The Pain Is Over
Rabin Caliph was murdered while Sabrina was carrying Shirca. She had been near her time, heavy with child, and so she had not been able to protect him. Shirca was born safely, by some mercy — but the shock of having failed to keep Rabin alive was more than even the formidable Sabrina could endure.
And so, before a full year had passed since Shirca's birth, Sabrina's Madness began.
"It isn't frequent. Once every two or three years, at most…… But every time it happens, everything around her is laid to waste."
Baden stared at Sabrina's bedroom — not a single thing in it left intact — his face twisted with pain.
"Still, it's been a little better since Shirca's Authority fully settled. He's the only one who can stop her."
"……Why?"
Sabrina cherished Shirca deeply. Bariya had seen as much in the way she reacted when he was drenched in poison. And yet here he was now, taking wounds himself just to hold her back.
"Why is it only Shirca? Why can't you stop her, Patriarch?"
At Bariya's question, Baden answered with a face so full of suffering it was hard to look at.
"……Sabrina's Authority is an overwhelming physical prowess. Strength, defense, stamina — all of it far beyond any ordinary beastkin. And Shirca inherited that Authority in full."
Physical Enhancement. What some dismissed as nothing more than brute, mindless force was precisely the Authority belonging to Sabrina and Shirca.
Come to think of it, when they fought the hyenas too……
Shirca had snapped a blade bare-handed, and Sabrina had killed her enemies without taking a single wound. So that had been the Authority.
"Before Shirca came into his strength, I was the one who held Sabrina back. As head of the clan, I'm a little stronger than other beastkin."
But—
"Even so, I can never defeat Sabrina while she has her Authority. When I try to stop her, there are times I get hurt. A little."
He was understating it, afraid Bariya would worry. It was never merely a little. Broken bones were commonplace, and once his abdomen had been torn open so badly he needed surgery. Even a beastkin's remarkable recovery had not fully healed him; a great scar still marked his stomach.
"After that, Sabrina ordered me not to come near her once the Madness began."
She had threatened that if he did, she would never see him again. Baden, who loved Sabrina more than anything in the world, could never refuse her command. And so from then on he could only watch as Shirca struggled to hold her back. Just as he was watching today.
"……You've been through so much."
Bariya patted the back of the anguished man. It was so pitiful she thought she might go mad herself — a mother who had lost her son, an only son who had to stop that mother while bleeding, and a husband who could do nothing but watch this terrible scene.
Those hyena bastards ruin everyone.
She was angry. She had thought they had broken only her and her mother. To learn there was a family that had suffered even longer than that—
My coming to the Caliphs was fate.
Perhaps a Divine Beast's instinct had led her here. The Caliphs could protect Bariya, left alone without her mother, and Bariya could help the suffering Caliph family.
Soft footsteps crossed the threshold.
"Baby!"
The moment Bariya stepped into the bedroom, a startled Baden cried out. She slipped past his hastily outstretched arm with ridiculous ease.
"I'll be fine."
The child's gentle smile left him, a beat too late, with the sense that something was wrong. The entire fifth floor was packed tight with Sabrina's uncontrolled pheromone. Even Rowin, the knight commander, and Tyreen — both among the stronger fighters of the Caliph household — could not so much as move, and even Baden himself could barely breathe. So how was Bariya strolling through it as if nothing were the matter?
What is this?
Just then an unfamiliar scent cut sharply across his nose. It was like the fragrance of a flower heavy with honey, and yet a bitter green smell threaded through it — and the instant he caught it, his head spun.
No. I have to stay clear.
Baden bit down hard on his tongue so the scent would not bewitch him. Shirca was already struggling just to hold Sabrina, and her Madness — which recognized no one before her eyes — grew worse still at the sight of a stranger. He had to protect Bariya, and yet—
"Lady Sabrina."
The fearless child padded barefoot across the ruined bedroom and came to stand before her.
"Baby! You can't be in here! Get back, now!"
Shirca, who had only just registered Bariya through the haze of Sabrina's pheromone, went pale with horror. But it was already too late.
"Hyenas — there are hyenas! They're trying to kill my son again!"
Bariya had entered Sabrina's sight.
"No! Mother! It's the baby — it's Bariya! You mustn't hurt her!"
Sabrina began to thrash, straining to lunge at the child. Shirca tried with everything he had to stop her, but holding back a Sabrina who was pouring out her strength without a shred of control was no easy thing, even for him.
"Baby……!"
At last Baden, for the first time, defied Sabrina's command in order to protect Bariya, and was about to throw himself in front of her—
"It's all right now."
Bariya reached toward Sabrina. In the same instant, her wheat-gold eyes deepened to a rich amber.
"I'll help you."
A flinch. The sharp claws Sabrina had raised to strike stopped dead in the air.
"You won't hurt anymore."
Without a trace of fear, Bariya took that hand in hers. A single thread of wind rose from somewhere and swept over the two of them.
"Ah……."
Baden was the first to notice the change. The heavy pheromone that had filled an entire floor was slowly sinking. The slit pupils, the fangs jutting past her lips — all of it was returning to what it had been. Even the claws on the hand Bariya held were shrinking. Faced with something that should have been impossible, Baden and Shirca forgot they had been trying to stop her and simply stared, dazed, at Bariya and Sabrina.
A miracle was happening.
"Ugh."
With those words, the strength left Sabrina all at once, and she sagged.
"Mother."
Shirca caught her at once. He could not make sense of any of it. The Madness that had always gone on for hours, until the sun rose — ending this quickly?
Don't tell me the baby used an Authority……
His unsteady gaze found Bariya, standing proud and unshaken before Sabrina.
"Bariya……?"
Sabrina, half returned to herself, looked at the child with effort. Why was the baby here? Only now recognizing her, Sabrina was lost in confusion.
"No one is going to be in pain anymore. So don't worry, and sleep well."
Bariya held that hand tight. The child's own hands were hardly unmarked — scarred in a way that spoke of hard years, if not quite so much as Sabrina's — and those hands held fast to a consciousness the Madness had been clouding.
"Baby……."
Sabrina tried with everything she had to stay awake, but she was too sleepy to fight it. In the end she could hold on no longer, and slipped into sleep just like that.
"What in the world is this……."
"First, let's move Lady Sabrina somewhere she can rest."
At Bariya's urging, Baden stepped in and carefully gathered the sleeping Sabrina into his arms.
"……."
Always, after the Madness, Sabrina had suffered. Now she slept with a peace he was not sure he had seen in years. Baden squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again.
"Shirca, take the baby back to her room. She'll be tired today, so let her sleep too. We'll talk tomorrow."
He had a great many questions, but it was already past Bariya's bedtime.
"Ah — right. Good grief, the floor's a wreck and you're barefoot. You should have at least put slippers on."
"I was in a hurry."
Shirca scooped Bariya up and carried her out of the ruined room. By then her eyes had already returned to their original wheat-gold.
Once Baden had confirmed that Rowin, Tyreen, and even White — all of them half-collapsed in the corridor — had come back to themselves, he went into the next room and laid Sabrina on the bed.
"Hah."
Left alone with her, every last thread of tension gave way, and he sank to the floor. Looking at the sleeping Sabrina, he felt tears rising and bit his lip. All those years he had been able to do nothing but watch the wife he loved suffer through the Madness. He had neither the strength nor any way to soothe her heart, and every time his own had torn into a thousand pieces.
And yet.
"Thank goodness."
Bariya had saved them from despair. She had helped the suffering Caliphs. He had no idea how she had done it, and that did not matter in the slightest.
"Truly — thank goodness."
Baden carefully took Sabrina's hand. She had wounded herself as well; her hands and arms were torn in places, and blood was still running from his shoulder. Compared with the usual aftermath, wounds like these were nothing. Thanks to Bariya, the damage had ended here.
"Sabrina, we really did find our little blessing."
He pressed his lips to the back of her hand. The tears that broke free mixed with blood and fell, drop by drop, onto the bed — tears of joy, the joy of meeting at last a single thread of light in a despair where he had not been able to see an inch ahead.
"You're not hurt anywhere?"
The moment Shirca reached Bariya's room, he checked her feet. She had been walking barefoot over a floor strewn with every kind of debris, and it worried him.
"This is nothing. I'm sturdy."
Bariya proudly showed him the sole of her foot. Thankfully, it was perfectly clean — not a single scratch.