At that moment, the woman's eyes flashed eerily.
Even the fingers gripping his hand felt incredibly strong. It felt like a hand clamped down on a steel lock.
Then, from between her parted lips, the ancient language of the East flowed out.
"That oath will be a powerful binding spell that will bind you. You will have to keep your word until your last breath. Can you still say that your oath is valid?"
A heavy gasp could be heard from around them. It seemed as if the Empress was using some ancient sorcery of her people.
It occurred to him that perhaps it wasn't all that different. He could distinctly feel some mysterious force moving him.
A strong question arose in his mind.
Why does this person do this?
He would eventually acquire a powerful military force, but it would take a long time to achieve that.
The influence he could exert at the moment was minimal. Yet, the Empress acted as if her children's fate depended on his answer.
Suddenly, a rumor flashed through his mind that she possessed the power of foresight.
Did you catch a glimpse of a future that might make you feel you need to brace yourself?
As he looked up at her with eyes filled with suspicion, the Empress's face, which had been rigid and solemn, suddenly became disheveled.
He noticed that she was struggling with something.
Her pale face was drenched in cold sweat. She looked as if she would lose her last life at any moment and then fade away.
He carefully wrapped his hand around the woman's hand, its tendons taut and prominent. The Empress's eyes widened.
Even when he decided to become a poisoner, he was unable to completely become cruel. He knew this person had shown him a certain affection. But he couldn't repay what he had received. If that were the case, he wanted to at least give this woman, standing on the brink of death, a little peace of mind.
He hesitated for a moment, then answered in a language engraved deep in his soul.
"Until the moment I draw my last breath, this oath will remain in effect."
Then, relief and guilt crossed the woman's eyes.
Tears, pushed back by many eyelids, flowed down her pale cheeks.
"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry to you. Don't ask me to forgive you."
“Don’t say that. I..."
"You know what you sacrificed."
She interrupted him.
"You're only thirteen. I know I shouldn't be doing this to you, but I'm still here..."
The Empress's empty eyes turned to her children. They dilated to their limit, appearing as black as ink, before gradually regaining their original luster.
After looking at her young children for a long time with a look of mixed regret and sadness, the woman turned her eyes back to him.
"Barkas Raedgo Sheerkhan, you thought life had no meaning, but one day you will discover something that keeps you alive. When that day comes, you will regret this moment."
Her cloudy eyes slowly closed.
The woman muttered in a hoarse voice, her breath coming out of her dry mouth.
"Then you can blame me to your heart's content."
The moment he was about to reply that that wouldn't happen, a dry cough erupted from her mouth.
Even though the high priest hurriedly approached and poured out divine power, the Empress's face only grew darker.
The twins burst into loud sobs at the sight of their mother, who seemed on the verge of suffocation. They clung to the bedside, desperately clutching their mother's withered hand.
As he took a step back and watched the scene, Marquis Oristain grabbed his shoulder and led him out into the hallway.
"Don't worry about the Empress's last words. She seems to have been having hallucinations frequently since her chronic illness worsened rapidly."
The man who had moved to a deserted area let out a heavy sigh and said.
"She seems to be mentally unstable lately. She probably won't make it through this month."
The Marquis seemed to have aged by the minute over the past few months.
The man, who had been looking out the window with his neat face filled with anger and sadness, continued speaking in a gloomy tone.
"I really appreciate what you did today. Thanks to you, Her Majesty will be able to relax a little."
A large hand bearing the family seal ring rested on his shoulder.
The Marquis seemed to regard the ceremony just performed as nothing more than a theatrical performance to console a woman nearing death. He didn't bother to correct that notion.
The Empress had shackled him to the title. He was fully aware of this fact, but he paid little attention to it. From the moment he was born into the Sheerkhan family, he had been bound by the chains of duty.
What difference would it make if one more shackle were added to it? The Grand Duke would support the Crown Prince, who had legitimacy, and he himself would follow the will of the Crown Prince.
Hearing sobbing from one side of the hallway, he quickly moved along the corridor.
The pitch-black tunnel stretched on endlessly. After walking for ten miles through the pitch-black darkness, like the intestines of a giant snake, he found himself drenched in rain.
Before his eyes was a flower garden full of black roses.
In the garden where all the plants that Empress Bernadette loved had been pulled out, flowers of magnificent shapes were quietly borrowing large peaks that looked like animal intestines.
Barcas crossed the damp garden, where the sticky air swirled, and headed toward the back garden. Beyond the dark, rain-pouring sky, the roof of the Great Temple appeared dimly.
After Empress Bernadette's death, he left the quarters she had provided for him in the Empress's palace and entered the priest's chambers of the Great Cathedral. It was his first return in seven years, having been led out of the punishment chamber by the Empress.
Some priests were embarrassed to live with the Grand Duke's successor, but the Archdeacon, including the high priests, welcomed him with a warm welcome, as if the unpleasant incidents of the past did not exist.
They brought him under strict discipline, as if he were a prodigal son returning home. Thus, he was forced to begin a life in which all his desires were severely restricted.
But he didn't feel the same discomfort he did when he was younger. Rather, he felt a kind of comfort in this controlled life.
Only then did he realize that he had been harboring a twinge of guilt about not living up to the Empress's expectations.
He felt sorry for her, who had hoped he'd regain his senses, but he didn't want to feel anything. This state of endless silence was convenient.
He was now in some sympathy with the priests' teachings.
The senses are a poison that disturbs the mind.
The Emperor, intoxicated by beauty, abandoned his honor and turned to the path of sin.
The Empress, blindly in love, pushed herself into misfortune even though she held the power of the world.
There is no need for such destructive emotions.
He looked up at the dark blue sky with frozen eyes and soon started walking again.
It was then that he discovered a little girl in the pouring rain.
He couldn't figure out why he had stopped in front of the pit.
Even at the end of his life, he will probably never know what it was that made him meet her there that day, what made him speak to her first.
What was clear was that on that day, in that place, he had found something he did not want.
It was much later that he became vaguely aware of that fact.
The thirteen-year-old reached out his hand to a little girl in the mud, not knowing what was going on.
“That’s right.”
The large eyes that had an overwhelming presence on the small face became as big as lanterns.
The girl, who had been hesitating for a while, approached him tentatively. Then, suddenly, she looked down at her hands clasped against her chest and shook her head.
"No. I'm holding it in my hand right now."
He squinted his eyes and stared at the small, pale hands.
“Is it important?”
“It’s not important.”
“Then throw it away.”
"It's not important, but I can't throw it away."
The girl shot back with a displeased expression.
Something about that foot grazed his nerves.
He discarded everything that didn't matter. As he did, the world became clearer. Whatever she held in her hands, no matter how attractive, wasn't worth holding onto, even if it meant getting soaked in the mud and rain.
He was about to offer that, but he didn't want to argue with a girl a head smaller than him, so he stopped. Instead, he knelt down and gently lifted the small body he'd found in the rain.
The girl jumped up as if startled. Suppressing her shock, he climbed the slope of soft mud in one breath, as usual.
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