"If that’s the truth, why did you claim you sent her my way? Why act as if you placed her in my life for the sake of revenge?" Damian frowned, his suspicion deepening. He still felt that August was only offering fragments of the truth, twisting them to suit his narrative.

"Because I did send her to you," August stated, a sudden pain lancing through his chest as he spoke of a loss that haunted his every thought.

"She asked me how much I loved her. She asked if I loved her enough to demand a title from the King, something equal to a Dukedom. I couldn’t do it. I refused, telling her that if a title was what she craved, she should go to you instead. And she did. Whether you believe me or not is your choice, but that is the truth. I loved her so much that I was willing to see her with you just to see her happy. But you couldn’t even keep her safe."

Damian’s fingers curled slowly until they balled into tight fists at his sides. He searched August’s face, seeing a man truly devastated by a woman who had never officially been his. Meanwhile, Damian felt his own heart bleeding from the weight of the betrayal. Liliana’s promises, her smiles, were they all just fake?

"Then why did you claim Roman was your child?" Damian demanded, his voice cracking. "Don’t tell me she visited you after the wedding. I know for a fact she never went to see you once we were married."

"She never came to me after the marriage, but she came that week before, just as I told you," August affirmed, his gaze cold and unwavering. "If you want to know if we slept together, the answer is yes. She fell pregnant only a month after your wedding, didn’t she? She never gave me a clear answer on whether Roman was yours or mine. I only wanted to claim him because I see myself in his eyes, too."

"Why did you sleep with her? You didn’t have an ounce of—" Damian’s voice failed him, his sentence cut short by August’s sharp interruption.

"Liliana never told me she was going to marry you," August replied, his voice devoid of its usual mockery. "I didn’t even know she was seeing someone else, let alone you."

Damian went completely numb. He had braced himself for a difficult truth, but he had never imagined that Liliana had been leading a double life.

The affection she had shown him, the soft words, the shared smiles, none of it was real. She had married him for a title, for the security of the Dukedom. And the son he had raised, the boy he had cherished as his own blood... the uncertainty of Roman’s parentage felt like another betrayal.

Without another word, Damian turned and walked out of the room. He didn’t look back, and he didn’t ask another question.

August turned his head toward the door before he locked it from inside.

~~~~

Damian did not return to the chamber where Eilika was waiting; instead, he sought the solitude of his private residence, the place that still breathed with the memories of his life with Liliana.

In his state of shock, the promise he had made to Eilika slipped from his mind.

His thoughts were entirely consumed by the woman who had been the center of his world for so long.

He pushed open the heavy doors of the residence and walked straight to the room where he kept the remnants of their shared history.

It was a sanctuary of sorts, filled with every picture and portrait they had ever taken together. He made a habit of visiting this room on her birthdays and during the somber days leading up to the anniversary of her death.

With trembling hands, he lit a lantern and placed it on a nearby table, the flickering light casting long shadows across the walls. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

His gaze immediately drifted to the large, central portrait he had commissioned when Liliana turned eighteen. He could still vividly recall how she was the envy of all Varos, a rare beauty whose intellect was as sharp as her features.

Damian stood beneath the portrait, staring up at her painted eyes for a long time, searching for a trace of the deceit August had described.

Slowly, he moved along the walls, looking at the other paintings that featured Liliana alone.

He had loved her with such depth that he had wanted to capture every facet of her life, turning her existence into a collection of vivid memories he vowed never to forget.

Now, looking at them, the colors seemed to fade under the weight of the betrayal, leaving him to wonder which parts of the woman in the frames were real and which were merely a performance.

"Did you ever love me truly? Every promise you made me... did they ever carry any meaning? Why did you fool me? And it’s strange that you’re not even alive to answer any of my questions."

Damian’s throat tightened painfully. His eyes burned with tears that he tried to hold back, his gaze fixed on those portraits.

He stopped finally before their wedding portrait. In the painting, they looked radiantly happy, too happy. He remembered that day as the greatest of his life, with Liliana smiling brightly at his side. But now, that smile felt fake. Knowing from August that she had met him only a week before the wedding to strike a deal, and then slept with him when it failed, poisoned every brushstroke of the image.

The tears finally escaped, trailing down Damian’s cheeks as he felt his heart shattering slowly, piece by piece.

The agony of her death had eaten him alive, the pain was too excruciating, but the pain he felt now was a sharp, humiliating betrayal.

It was the realization that the foundation of his entire adult life had been built on a lie, and the woman he had worshipped was nothing but a liar, who faked everything in front of him.