Being a Mother Is Hard
"Has Lilith calmed down at all...?"
Camilla sat perched atop the half-wrecked desk of her thoroughly demolished office and asked Amelia about her daughter's condition.
"She continued to thrash about, so I had no choice but to force her under with a sleeping draught."
"Haa... Well, I suppose there was no other way..."
Hearing Amelia's answer, Camilla let out a long, heavy sigh and cast her mind back over everything that had just taken place.
Camilla had been called away on business and had left Allen alone in her office for a short while. When Amelia brought Lilith in, the thought of leaving the two of them alone without her present had made her a little uneasy—
Amelia will be with them. It should be fine.
If Lilith did something impulsive, stopping her alone would, frankly, have been impossible. As the next head of House Frigid and a daughter who carried Camilla's own blood, the only people in the entire estate who could subdue her were Camilla herself, the youngest son's escort knight, and the captain of the family knights. Still, as Allen had said, they ought to have been able to keep Lilith from harming him for at least a little while.
Allen had run off on his own and left a note that practically mocked the mother searching for him, which was irritating enough—but he was still her child. The last thing she wanted was for him to suffer some humiliation at his own sister's hands.
Once her business was finished, Camilla hurried back to her office. The hour was already very late; she meant only to check on her daughter's state and soothe her a little before opening the door.
Looks like nothing happened.
Camilla felt a quiet relief. She had been worried Lilith might take her temper out on Allen again, yet her daughter was sitting demurely on the sofa, waiting for her mother to return.
"You wanted to see me, Mother?"
"Lilith, I heard from Allen. You told him you would no longer make an issue of Edward's marriage, didn't you?"
"What exactly did Brother say to you, Mother?"
"Nothing much—only that your condition looked rather strange. Isn't that right, Al... Allen...?"
Camilla had no choice but to break off. She had just realized the son who was supposed to be waiting for her was nowhere to be found.
"Where is Allen?"
She turned her head and scanned the room. Amelia, standing inside the office, looked toward the window and reported on Allen's whereabouts.
"My lady... the moment Lady Lilith stepped through the door, Young Master Allen leapt out the window."
"..."
So that was why the office had still been intact—Allen had sensed the danger and fled at once. Camilla was left speechless by the son who had warned her to watch Lilith carefully and then simply run away. She had given him firm orders to stay and attend Edward's wedding before leaving, so he probably hadn't left the estate entirely...
Allen had already suffered enough that she hadn't originally planned to punish him—but somehow the whole thing had become so galling that she found herself thinking she ought to thrash him a few times later. No—quite a few times.
While she was turning that over, Lilith snorted.
"Hmph! He ran because he knew he was going to die by my hand."
"Lilith, that is still your older brother."
Watching the killing intent rolling off Lilith, Camilla became certain of it. Allen really had fled for his life. Judging that this had gone far beyond ordinary sibling squabbling, she opened her mouth to scold her daughter—
"Because of that man, Edward is about to be tied to that damned princess! What older brother?!"
Far from accepting her mother's words, Lilith only grew angrier, dragging up the youngest son's marriage that had already been settled.
"Lilith... I told you before. You clearly said last time that you understood. Didn't you tell your mother that?"
Last time, Lilith had clearly been struggling, yet they had finished the conversation with her agreeing not to interfere with her brother's wedding. And yet—
"I don't think I can do that after all, Mother."
"Lilith, what are you saying?"
"I can't. I'm not ready to let him go yet."
"You—surely you don't mean to... with Edward..."
Camilla found herself forced to speak words she desperately did not want to utter. In the past, she had executed large numbers of household servants who had whispered about that unseemly subject behind her back. She hadn't even asked for their reasons or evidence—she had simply had them put to death. As a mother, it was a topic she could not bear to let near her ears.
Setting aside the occasional impulsive acts that came from loving her younger brother too much, Lilith was a daughter Camilla had raised with genuine pride, training her carefully so that she might one day inherit her place. The attachment to her younger brother, Camilla had always believed, was simply because Allen—the eldest—had left home without a word, leaving only the youngest as a full-blooded sibling. As their mother, she had watched the deep bond between brother and sister with quiet satisfaction.
But this—
That her daughter harbored a twisted love. That she had been thinking of binding herself to her own younger brother. For Camilla as a mother, it was a despairing situation.
"I love Ed, but it's not what you're thinking right now!"
"Then why on earth are you doing this?"
Lilith's answer only made Camilla more confused. In that case, why not simply let him marry the princess? It wasn't as though he were being sent somewhere she could never see him again. If she wanted to meet him, she could do so whenever she liked. Only—
"I just can't! Ed can't leave my side even for a moment..."
It seemed her daughter needed to be able to see him not whenever she liked, but always.
"Not even for a moment...? What in the world are you talking about?"
"I can't... I can't... I can't..."
Camilla could only stare in shock at Lilith's eyes as the girl muttered to herself without answering.
"Lilith?!"
Because, just as Allen had warned her—her daughter's eyes had lost their focus and gone dark. Just like—
Just like that night, when the Hero had run amok inside the grand ducal residence.
And just like that Hero—
Lilith—
"I said I can't!!"
A roaring surge of power exploded outward as she began to thrash about in earnest.
After that, Camilla had no choice but to struggle to subdue her own daughter. She could overpower her, yes—but quietly restraining a Lilith who was drawing up every scrap of Aura in her body and thrashing with all her might was impossible. The grand ducal residence inevitably fell into uproar. And so, before long, Edward—who had noticed the commotion—came running at once.
Hoping desperately that her daughter would calm down and come to her senses, Camilla had given her and her younger brother time alone to talk. She had never imagined that, far from settling, Lilith would only grow more violent.
The moment Edward left her alone in the room, Lilith had kept calling her younger brother's name and rampaging so wildly that Camilla could hardly believe this was truly her daughter. And to draw up mana and wrap her body in Aura in front of Edward—a man—if Camilla had been even a little later, her youngest son might well have been hurt.
"To think she would actually try to lay hands on her own younger brother..."
It was a truly lamentable situation. Her daughter seemed to have lost her mind. Her youngest son, who had only just begun to recover his spirits, had been dealt another shock because of his own sister. And her eldest son—
"Mother, that is exactly why I told you my little sister's condition looked very strange."
—walked into the office speaking as though he had foreseen the entire mess.
Camilla looked at him with dull eyes and called his name.
"...Allen?"
"Yes, Mother?"
"You really are remarkably fast when it comes to running away."
"Ahem...!"
They had clearly agreed to call Lilith and talk together. The eldest son who had turned tail and fled the instant his younger sister arrived could hardly look endearing.
"If I had stayed, the situation would only have gotten worse! Hahaha..."
Allen could only offer excuses and laugh awkwardly, trying to escape Camilla's uncomfortably heavy gaze.
Looking at her eldest, Camilla exhaled a deep sigh.
"Haa... This is only the second time I have felt that my children are truly difficult..."
Camilla, who never showed weakness to outsiders, found the situation so dire that she allowed herself to complain to her own son. But Allen, hearing her lament—
"Pardon? Isn't this the first time? The children are usually so well-behaved..."
—chose the strangest place to pick a fight.
Camilla gave him an incredulous look and shot back,
"...Are you asking because you genuinely don't know?"
"Ah!... The first time was me, wasn't it! Ahahahaha!!"
Only then did he catch on, laughing as if it were the funniest thing in the world.
"Haa..."
A headache rolled in, and Camilla could do nothing but keep sighing. She had no choice but to worry over what to do next—and no choice but to keep turning over a certain question.
Because when she had rushed into the room to protect Edward, the last thing he had said to his sister was this:
Please, Sister. Don't try to kill me.
She simply could not understand it. Don't try to kill him...? Camilla knew perfectly well how deeply her daughter loved her younger brother. That was precisely why things had come to this. Lilith, killing Edward? It was absurd. And yet Edward was not a child who spoke thoughtlessly.
The only way to resolve this doubt was to ask him herself. Now that things had settled somewhat, Camilla decided to head for her youngest son's room.
Having several children made hardship inevitable—but today of all days, Camilla could not help thinking that it was truly, unusually hard.
And the ones finding it hard were not only Camilla, there in the grand ducal residence.