The Weak Offspring
A fierce wind rose just then. Beyond the hair thrashing wildly about her face, Senebier’s form blurred into haze.
Thalia, who had stood rigid as a statue, dropped her gaze to the pond where ripples spread. More than the news the woman had brought, it was Senebier’s manner of treating her pain as mere amusement that gouged deepest into her chest.
She forced down the turmoil churning inside her and wrung out a voice of studied calm.
“Surely you didn’t travel all that way merely to deliver a rumor of that sort? Her Majesty the Empress appears freer than I had imagined.”
“As if that could be.”
Her interest cooled by the dry response, the Empress’s mouth corners sank.
“I told you. I wished to see with my own eyes how you and your husband truly live. And if possible, I meant to try persuading Grand Duke Seorkan.”
A sigh laced with disappointment slipped between her lips.
“But it made not the slightest impression. Your husband seems determined, come what may, to place Gareth on the throne.”
“Then what exactly did you expect?”
Thalia let out a nervous laugh.
“Did you imagine that marriage to me alone would be enough to change his position?”
“I cannot claim I held no such hope at all.”
Senebier answered flatly, gazing at the ramparts dyed in the light of sunset.
A single fallen leaf, borne on the wind, brushed her cheek. She snatched it as if seizing prey, twirled it between her fingertips, then crushed the leaf as she went on.
“Barcas has always shown an emotional response where you are concerned. I have known for a long time that something in you stirs him. So I hoped you might shake him more actively.”
She let the crumbled leaf scatter on the wind and turned her head toward Thalia. Reading the reproach in those eyes, Thalia’s face hardened.
After fixing her disappointed daughter with a scolding stare for a long moment, the Empress turned toward the knights waiting at a distance and added,
“In truth, your husband does seem to care for you a great deal. The way he remained on guard lest I do you harm was rather refreshing.”
“…….”
“But regrettably, he does not appear to value you enough to break a long-standing promise.”
Looking up at her with a bloodless face, Thalia forced her crumbling expression back into place.
She had already known this. There was no reason to be wounded by it anew.
She lifted her chin high.
“I… do not care in the slightest whom Barcas supports. Whether Gareth becomes emperor or Asros becomes emperor, it has nothing to do with me. So do not think of dragging me into Mother’s war!”
“You are already part of this war.”
Abyss-dark pupils suddenly closed in until they filled her vision. The Empress, tilting her head close, spoke as if carving the words into her mind.
“That was decided the day you were born. Do you truly believe Gareth, once he is emperor, will tolerate your existence?”
Thalia could only move her lips, finding no words of rebuttal.
In a tone of merciless finality, Senebier declared,
“Gareth will not care in the least that you are Grand Duchess of the East. That child will seek to destroy you even if it means making an enemy of House Seorkan. Barcas Laedgo Seorkan seems to believe he can stop Gareth—yet he has not realized that to do so he would have to kill him with his own hands.”
Words close to prophecy drove themselves between the vertebrae of her spine.
Before she could even attempt a reply, Senebier pressed on without pause.
“Your husband is as good as blind where emotion is concerned. Locked inside the fortress of reason, he never sees the madness of human beings. That man perceives neither Gareth’s hatred nor Ayla’s love. He understands neither how destructive a force hatred can be, nor how far love can drag a person into ugliness. In the end, your husband will contribute to the ruin of you, of me, and of Asros.”
Thalia stepped backward as if denying the truth of it. At once strong fingers clamped down upon her flesh.
Gripping her daughter’s shoulder hard, Senebier at last came to the heart of the matter.
“Therefore, Thalia, you must help me.”
“What… exactly am I supposed to do? I have no power at all…!”
“You will bear an heir to the Grand Ducal house.”
Thalia’s eyes froze. At the sudden demand, every thought fled her mind.
Even as the whistling of the wind seemed to recede into a distant roar, Senebier’s requirements continued without mercy.
“And you will make that child a friend to Asros. Just as your husband remains loyal to Gareth, your son will become my son’s faithful vassal.”
“S… stop talking such nonsense!”
Thalia twisted her body to shake her off and shouted.
“As if I alone were not enough—now you mean to use even a child not yet born for Mother’s ambitions? Why should I? Why…!”
“Because that is also the path by which you survive.”
Senebier’s tone grew harsher still.
“Why can you not understand that if Asros fails to become emperor, you are finished as well? Gareth is your enemy too. For the past ten years you have relentlessly torn open those children’s wounds. You did not truly believe you could escape all that karma merely by leaving the imperial palace, did you? After snatching away even Ayla’s fiancé?”
“That was because Mother made me—!”
“It was all your decision.”
A fierce voice sealed off Thalia’s protest.
“Even without my demand, you will eventually have to bear a child. If you fail to produce an heir, not only Gareth but the nobles of the East will urge divorce. What do you suppose your husband will do then?”
A sharp sneer curved the edge of Senebier’s lips.
“Answer me, Thalia. Will Barcas Laedgo Seorkan turn his back upon the Crown Prince and Ayla, upon his own blood and his vassals, solely to protect you?”
Frozen for a moment by the cruel question, Thalia cried out as if thrashing against a snare.
“If Barcas wants a divorce, then let him have it! If Gareth wants to kill me… then let him! I never asked to be born in the first place…!”
Howling like a cornered beast, Thalia then swallowed her breath. The contempt that flooded Senebier’s eyes stripped away her will to resist in an instant.
The woman who had once been her entire world glared down at her with a face full of disillusionment and said,
“Do you know this? Many beasts abandon their weak offspring. It raises the chances of survival for themselves and for their other young.”
Thalia met those swamp-dark eyes with a devastated face. At last the woman spoke aloud the threat she had for so long only whispered with her gaze.
“But humans, unlike animals, cannot so easily cast aside their own children. That is the reason I have not abandoned you until now.”
Fingers soft as flower petals settled upon cheeks that had gone white, as if every drop of life had drained away. Only then did Thalia realize she was weeping.
Mimicking the tender touch of a mother comforting her daughter, Senebier murmured softly against her ear.
“You may not believe it, Thalia, but I have feelings too. The day you were born, I felt them as well. You, who looked so like me, were beautiful, and watching you grow was a joy. That feeling would not let me cast you aside even after you had outlived your usefulness.”
Beyond the tears that rose without end, her mother’s form warped and wavered. Yet the voice ringing in her ears only grew clearer.
“So do not disappoint me any further.”
Thalia bit down on her lip.
The bitter salt of tears and the metallic taste of blood spread across her tongue. The sob clogging her throat choked off her breath.
“You understand what I mean, do you not?”
When she managed at last to nod, lips cold as ice touched the corner of her eye.
Is this what it feels like to receive a kiss from a corpse?
Gazing endlessly up at Senebier’s face, which wore a smile of satisfaction, Thalia let her eyes fall to the garden where dusk had settled. Their shadows, tangled together in the twilight, stretched long and grotesque, like some deformed monster.