Ch#168
168
At that moment, the woman’s eyes flashed with a chilling intensity.
The fingers gripping the back of his hand tightened with an almost unbelievable strength. It was a pressure akin to having one’s hand caught in a steel clamp.
Soon, the ancient language of the East spilled from between her cracked lips.
“That oath will become a powerful curse that binds you. You shall be held to your word until the moment your last breath leaves you. Even so, can you still say your oath is valid?”
The sound of sharp intakes of breath echoed around them. It seemed the onlookers believed the Empress was employing some ancient Khan sorcery.
In truth, he felt it might not be much different. He could clearly feel some mysterious force tightening its hold on him.
A powerful question rose in his mind.
Why was this person going to such lengths?
Though he would one day hold immense military power in his hands, it would be a long time before that came to pass.
At present, the influence he could exert was negligible. Yet, the Empress was acting as if the fate of her children depended entirely on his answer.
Suddenly, the rumors of her possessing the gift of foresight flashed through his mind.
Had she perhaps glimpsed a future that made her feel she had to bind him so securely?
As he looked up at her with eyes clouded by suspicion, the Empress’s solemnly set face crumbled in an instant.
He realized she was struggling with something.
Her face, pale as a ghost, was drenched in cold sweat. She looked as if she might burn through the last of her life force and wither away at any moment.
He gently covered the woman’s hand, where the veins stood out tautly. The Empress’s eyes widened.
Even in the moment she resolved to be cruel, she was a person who could not be entirely heartless. He knew she had shown him her own form of affection. Yet, in the end, he could not return what he had received. If so, he at least wanted to allow this woman, standing at the edge of her life, to close her eyes in some semblance of peace.
After a moment’s hesitation, he responded in the language engraved deep within his soul.
“Until the moment this breath ends, my oath shall remain valid.”
At that, relief and guilt flickered in the woman’s eyes.
Tears, pushed out by thin eyelids, traced paths down her pallid cheeks.
“I am sorry. I am truly sorry to you. I will not ask for your forgiveness.”
“Do not say such things. I am…”
“You do not know what you have sacrificed.”
She cut him off.
“You have only just turned thirteen. Even though I know I should not do this to someone like you…”
The Empress’s hollow eyes turned toward her children. Her pupils, which had dilated to their limit and looked as black as ink, gradually regained their natural light.
The woman, who had been staring at her young children for a long time with an expression mixed with regret and sorrow, turned her gaze back to him.
“Barkas Raedgo Sheikan, you may think life has no meaning… but the day will come when you find something that makes you want to stay alive. When that time comes, you will regret this moment.”
Her blurred eyes slowly closed.
Wheezing with dry, labored breaths, the woman murmured in a cracked voice.
“Resent me to your heart’s content then.”
Just as he was about to reply that such a thing would never happen, a dry cough burst from her.
Though the Grand Priest rushed forward and poured divine power into her, the Empress’s complexion only grew darker.
Seeing their mother looking as if she might stop breathing at any second, the twins burst into loud sobs. They clung to the side of the bed, desperately clutching their frail mother’s hands.
As he stood a step back watching the scene, Marquis Oristein placed a hand on his shoulder and led him out into the hallway.
“Do not pay mind to the Empress’s final words. It seems she has been seeing hallucinations frequently since her illness took a sharp turn for the worse.”
The man said with a heavy sigh after they moved to a secluded spot.
“Lately, her mind hasn’t seemed entirely sound either. She likely won’t last through the month.”
The Marquis seemed to have aged significantly in just a few months.
Looking out the window with a face full of suppressed anger and sorrow, the man continued in a somber tone.
“I am truly grateful for today. Thanks to you, Her Majesty will be able to ease her worries.”
A large hand, wearing a signet ring of the family, descended onto his shoulder.
The Marquis seemed to view the ceremony that had just taken place as nothing more than a performance to comfort a woman whose end was near. He did not bother to correct that thought.
The Empress had placed a shackle around his neck. He was clearly aware of that fact, but he didn’t mind much. From the moment he was born into the Sheikan family, he was already bound by the chains of duty.
What did it matter if one more yoke was added? The Grand Ducal house would support the legitimate Crown Prince, and he would follow the will of his family.
Listening to the sound of sobbing from one side of the corridor, he soon began to walk down the hall.
A dark, pitch-black tunnel stretched on endlessly. How long had he been walking through that darkness, like the intestines of a giant serpent? Before he knew it, he was standing in the rain.
Before his eyes lay a garden filled with black roses.
In the garden where all the plants Empress Bernadette had loved had been uprooted, flamboyant flowers were slightly parting their large buds, which looked like animal entrails.
He crossed the humid garden where the sticky air swirled and headed toward the rear grounds. Beyond the black sky pouring down rain, the roof of the Great Cathedral was faintly visible.
After Empress Bernadette passed away, he left the quarters in the Empress’s Palace she had provided and moved into the Priest’s Quarters of the Great Cathedral. It was a return seven years after the Empress had led him by the hand out of the punishment room.
Some priests were flustered by the prospect of living with the heir to a Grand Duke, but the high-ranking clergy, including the Grand Priest, welcomed him with a gentle demeanor. It was as if the unpleasant incidents of the past had never existed.
They led him into strict discipline as if welcoming back a prodigal son. And so, he had to begin a life where every desire was once again thoroughly restricted.
However, he did not feel the same discomfort as he had when he was young. Rather, he felt a sort of comfort in the controlled lifestyle.
Only then did he realize he had been harboring a sliver of guilt for not meeting the Empress’s expectations.
He felt sorry for her, who had hoped he would regain his senses, but he did not want to feel anything. This state of infinite stillness was convenient.
He now found himself agreeing with the teachings of the priests to some extent.
Senses are a poison that disturbs the mind.
The Emperor, intoxicated by beauty, abandoned his honor and stepped onto the path of sin.
The Empress, fallen into blind love, pushed herself into misery despite holding the world’s power in her hands.
There was no need for such destructive emotions.
Gazing up at the ink-colored sky with frozen eyes, he soon began to walk again.
It was then. Amidst the mist-like rain, he discovered a small girl.
He didn’t know why he stopped in front of that pit.
Perhaps even at the end of his life, he would never know what it was that made him encounter her at that spot on that particular day, or what made him speak to her first.
What was certain was that on that day, in that place, he had found something he hadn’t wanted.
It was only much later that he became vaguely aware of that fact.
At thirteen, knowing nothing, he reached out his hand to the young girl in the mud.
“Grab on.”
In her small face, eyes that commanded an overwhelming presence grew as wide as lanterns.
After hesitating for a long time, the girl tentatively approached him. Then, suddenly looking down at the hands she held gathered at her chest, she shook her head.
“I can’t. I’m holding something in my hands right now.”
He narrowed his eyes and watched the small, pale hands.
“Is it important?”
“It’s not important.”
“Then throw it away.”
“Even if it’s not important, I can’t throw it away.”
The girl snapped at him with an annoyed expression.
Something about those words grated on his nerves.
He had discarded everything that wasn’t important. By doing so, the world had become clearer. No matter what she held in her hand, it couldn’t possibly be worth keeping while being soaked by rain in the mud.
He was about to tell her that, but decided against it, not wanting to argue with a child a head shorter than him. Instead, he bent his knees and lightly lifted the small, rain-drenched body.
Surprised, the girl jumped. Suppressing her movement, he ascended the slope of marsh-like soft mud in a single bound.
