The Weight of a Mother's Heart
The wheels of the carriage rattled and clattered over the rough, unpaved roads of the north, their relentless sound scraping against Carla's eardrums like sandpaper. Inside the lavish, spacious carriage befitting the status of the Grand Duchess of the North, her shoulders hunched in utter wretchedness as it made its way from the Grand Duke's castle toward the imperial capital of Midsolar.
The seat across from her sat empty. It was customary for a noblewoman traveling alone to be accompanied by at least one or two maids who would attend to her every need. Yet Carla had allowed no one inside her carriage. There was simply no one left in the vast northern territories whom she could trust to sit beside her.
“Anna...”
Carla murmured the name softly, her vacant gaze fixed on the rows of coniferous trees blurring past the window. Anna. The loyal maid who had been the only one to follow her from her family home, the Lirium County, when she married into the north. From childhood, Anna had cared for her, becoming her sole support through the icy, treacherous life in the Grand Duke's castle. Sometimes like a friend. Sometimes like an older sister. Sometimes like a mother. She had been the warm blanket that comforted Carla until Lucian was born.
But that Anna was no longer by her side.
That night, Anna had accidentally witnessed Lumican and Sena entangled in passion within the bedroom. Furious, she had rushed to report the affair to her mistress. But before she could reach Carla's chambers, Lumican had caught up. The Grand Duke thought nothing of crushing a mere maid to hide his shame. He had pinned an absurd theft charge on her, claiming she had tried to steal one of the Grand Duke's precious jewels.
Under the north's harsh laws, a thief had no defense even if their wrist was severed. Anna had screamed her innocence, crying out desperately toward Carla, but before Carla could intervene, Lumican's knights had dragged her to the underground dungeon and beaten her mercilessly. Bloodied and half-dead, Anna was thrown out that very night without even a carriage.
『My lady... I couldn't serve you until the very end...』
The memory of Anna's tear-streaked face as she was dragged away from the Grand Duchy still echoed in Carla's ears. Carla had immediately sent a letter to her father demanding an investigation. He had dispatched inspectors who searched the jewel vault and cleared Anna's name. But it had already been too late.
Though her innocence was proven, the wounds to body and soul were too deep. Tormented by shame, Anna had vanished without a trace. The one person who had cherished her all her life had been sacrificed to protect her husband's filthy secret. And still, Carla could do nothing. Within the Grand Duke's castle, she was nothing more than a broodmare for producing an heir. Even that role had become meaningless once Lumican impregnated Sena and decided to make her child the legitimate successor.
“It's all over now.”
Carla whispered, not even bothering to wipe the tears sliding down her dry cheeks. Outside the carriage, the sound of hooves mingled with the rough voices of knights. They were the escort Lumican had assigned her. But Carla knew the truth. Those men were not shields meant to protect her. They were Lumican's knights, nothing more. Once they delivered the discarded Grand Duchess safely to Midsolar, they would turn their backs on her without hesitation. They were merely watchers.
Trapped in this narrow carriage surrounded by enemies on all sides, Carla chewed and swallowed her loneliness and misery.
‘Father...’
Every time the carriage jolted, Carla's mind drifted to her family home in Midsolar, the Lirium County. A mere count's title seemed insignificant compared to the vast lands and private army of the Gestein Grand Duchy. To those who only saw the absolute power of a Grand Duke, the count's house might appear as just another middling noble family. But anyone familiar with imperial politics would never dare underestimate Herman Lirium, Carla's father.
He was the Inspector General, the man who audited every official in the empire and rooted out corruption.
Normally, government posts could not be inherited, but the position of Inspector General was different. It required not only absolute integrity and flawless conduct but also the kind of character that earned respect from even the highest nobles. The emperor, who believed that family tradition shaped a person, had effectively made the role hereditary within the Lirium family.
It was for precisely these political reasons that Carla, the daughter of the Lirium Count, had been married into the Grand Duchy as a strategic alliance. That was why even the proud northern Grand Duchy could not easily flaunt its power before the empire's chief auditor. If the Inspector General, who strictly separated public and private affairs, decided to scrutinize the northern territories' administration and finances with a fine-tooth comb...
It would deal a devastating economic and political blow to the entire duchy and continue to tighten the noose around its neck.
“Yes... I still have Father...”
A poisonous light gradually filled Carla's previously hazy eyes. The humiliation of being abandoned by her husband and rejected by her own son. The sense of debt and inferiority she had felt toward the wet nurse Sena. All those emotions had fused into a single burning desire for revenge and destruction.
Once she reached her family home, she would persuade her father. She would tell him how the Grand Duke had not only cast aside his lawful wife to commit adultery but had also humiliated her in front of the servants by exposing her bruised breasts. She would expose every rotten detail of how the northern laws had decayed.
‘Lumican, I will repay the shame you gave me a thousandfold, ten thousandfold. I will make you pay for trampling my pride and driving Anna away. I will cut off the money flowing into your lands, drag your social standing through the mud until it hits rock bottom, and force you to your knees.’
Carla clutched her bruised chest, vowing her future revenge.
But then—
『Waaaah! Uwaaaaaah!』
Suddenly, a painfully familiar and pitiful baby's cry rang in her ears like a hallucination. The image of Lucian's chubby, tear-streaked cheeks and clear eyes flashed before her—the way he had wailed at the sight of her that very morning in the nursery. Her only blood relative.
“Ah...”
The strength slowly drained from the hand clutching her chest. Lucian. The child who did not love her. The child who rejected her embrace and sought the arms of a lowly wet nurse. And yet, he was still the most precious son she had brought into the world through the pain of her own body.
Carla covered her face with both hands. The flames of revenge that had burned so fiercely began to cool and die before the sticky curse known as maternal love.
‘If I... borrow Father's power to oppress Lumican... If I economically strangle the north and tarnish the honor of the Gestein family...’
All of that damage would ultimately fall squarely on Lucian.
When he grew up, took his first steps, learned to read, and picked up a sword... By the time he had completely forgotten his mother's face, what if he discovered that the true culprit who had dragged his father into the abyss and destroyed his family was none other than the woman who had given birth to him?
‘Lucian would hate me. He might even think of me as... the most terrible demon in the world.’
Being forgotten was something she could endure. Being mocked as a useless mother was something she could bear. But the mere thought of her own son staring at her with bloodshot eyes filled with endless hatred was enough to suffocate Carla.
The fear for her son and the burning maternal love caused her vengeful spirit—which had seemed ready to set the world ablaze—to shrivel pathetically in an instant.
“Yes... I can't attack the family. I can't ruin Lucian's future. At the very least, I should use my family's power to stop Lumican from remarrying... Even if I have to submit a petition to the imperial family...”
Carla muttered to herself, compromising, before letting out a hollow laugh.
“Haha... What would be the point?”
After all, Sena was already by Lumican's side. Whether she received the title of concubine or not, Lumican would spend his entire life clinging to Sena's side and loving only her. Even if she prevented a formal remarriage on paper, Sena would be the one acting as Lucian's true mother. What use would it be for her to interfere from afar?
“I've lost. Completely... I've lost.”
Carla leaned her head against the windowsill. She no longer had the strength left to feel anger. Inside the empty carriage, she simply let her body sway limply with the motion.
In her powerlessness, she slowly raised her right hand and touched her lips.
“......”
The trembling fingertips vividly recalled the sensation of the surprise kiss Sena had left her with when sending her away just hours earlier. It had been soft. And strangely, unbearably hot. The fingers that had wiped her face. The deep, greedy kiss that had tightened around her like a noose. The violent, intense sensation that had tangled with her mercilessly, as if determined to swallow every salty tear she had shed.
‘Just what... was she thinking when she kissed me?’
A deep furrow formed between Carla's brows. When those lips had first touched hers, she had thought it was mockery. The victorious woman who had stolen both husband and son delivering a thorough, vulgar ritual of humiliation to the defeated woman who had lost everything. She had felt it was a silent taunt: You can do nothing. I can even violate your lips as I please.
But—
After the kiss, when Sena had stared straight down at her, those eyes had held Carla within them. What exactly was she supposed to wait for? All that remained for her was shame and wounds. What more could there possibly be for Sena to show her that made her declare it wasn't over?
‘Could it be...’
Confused thoughts chained together endlessly. Was it possible that Sena was plotting something Carla didn't know about? Could she have made some absurd vow to betray her husband, steal the child back, and deliver him to her?
Incomprehensible emotions churned inside her chest. Carla clutched her lips, staring at the carriage floor with complicated eyes.
Creak—!Hiiing!
Suddenly, the speeding carriage came to a violent halt with the sound of a horse's whinny. Thrown forward by the momentum, Carla quickly grabbed the handle to steady herself.
‘...Is it time to make camp?’
Outside the window, darkness had already fallen. There were still several days left until they reached the capital, so they would need to pitch tents in a clearing or the forest and spend the night. Carla held her breath quietly, waiting for one of the escort knights to open the carriage door and announce their stop.
One minute. Three minutes. Five minutes.
But the door of the stopped carriage did not open. Beyond the fact that it remained closed, the outside was far too quiet. Normally, when a carriage stopped for camping, the knights would bustle about, lighting fires and unloading luggage. There should have been the sounds of feeding the horses and the rough voices of knights exchanging jokes. The coachman should have made some noise.
Yet now, only silence enveloped the carriage. Not even the hoot of an owl could be heard.
“What is this...? What's going on?”
Carla asked cautiously against the carriage wall, anxiety creeping into her voice. There was no answer.
And then, from beyond the heavy silence, a single knocking sound pierced her eardrums.
Drip.Drip.
It was the sound of liquid falling to the ground. Is it raining? Carla absentmindedly lifted the thick curtain of the window and looked up at the night sky. A clear full moon hung in a cloudless sky.
Drip. Drip.
The speed of the falling liquid gradually increased.
Thud—!!
At that moment, something incredibly heavy and wet slammed into the muddy ground with a sickening sound.
“Huk...”
‘What on earth...?’
Carla held her breath and reached out with a trembling hand to grasp the latch of the carriage door.
Creeeak—.