humiliated them—humiliated me!"

Her hand shot out toward him, trembling. "All because of that stupid incident in the hunt?"

Noel stood still beside Noir, saying nothing, his gaze cold and unreadable. 'This isn't grief,' he thought. 'It's obsession.'

"They were children!" Mirelle shouted. "You could've protected them—helped them fix their mistake—but no! You handed the heirship to that woman's daughter!"

Albrecht's voice dropped, steady and cutting. "Sylvette earned it. She was the only one who showed restraint, and your sons nearly caused war. You know this."

Her lips curled, and a low, broken laugh escaped. "Earned it? Please… You think anyone believes that? You did it to spite me. To punish me."

The words hit heavier than she realized.

For a brief moment, Albrecht's eyes softened—then turned to steel again. "You've changed, Mirelle," he said quietly. "I don't even recognize the woman standing in front of me."

She shook her head violently, her breath uneven. "No, you're the one who changed, Albrecht. The moment you turned your back on our family…"

The tension thickened, heavier than before. The echo of Mirelle's outburst still lingered, but now there was something colder in the air — disbelief, and a fragile thread of denial.

Albrecht ran a hand across his beard, trying to compose himself. "Mirelle," he said, quieter this time, "I understand your anger. Truly. But to go this far… to lash out like this—"

"You don't understand anything!" she interrupted sharply, her voice cracking. "You threw away decades of our life together, for what? For your pride?"

Her words cut deep, but Albrecht's tone stayed even, though his knuckles whitened at his side. "You speak as if I enjoyed this choice. You think it was easy to strip Kael and Damon of their chance? You know what they did, Mirelle."

"They were misled!" she shouted back. "They made a mistake—one mistake—and you buried them for it. You buried us!"

Noel stood silently between them, jaw tight. Every word felt like watching a wound reopen that had been festering for years.

'So this is what the fall of a house looks like,' he thought bitterly. 'It's not the monsters outside — it's the ones inside.'

Albrecht finally turned away, his expression cold. "If you had spoken to me, if you had trusted me—"

"Trusted you?" Mirelle's laugh came out hollow. "You stopped being a husband the day she died. Everything after that… you were just pretending."

That froze him.

Even Noel felt the shift — a heavy silence swallowing the courtyard whole.

For a long moment, Albrecht said nothing. Then, almost softly, he answered, "Perhaps you're right. But pretending was the only way this family kept standing."

Mirelle's breathing slowed, but her anger didn't fade — it twisted into something deeper, more painful. Her voice trembled as she spoke again, softer but sharper with every word.

"Do you even realize what you became after her death?" she asked, glaring at Albrecht through glistening eyes. "You talk about family, about duty — but you stopped being alive the moment she was gone."

Albrecht's jaw tightened, but he didn't respond. His eyes flickered, distant, as if those years played back before him.

Mirelle stepped closer, every word spilling like a confession and a curse at once. "You shut yourself away in your office for months. You ignored us — both of us. Serina and I tried, gods know we tried, to bring you back, to help you move on. But you wouldn't let anyone in."

She let out a bitter laugh, shaky and uneven. "You called it mourning. I called it cowardice."

Noel's expression darkened slightly, but he didn't interrupt. He had never heard anyone speak of that time before — the years after his mother's death were always a quiet void in the family's story.

Mirelle turned to him suddenly, her tone sharp. "And because of that emptiness, you paid the price, Noel. You were the reminder he couldn't bear to see. The shadow of the woman he lost."

Noel froze, her words cutting deeper than he expected.

"You think we hated you just because of who your mother was?" she continued, voice rising again. "No — it was because every time we looked at you, we saw what he still loved and what we could never replace."

The courtyard fell silent again. Even Noir, hiding in the shadows, didn't move.

Albrecht's hands clenched behind his back, his voice rough when he finally spoke.

"Enough, Mirelle."

But she didn't stop. Her eyes softened for the briefest moment, filled with years of frustration and grief. "It was easier to hate you than to admit we were the ones left behind… watching him fade away."

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