Brown hair that had become disheveled filled my vision. My mother's collapse on the hill full of green leaves, like a tree, was a sight unbelievable beyond comparison to when my father died.
With a parched throat, I barely managed to call out to my mother. Thinking this couldn't be real, thinking I must be seeing things wrong, I crawled towards her and reached out my hand.
"Mother..."
Her once beautiful green eyes had lost their light. The drained light from her eyes told the horrific truth.
That my mother had died.
That the mother who held my hand and laughed with me was gone from this world.
That now...I was alone.
"Hik...hik. Aahhhh!"
A scream of anguish poured out from between my clenched teeth.
Even when my father passed away and we were driven out of the Ducal's estate where I had lived my whole life, even when my younger brother Louis was accused of not being my father's son, I had never felt such immense grief and despair on those days. It was all okay.
As long as I had my mother hiding me behind her frail back. As long as I had those eyes looking at me with worry on that small face. No matter how much the world pointed fingers, it was okay.
"Uncle Bruno..."
Next, I saw Uncle Bruno's face, which seemed shocked at the scene. Along with my nanny, Jessica, who clutched Uncle Bruno's arm and turned her head away.
No way...
No matter how much he hated us, there's no way Uncle could do this, right? Right?
"M-Minister... Uncle.."
As I called with trembling lips, he turned his head to the side. They remained silent as I embraced my mother's bloodied body.
Ah…
"Tsk. The gloves are stained with blood."
It was all planned.
The glove that dropped in front of me covered my mother's face. With trembling hands, I brushed it aside, and the man who had k1lled my mother brushed off his sleeve.
"Do... do you plan to... k1ll the child too?"
Bruno glanced down and asked the man wearing a hood pulled over his head.
"Well? You plan to let her live after seeing all this?"
"No, no sir. It's just...Jessica, go inside."
Bruno waved his hand, pushing Jessica towards the door.
"The sword has been discarded, and the sheath must be destroyed as well."
The sword...is that a metaphor for my father?
The shadow of death loomed closer. Just a few years ago, this was the parlor of the Ducal's estate where I lived. Looking up, the familiar chandelier cast light on the hood.
At the same time, the raised sword gleamed with a sharp light.
Oh, if there is a god.
If there truly is a god…
As I closed my eyes, tears streamed down.
And with a sharp pain in my chest, my upper body slumped over. When I opened my eyes with the last remnants of consciousness…
All I saw were three tiny dots on the bare hand of the man who had held the sword.
"Burn the gloves too."
"Yes, understood."
Mother...
I twitched my fingers slightly, but that was the end.
In front of the lifeless mother and daughter, the hooded figure fully turned his back to us.
***
A woman is a man's trophy.
"Among the trophies to adorn the Duke's trophy case, you will be the finest."
Even at the moment the white veil was placed on her head, words she had heard so often from her father that they were like nails on a chalkboard came out - trophy, the finest. Among the praises her father gave Ariel, calling her the finest trophy was the highest.
But perhaps it was because she had heard those stories from a young age.
Ariel smiled shyly and nodded at her father's words. It seemed nice to be the most beautiful, the finest trophy in her future husband's trophy case. She looked forward to how proud he would be, how happily his face would change because of her.
"Waah. Waahh."
That's how it was until she gave birth to her daughter.
The hot temperature and face of her daughter crying loudly in her arms. The vividly felt pulse showing she was alive. When she embraced her daughter along with the midwife's seemingly pitying frown, an indescribable sense of dread washed over Ariel.
Trophy. Not daughter, but trophy.
At first she'll cry like this, but soon she'll have to forget how to cry, forget how to laugh boisterously. A lady must not open her mouth wide, must not appeal to emotions. Always revere her husband...
Her heart pounded. The moment Ariel projected her life, which she had prided herself on living without complaint, onto her daughter, she felt nauseous.
Why? How come?
Why nauseous?
She became the finest trophy, married to the empire's most prestigious groom. How could this be? When everyone envied her, why did she..
As Ariel's face became pensive, the midwife quickly eased her expression and comforted her.
"Oh my, milady. You worked hard. It's a relief if the first is a son. Still, they say it's appropriate to raise a daughter first. Nowadays, it's okay for the eldest to be a daughter. They say the youngest should be a son so the eldest can take care of him."
Ariel lifted her head at those words her mother must have heard too. The midwife's expression didn't come into focus, her vision entirely blurred. As her daughter's heartbeat grew erratic in her arms, Ariel quickly ordered the midwife to take the child.
But even as she leaned her exhausted body against the pillow, Ariel's eyes wouldn't leave her daughter.
"No. Give me my child back."
"Oh dear. Milady. What about your body? You must rest quickly. When the Duke returns, next you'll need to have a son."
"...Give me my child."
In the end, Ariel smiled wanly as she held her daughter. Yes, at least my daughter.
Her husband Damian was busy. As the Duke, many people sought him out, and he was also the Empire's sword, so it was perhaps only natural. During the few years of their married life, the occasions when he fully rested at the Ducal estate were so few they could be counted on one hand.
He missed the birth, the crawling, the first steps, and the first words of their child. The ducal estate he returned to after years of war barely afforded him a few days of rest before he had to leave again, this time across the sea for a rebellion, spending half a year on the battlefield before returning.
The sun had etched deeper lines on his tired face, evident in his weary expression.
"Daddy?"
The unfamiliar word from the child's mouth startled Ariel, causing her to tremble. The little hand she held fidgeted, showing the urge to rush out, but the unfamiliar presence of a father she had rarely seen made it difficult to run straight into his arms.
"Damian. It must have been a tiring journey. Go and rest now."
But Ariel wasn't much different from her daughter. The intimacy with her husband, who returned after a few months, wasn't much greater just because she was his wife. He respected Ariel as the Duchess, but his usual taciturn personality made him difficult to interact with, and even during their newlywed days, while he welcomed her, he didn't seem too fond of her. Rather, it felt like he wanted to bathe immediately and lay down in the bedroom to rest his weary body.
The only thing he sought was Ariel's body
If anything, it was fortunate. Thanks to that, their daughter was born, and for Ariel, her daughter became an existence greater than her own life.
"Lucy."
Ariel's voice calling the child was affectionate. The green eyes gazing up at Ariel sparkled brightly. Though people said the firstborn daughter took after her father in appearance, calling Lucy a tiny Damian, these eyes were the same vivid green as Ariel's.
"Mommy."
As Ariel opened her arms wide, the child came into them. A bright smile quickly spread across Ariel's face. As she held the child and turned, Damian called Ariel from behind.
"Ariel. Come to the bedroom."
"...Yes? Yes."
Unconsciously frowning, Ariel hugged Lucy tightly. Did he have to speak like that in front of the child? Though she was still too young to understand such words, still...
"And Ariel."
At Damian calling her name again, Ariel quickly composed her expression.
"I hear there is no tutor for the child."
Ariel hugged Lucy even tighter, startled. Anxiety constricted her breathing, making her fingertips tremble.
Sensing her mother's unease, Lucy quietly looked over at her father standing across from them. As if knowing without being told who was making her mother uneasy.
"Damian. I will raise the child myself. As you know, Lucy is still young, and even without a proper nanny, I am fully capable of caring for her."
"Rumors are spreading in high society. That the Genova Duchess's estate is raising a child without a single tutor. That you are neglecting high society, which should properly be under the Genova Duchess' purview, by insisting on raising the child yourself, cloistered away in just the Genova ducal estate. Do you really think it's right for the Genova Duchy's estate to become a laughingstock outside because of you alone?"
"Damian. I'm sorry. But..."
"Leave the child to a nursemaid and attend to your own duties."
Though his words were not wrong, why did her heart ache as if being torn apart? Though the answer was decided, her lips would not move. It was only after nodding obediently in acquiescence that:
"...Daddy, bad. Mommy, bullied."
At the chiding voice, Ariel's gaze dropped. Lucy, tightly hugging her neck, stared straight at Damian as she scolded him with her small lips.
"...Seems she's becoming a brat with no tutors."
Ariel, with her mouth agape at Damian's words, furrowed her brows deeply.
What does a mere seven-year-old girl understand to call her that? A brat. Ariel quickly covered one of Lucy's ears. She had intended to immediately take the child to her room and tell Damian he must watch his language, at least. But Lucy's voice was much quicker than Ariel's hurried steps.
“Daddy didn't even greet mommy and me after meeting her for the first time in a long time! Brat! Y-You, pebble! Pebble Daddy!"
Only now did Ariel realize how loud Lucy's voice could be, freezing in place. And yet, amidst that, she felt a bit proud of the way she expressed her intentions. Her metaphor was quite clever too - pebble. Come to think of it, Damian did resemble a pebble - hard and taciturn.
But now was not the time to show praise. Still, to call her own father a brat... It seemed in the meantime, Lucy had learned yet another new word from Damian's speech. Quick at picking things up, my daughter. No, this was no time to feel delight.
"Damian. We'll talk later."
In the silent stillness where even the servants had frozen, Ariel's voice rang out.
Returning to Lucy's room, Ariel carefully lowered her daughter, whom she had carried back to her room.
Then, gently holding her shoulders, she looked into the child's face and called out her name. She intended to inform her that it was impolite to address her father with such words.
"Lucy."
However, big tears welled up in the child's blinking eyes.
"Lucy waited for Daddy. But Daddy..."
At words different than what she had expected, Ariel's eyes squeezed shut. The child had waited for her father, but the father who returned only seemed scary - how hurt she must have felt. The child, not yet adept at expressing herself, seemed to have lashed out at her father in her disappointment.
Unconsciously, Ariel pulled Lucy into an embrace, patting her back.
"Daddy does love Lucy. But Daddy, you see, he's tired from the long journey today. So he might seem a little scary."
"Is that really it? But Lucy said mean things to Daddy."
"Yeah. Mommy will talk to daddy about that. But Lucy, you shouldn't say such things to Daddy either. Okay?"
"...Okay. I'll try to be patient from now on."
Seeing her nodding daughter, tears welled up in Ariel's eyes as well. Why was her daughter so tender and smart? Though she could cry loudly out of resentment, she understood her mother's heart so well. It was a remarkable thing.
"Mom."
"Yes?"
"You know, Benjamin from Count Orsini says that when dad comes back, I'll have a baby brother."
Ariel's lips closed at Lucy's sudden words.
"I want a baby brother too, so now that Daddy's back, will I have one too? When will he come? Will he be here by tomorrow?"
"Well, a baby brother is, um, when Mommy and Daddy pray sincerely in the room, the heavens will give him to us. Maybe Benjamin meant something like that. So, no one knows when he'll come. It's something that comes from heaven."
"Does that mean I came from heaven too?"
"Then did I also come from the heavens?"
"Of course. You're the little angel Mama wished and wished for so dearly that the heavens sent down, our Lucy?"
"Wow, really!"
With unshed tears still brimming in her eyes, Lucy smiled. Ariel wiped her daughter's tears away, smiling along with her.
"Mom, then can I pray together too? I'll pray really hard!"
"...Ah, no! Only Mama and Daddy can pray for a younger sibling. If someone else is nearby, the heavens will be angered and terrible things will happen. So Lucy needs to sleep soundly so Mama can offer her devout prayers to the heavens comfortably, right?"
"Oh... Then, I'll quickly go to bed. But what if Daddy gets angry because of Lucy and doesn't pray with Mommy?"
Though she didn't think that would happen, Ariel racked her brain. That she would try to persuade him. Would saying that work?
"No, Daddy really enjoys praying with Mommy, so it's fine."
At the voice from behind, Ariel nearly screamed.
"Damian...?"
Ariel found it hard to understand the wry smile on her husband's face as he looked at her and their daughter.
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