Chapter 52: Silence in the Holfort Mansion
The silence that settled within Rebeca’s chambers was dense, almost palpable, broken only by the soft and gentle sound of her breathing.
After the avalanche of tension we had faced during the banquet and the meticulously calculated psychological clash that followed inside Lady Beatrice’s office, crossing the threshold of that room felt equivalent to crossing the border of a battlefield.
The deep feather mattress, the perfectly arranged Egyptian linen sheets, and the muffled warmth trapped behind the heavy velvet curtains offered the only safe refuge in the entirety of the immense Fou Holfort Mansion.
I was lying on my back, my eyes fixed on the dark wooden beams decorating the high ceiling.
I could feel the weight of physical and mental exhaustion piling onto my shoulders like a suit of lead armor.
Beside me, Rebeca moved with soft slowness, as though she were still processing the events of the night.
With a low sigh, she nestled against my body, sliding her head directly onto my chest.
One of her arms wrapped firmly around my waist, displaying a mixture of relief and possessive jealousy that still hadn’t fully faded after dinner.
The warmth of her skin and the subtle jasmine fragrance emanating from her blonde hair filled the space between us.
Feeling the calm pulse of Rebeca’s heart against my ribs was a physical reminder of her complete surrender.
After the intensity of the Paratempo we had shared earlier, her trust in me had solidified into something unshakable.
There, beneath the protection of the shadows, she no longer needed to maintain the posture of a county heiress or the public face of a Sovereign-Class archaeological discovery capable of shaking the foundations of the kingdom.
She was just an exhausted girl seeking shelter and safety in the arms of the man who had dared to face the matriarch of her family as an equal.
Staring into the darkness above me, my thoughts began drifting through the peculiarities and mechanisms of this material world.
There was a glaring, almost comical irony in the way customs and morality were structured across these floating islands.
In the world I originally came from, social rules were rigid, shaped by a traditionalism.
A fiancé would never share the same bed with his bride-to-be before sacred vows had been exchanged before an altar.
Any deviation from that conduct would be equivalent to a sentence of social ostracism, an unforgivable scandal that would stain the honor of both bloodlines involved.
However, this world operated under a completely inverted logic, a moral mechanism I still had to recalibrate in my mind from time to time.
Here, under the absolute rule of the matriarchy, women not only possessed the lands, military forces, and titles in practice, but were also the architects of morality and the creators of societal rules.
Among the high aristocracy of the islands, engagement wasn’t merely a romantic promise; it was a contract of possession, a fusion of interests, and a political alliance practically sealed.
If a young noblewoman decided to bring her future husband into her private chambers, society wouldn’t dare raise a single eyebrow in disapproval.
After all, the authority of choice belonged entirely to her, and the man was, ultimately, the element integrated into her sphere of influence.
"Not that I’m the most conservative person in the universe to care about the puritanism of my old world," I thought, allowing a faint cynical smile to appear on my lips as I stared into the darkness.
"In the end, the inverted rules of this place only make my positioning on the board easier."
I adjusted my arm around Rebeca’s shoulders, pulling her a little closer and feeling her release a sleepy murmur as she settled even more comfortably against my chest.
My thoughts then drifted toward the calendar and the strategic planning for the coming days.
Tonight was Saturday night.
Thanks to the academy’s organization, tomorrow would be Sunday, which meant classes, tactical field simulations, rigid training, and lectures were suspended for forty-eight hours.
Without the need to wake up to the sound of campus bugles or endure the inquisitive and envious stares of students from greater bloodlines, I would have the perfect scenario to analyze the territory I had stepped into.
That mansion wasn’t merely a luxurious residence; it was a dangerous nest of snakes where every smile concealed a political dagger.
Spending Sunday beneath the Fou Holfort roof would give me the ideal opportunity to meticulously study the internal dynamics of that family, map their weaknesses, and understand how far Lady Beatrice’s influence extended across neighboring territories.
And above all else, I needed to decipher the enigma called Seraphina.
Throughout every minute of the dinner service, Rebeca’s second sister had behaved in a way that bordered on predatory insolence.
The cutting malice shining within her green eyes, the calculated way she challenged Eleanor’s arrogant authority, and the physical magnetism she exuded with every movement made it clear that she wasn’t there merely to observe the family’s new son-in-law.
Seraphina wanted something from me.
Logical reasoning suggested she coveted the military power and sovereignty of the Airship Rebeca had entrusted to me, but the lustful and audacious gleam in her eyes hinted at something far more personal.
It was an almost tangible desire to destabilize her younger sister’s engagement, to test the resilience of my cold façade, or to discover whether I was truly as unshakable as I had appeared before her mother in the office.
The physical exhaustion of my own body began exacting its toll in an overwhelming manner, interrupting the flow of my tactical analysis.
The intense and wild sex sessions I had earlier with Rebeca and Aria had drained a massive amount of my vital energy, demanding a great deal from my stamina.
Combined with that, the mental strain required to keep my heightened perception at maximum level and maintain my guard during the verbal confrontation against Lady Beatrice had exhausted the last of my adrenaline reserves.
Feeling the rhythmic movement of Rebeca’s chest rising and falling calmly against mine, my eyes began to grow heavy.
The darkness of sleep finally dragged me under, submerging my mind into a heavy, dense rest completely devoid of dreams.
The transition from deep sleep to wakefulness happened abruptly in the middle of the night.
There was no nightmare trigger, no sound of shattering glass, nor the mental alarm of a perimeter breach; it was simply the purely physical discomfort of light insomnia combined with an irritating, burning sensation that seemed to tear through my throat from end to end.
An overwhelming thirst had awakened me.
I slowly opened my eyes, blinking a few times to adjust my vision to the grayish dimness dominating the room.
The wall clock positioned near the door, powered by delicate mana gears that emitted an almost imperceptible ticking sound, indicated that it was already past three in the morning.
Beside me, Rebeca remained immersed in deep and restorative sleep.
A strand of her blonde hair had fallen across her cheek, and her expression was completely relaxed, oblivious to my sudden awakening.
With meticulous care and perfectly calculated movements, I began to pull away.
I slid my arm out from beneath her shoulders with extreme gentleness and moved her body away from my chest centimeter by centimeter, ensuring she wouldn’t feel the jolt of the change.
I pulled the fine linen sheets up to her shoulders so the loss of my body heat wouldn’t wake her, watching her sigh softly and hug the empty pillow while remaining asleep.
My throat continued crying out for water, a dry sensation that made even swallowing uncomfortable.
For a split second, I considered summoning Aria through mental command or using a basic elemental creation spell to materialize water directly inside the room, but I discarded the idea immediately.
Lady Beatrice’s senses and the mystical barriers protecting the mansion’s central structure were far too refined and sharp.
Any abrupt mana fluctuation, no matter how small, could trigger the house’s security systems or alert the matriarch in her own chambers.
I had no intention of risking such an amateur strategic mistake over a whim.
The plan, therefore, was the simplest, most direct, and mundane possible: leave the room silently, descend the main staircase, head to the central kitchen of the Fou Holfort estate, fill a crystal glass with purified water, quench my thirst, and return to the comfort of the sheets in less than five minutes.
I placed my bare feet against the polished marble floor, feeling the thermal shock of the cold stone against my skin, which helped dissipate the final remnants of sleep-induced haze.
I silently walked toward the room’s entrance.
I grabbed the ornate bronze doorknob and turned it with surgical slowness, opening a gap just wide enough for my body to pass through.
I stepped into the corridor and gently pulled the door shut behind me, fitting the latch back into place without producing a single metallic click that could echo through the environment.
The corridors of the Fou Holfort Mansion looked completely different beneath the light of dawn.
The opulence and extravagant luxury that impressed during the night now assumed a dark, almost gothic atmosphere.
The enormous tapestries depicting the military victories of the bloodline resembled dark masses floating across the walls, while the polished steel decorative armors positioned at regular intervals between the doors resembled ghostly sentinels staring fixedly at every one of my barefoot steps.
There wasn’t a single soul wandering through that wing.
All the servants and lower-ranking staff had long since retired to their respective accommodations in the estate’s outer annexes.
The county’s elite guards, meanwhile, concentrated their patrols solely along the outer walls, iron gates, and gardens surrounding the Airship’s perimeter.
The interior of the main residence was immersed in a sepulchral and claustrophobic stillness, an absolute silence that made the sound of my own breathing audible.
Keeping my senses alert and my mind cold, I began advancing, following precisely the mental map my heightened perception had traced when I first entered the estate.
I crossed the long eastern corridor and reached the immense central spiral staircase.
As I descended the marble steps, I watched the silvery moonlight filter through the gigantic arched windows, projecting geometric, bluish, distorted patterns across the floor of the main hall.
Each step was taken with perfectly distributed weight to avoid producing creaks within the structure.
I was crossing the heart of "enemy" territory in the dead of night, driven only by the mundane necessity of a glass of water while maintaining absolute control over my surroundings.
With every passing second, the distance between me and Rebeca’s room increased, and the mansion’s stillness seemed to close around me as I made my way toward the lower levels, where the grand royal kitchen was located, completely isolated from the rest of the sleeping residents.
