My Anime Shopping Tree & My Cold Prodigy Wife!-Episode-844
Chapter : 1687
Four simple words. They were short, direct, and absolute. There was no poetry in them, no attempt to soften the blow. They were the kind of words a general used to announce a defeat, or a doctor used to announce a death.
Rosa felt them hit her like physical punches. A part of her, the small, foolish part that still believed in fairy tales and happy endings, the part of her that had survived the torture of the Soul Farm by dreaming of this man, had hoped he would deny it.
She had hoped he would laugh in her face. She wanted him to look at her with that maddeningly calm expression and call her paranoid. She wanted him to explain that Mina was sick with a stomach flu, that the visits to the factory were just business, that the ginger tea was for digestion, not morning sickness. She wanted him to tell her that she was crazy, that her jealousy had poisoned her mind.
If he had lied, she would have believed him.
She realized that now, with a sickening jolt in her stomach. She would have swallowed the lie whole. She would have apologized. She would have gone back to the estate and pretended everything was fine, just to keep the fragile image of their marriage from shattering. She would have lived in the lie happily, just to be near him.
But Lloyd Ferrum did not lie about the things that mattered. He was a man of logic, and in his mind, stating a fact was the only efficient path forward.
The confirmation shattered the last pillar of her reality. The world seemed to tilt on its axis. The man standing in front of her, with his sleeves rolled up and dirt on his hands, the man she had worshiped as a hero, wasn't just her husband anymore.
He was the father of her sister's child.
The betrayal was a complex, multi-layered knot of agony. It wasn't just that he had cheated. Men cheated; it was a common story in the history of nobility. Kings had mistresses; Lords had lovers. But this... this was different. It was who he had chosen.
He hadn't chosen a stranger. He hadn't chosen a random noblewoman or a tavern girl. He had chosen Mina.
Mina, the sister Rosa had looked up to. Mina, the steady scholar who had held the family together when their mother was in coma. Mina, the widow who was supposed to be safe, who was supposed to be family.
The town square was empty now. The civilians had fled the aura of impending violence, hiding in cellars and behind reinforced shutters, sensing that gods were about to go to war. It was just the two of them, standing in the wreckage of the market, surrounded by the unnatural winter she had brought with her.
"My sister," Rosa whispered.
Then she screamed it.
"My sister!"
The sound wasn't human. It was the shriek of a wounded animal, amplified by the power of a Sovereign. It was a sound that made the remaining glass in the windows vibrate and shatter. The cobblestones beneath her feet cracked, spiderwebs of fissures spreading outward from her boots as her mana surged uncontrollably.
"You dared to touch my sister?" she cried out, her voice breaking into a sob that was swallowed by the wind. "You... and her? In my house? While I was away?"
Lloyd stood his ground against the sonic force of her voice. His black hair whipped around his face, and his shirt rippled in the gale, but his feet were planted like roots of iron. He looked at her, his golden eyes dim and serious. There was no mockery in his face. There was no arrogance. Just a profound, weary sadness that infuriated her even more.
"It happened," Lloyd said. He didn't shout. He didn't need to. His voice, trained to command armies, cut through the howling wind with perfect clarity. "It was not planned, Rosa. It was not a scheme to hurt you. But it happened."
"It happened?" Rosa repeated, her voice trembling with disbelief. She took a step forward, and the ground crunched loudly under her boot. "You speak of it like an accident! Like... like rain falling! Like you tripped and fell into her bed! You made a choice, Lloyd! You chose her!"
She took another step forward. Sharp spikes of ice began to grow from the ground in her wake, tracking her anger, pointing at him like accusing fingers.
Chapter : 1688
"Was I not enough?" she demanded, tears freezing on her cheeks, turning into jagged little diamonds. "Was my patience not enough? I gave you everything! I fought devils for you! I healed myself for you! I spent years in the Soul Farm, suffering, tearing my soul apart and stitching it back together, just to be strong enough to stand beside you!"
She hit her own chest with her fist, the sound thumping against her leather armor.
"I made myself into a weapon for you! I made myself into a Queen for you! And you... you went to her? To the widow? To the woman who does nothing but read scrolls and drink tea?"
Lloyd’s expression hardened. The sadness in his eyes was replaced by a flash of irritation. He took a breath, letting the cold air fill his lungs.
"She is not just a widow, Rosa," Lloyd said, his tone firm, defending Mina even now. "She is a person. She is brilliant. She is kind. She understands the weight of history. And most importantly... she was there when I was drowning."
"I was there!" Rosa shrieked. "I was right beside you! I was waiting for you!"
"You were a statue!" Lloyd shot back, his own temper finally flaring. The volume of his voice rose, matching hers.
"You were an ice sculpture I had to carry!" he yelled. "You were a duty! A contract! I spent years trying to reach you, trying to find the woman inside the ice. But every time I looked, all I saw was the Queen. All I saw was the expectation. All I saw was the daughter of the House that tried to own me."
"I became real for you!" Rosa cried, the injustice of it burning her throat. "I melted everything for you! I changed my very soul for you!"
"And then you tried to cage me," Lloyd said coldly. "You and your father. You and the Sultan. You and the King. Everyone wants a piece of me. Everyone wants the weapon. Everyone wants the 'Hero.' I am tired of being a symbol, Rosa. I am tired of being the AURA genius."
He stepped closer, ignoring the ice spikes.
"Mina... Mina just wanted me," he said softly. "She didn't want the General. She didn't want the Engineer. She didn't ask for power or trade routes. She just wanted Lloyd. She saw the man, not the asset."
The words struck Rosa with the force of a physical slap.
Mina just wanted me.
The sentence implied that Rosa’s love was transactional. It implied that her devotion was a chain, a burden he had to carry. It negated everything she had felt, everything she had suffered. It turned her sacrifice into a nuisance.
"She wanted you?" Rosa laughed, a harsh, jagged sound that hurt her throat. "She wanted the Lord! She wanted the protection! She is a Siddik, Lloyd! We do not do things without a price! You are a fool if you think she is innocent! She saw a powerful man and she took him!"
"You don't know her," Lloyd said, shaking his head. "You share blood, but you don't know her. You were too busy being a Queen to see your own sister. You were too busy spying on the court to see the people in your own home."
"Do not lecture me on my family!" Rosa roared.
The air around her began to darken. The pristine blue-white of her ice was being tainted. Streaks of grey and black began to swirl in the vortex of wind surrounding her. The mana in the air grew heavy, tasting of ozone and rot.
"You have destroyed my family!" she screamed. "You have put a bastard in the belly of the House of Siddik! Do you have any idea what you have done? The scandal? The shame? If this gets out, it destroys everything we have built! It destroys Mina’s reputation! It destroys yours!"
"I don't care about the scandal," Lloyd said. "I care about the child. And I care about her."
"You care about her?" Rosa whispered.
The pain was so intense it was blinding. It felt like someone had reached into her chest and squeezed her heart until it burst.
"And what about me, Lloyd?" she asked, her voice small and broken. "Do you care about me? Am I just a mistake to you now? Am I just an obstacle you have to manage?"
Lloyd looked at her. He saw the woman who had carried him down a mountain when he was broken. He saw the woman who had fought the Demon King Bael. He saw the wife he had tried, and failed, to love.
Episode-844
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