Lament
The Viscountess spent the entire day exhausting herself in the release of her stress.
She screamed at her son and swung her fists at him. Kael simply held her tight without a word, letting her pour out every last drop of resentment toward her unfilial child to her heart’s content.
Another day passed after that.
Worn out from her frenzy, Darin slept far longer than usual. Facing reality only brought torment, so she refused to open her eyes.
The man gathered the woman who would not wake into his arms and slipped out of the inn. The victory parade had long since ended; there was no longer any reason to remain.
Kael made no attempt to force his mother awake. Before he was a man in love, he was the child she had borne in pain.
Would it be right for a child of her blood to drag a parent from deep, peaceful sleep? It would have been a violation of all proper feeling.
Perhaps it was a laughable sort of consideration. After carving open his parent’s heart, this thin scrap of care. Yet Kael wanted to make amends somewhere else for the wounds he had inflicted. He had realized for the first time, after all, that when he took her he lost all reason and became nothing more than a beast.
Unlike the mother sunk in despair, the sky was blue and the sunlight warm. Kael faced the sun with a faint smile. His mother had always preferred weather like this.
“Mother, today the tangerine trees will grow strong and tall.”
He himself was a man who had grown up properly on the tangerines she had picked for him. How could he ever forget that grace? More than that—she had always prepared her children’s food with her own hands.
I don’t want to put on airs just because I’m a Viscountess.
That was what she always said whenever the servants tried to stop her. She had truly wanted to be a good parent to her children. In matters of raising them, she had insisted on perfection as far as it was humanly possible.
The son pressed a kiss to his mother’s cheek, still marked with the tracks of tears. This woman had poured every hour and every ounce of care into him. Remembering that grace made affection surge so fiercely he could no longer hold it back.
“Mother, regrettably… your son does not regret this choice.”
Though barbarian blood ran in his veins, Kael was a clear-headed man; he was no fool who could not tell right from wrong. He knew perfectly well that others would see his acts as the basest of crimes against nature. He knew the guilt that came with them as well.
“I decided to become a monster so that I could have love.”
The decades he had spent with this woman had been both heaven and hell. For all those long years he had been forced to watch the one he yearned for endure forced intimacy.
“I didn’t set out intending this from the beginning.”
Kael had known that what he was doing would be despair for his mother. That was why he had gone on the expedition. He had believed that if he put distance between them and let time pass, this wicked desire would fade on its own.
“I deluded myself into thinking I could forget you, Mother.”
A brief flicker of regret crossed the cruel barbarian’s face. Yes—it had been a delusion. The longer they were apart, the more impossible it became to forget the smile the queen of the tangerine trees had once given him.
“Do you know what thought came to me as I broadened my horizons and looked at more and more women?”
Whether at social gatherings or on the road, Kael had met a fair number of women who possessed every charm a man might desire. Yet rather than swinging his hips and tasting every joy and sorrow with them, he had only thought this:
Compared to my mother, they aren’t even fit to be called women.
The woman he loved stood above birth and rank—more noble and more beautiful than any other. So no matter how the others cast their glances, he simply repeated the same private judgment.
Why should I go looking elsewhere when the perfect woman is already at my side?
Why should I take women I don’t even love into my arms?
Why must I give her up simply because I am her son?
“You always told me that if I only turned my eyes a little, leaving the shelter of a parent’s arms wouldn’t be difficult.”
Yet even as he widened his world and sharpened his understanding, Kael had returned to the folds of his mother’s skirts. He had realized he was a cursed seed that could live no other way.
“But laughably, the opposite happened. The more I came to know the world, the more I understood how precious you are to me.”
He tightened his arms around the girl as he made his tender confession—speaking through action the resolve that he would never, under any circumstances, let her go.
“Isn’t it rather fortunate that things turned out this way? You were always afraid of me becoming independent, after all.”
His words were not entirely wrong. Darin had hoped Kael would find a partner and build a household of his own, yet at the same time she had not wanted him to leave her side. Every time her child was away, she had felt a hollow emptiness in one corner of her heart.
Even so, better that the boy become independent than that he subject her to this cruelty.
“…Hic.”
The woman sniffled, her voice thick with tears. Kael had not been speaking to himself. He had long since noticed that she was only pretending to sleep so she could ignore him.
Two massive horses drew a carriage bearing the white-bear crest up close to the pair. It was the private carriage of the Bayorn Viscount family, and the warriors charged with their escort stood arrayed around it.
“My lady. Young master.”
A middle-aged man in neat attire bowed his head. The gesture was filled with loyalty toward the Viscountess and her son.
“It seems mother and son have spent a cozy time together.”
To outward eyes it looked like a much older brother embracing a young sister. The coachman, Arbin, assumed the two masters had simply stayed up all night talking. The lady’s love for her child was famous throughout the entire Bayorn domain, after all.
“Yes. Thanks to all of you giving us space, I was able to spend intimate time with Mother.”
Kael answered as though it were nothing. To him the words were not entirely untrue.
“Well done.”
The young lord smiled as he accepted his retainer’s devotion. Judging by the man’s weary look, he had been waiting in front of the inn for quite some time.
A soft clink of coin. This much generosity was only proper for a servant who had done his duty. The coachman accepted it without a word. One did not make a fuss when receiving a master’s favor. That was the way of Bayorn.
“The steward reports that the Imperial Princess will soon set foot on Bayorn soil.”
As though the news were already known to him, Kael nodded indifferently. She was one of the women who thoroughly wearied him, along with the Northern Grand Duke’s daughter. Once he returned to the castle he would have to send a letter ahead of time. A man who already had a fiancée should not be subjected to foolish advances.
The small girl who had been feigning sleep gave a tiny twitch of her earlobe. Even in this state she was glad the princess had taken an interest in her son.
Even reduced to this, she still insists on playing the mother’s part.
She was clearly planning to marry him off to the Imperial Princess—said to be the greatest beauty in the empire—and then pretend today’s disaster had never happened. Kael saw the scheme so clearly it made him laugh. No matter how hard she tried to stop him, he would never change his mind.
“Understood.”
Receiving the young master’s reply, the coachman nodded and climbed at once into the driver’s seat. Shortly afterward mother and son followed him into the carriage.
Kael’s frame was so enormous that even the simple act of boarding made the vehicle rock heavily. Through the swaying gap the coachman thought he glimpsed the lady sniffling, yet he said nothing.
They were a close mother and son, after all; there was no need to make much of it. And a commoner had no business prying into the private affairs of nobles.
“Ah—and Arbin.”
“Yes, young master.”
“Stop calling me young master from now on.”
“…!?”
The coachman’s eyes flew wide. The surprise was plain on his face, yet it did not take him long to recover his composure.
“Yes, my lord.”
Apparently pleased with the corrected form of address, Kael waved a hand in dismissal and spoke.
“Depart.”
Having finished giving the order, Kael gently drew the mother confined in his arms still closer. The interior of the Bayorn carriage was excellently soundproofed, and it would take a full day to reach the territory. He looked forward to the hours he would spend alone with her in that sealed space.
He tenderly licked the tear-dried corners of the woman’s eyes with his tongue—exactly the way a wolf courts its mate just before claiming her.
Darin gave a quiet little hiccup yet could not push him away. Her mind had fled; she no longer knew how to judge what she ought to do in this situation.
“I look forward to your continued care from now on, Mother.”
Pleasure was written plainly across the man’s face. So much was about to change.
Once they arrived at the Viscount’s domain, the relationship between mother and son would no longer be that of parent and child. Two people who already shared such a secret were as good as lovers.
“Hyah!”
With the coachman’s shout the carriage surged forward.
On the far side of the road leading out of the capital, a thick, murky fog hung heavy.
It looked for all the world like a sinister demon trying to conceal its own sins.
