Chapter 107

“Raul.”

Even to my own ears, my voice sounded hollow and emotionless.

She was born this way. A shabby, unremarkable woman who didn’t even know how to speak with the warmth of a mother’s voice.

How could I give something to my child that I had never heard myself? How could I let them taste something I had never tasted?

“Raul…”

No answer came. His tightly sealed lips showed no intention of opening.

Of course, that was to be expected. Just as I couldn’t give him what I had never received, he couldn’t give me what he had never heard from me.

When this child called out to me, seeking my attention, I too had never given him an answer.

It wasn’t even something to call revenge. It was just the natural order of things. The shabby, inevitable logic of my own actions coming back to haunt me.

“Raul Berze.”

I was foolish. Pathetic. A complete idiot. What on earth was I even doing?

What difference would it make to call him by his full name? Even though I knew that, I hated myself for clinging to that small hope. No, come to think of it, I had never liked myself. But now, more than ever, I despised myself.

It was no different from pouring water into a bottomless jar, yet I kept pouring.

“Raul Berze…”

I heard that some tribes in the south perform rain dances until it rains. Someone might laugh at how foolish that is, but my actions now might not be so different in essence.

Selfishly, I wanted to keep calling until this child answered. Even though I had never once responded warmly to his calls.

I was disgusted by my own self-centered thoughts and actions. Yet, instead of retching, my body only spat out the child’s name. Even though I had long since lost the right to do so.

“Please, answer me…”

How was I supposed to apologize? I couldn’t let it end like this. I couldn’t let him go without properly apologizing. The expressions I had shown, the terrible words I had spoken, the cruel actions I had committed.

I had to apologize for all of it. But how? I had never received an apology from those who had wronged me, so I had no idea where to start.

The mother who abandoned me in that beastly family, the father who never even remembered my name until his death, the older brother who fed me cockroaches and rats, the sister who set fire to the barn I lived in, the younger brother who tried to poison me and leave me in the slums.

None of them ever apologized, so how could I know? To them, it was all natural. Apologies were unnecessary. The only way to soothe their displeasure was to swing a sword.

In my life, the only people who ever apologized to me were my husband and Raul. What had they done wrong? They apologized for not being able to protect me, for being a failure of a son, and their tearful apologies still lingered in my mind.

So, I didn’t know how to apologize to someone I had truly wronged. They had taught me how to apologize to those I hadn’t wronged. But the opposite? I would probably never know, even if I died.

But if I didn’t apologize, this pain in my chest would never go away.

“Raul… Raul Berze… Please, answer me…? If you just answer… I’ll do anything…”

Was this stinging in my chest guilt? No, guilt alone couldn’t explain this. Even when I first realized my sins, my chest didn’t hurt this much.

This feeling…

This pain of hating my past self, desperately stroking the mirror of the past, wanting to resent all the actions of that time…

Ah.

It was regret.

The child was innocent. My husband had even suggested we raise him as our own. He was prepared to risk his honor and the end of his family line. Yet, I couldn’t overcome the shadows of the past and hated the child.

Even so, this child had tried to follow me. Even when he was just a little thing, he would toddle after me, asking me to read him books. He called me “Mother” until the end and respected me. Yet, I was too afraid to acknowledge him and turned my eyes away.

Yes. This was regret. This was what regret felt like. When I killed my mother, when I cut off my father’s arm, when I crippled my siblings and threw them into the slums. The reason my once calm heart was now in turmoil was regret.

Regret was this painful.

“… Raul Berze. My son.”

I took my son’s cooling hand and brought it to my face. I didn’t care if it seemed selfish. I had no intention of caring about others’ opinions anymore.

So this was how it felt. His hand. I had never held it before, so how could I have known? This hand, still warm and clean, must have swung a sword in war.

When your pet dog died, you spent days crying. When you took lives with this hand in that harsh place, how much did you suffer?

Yet, I never once showed concern. I thought you had become as cold as me. At the time, I felt a little regret, but nothing more.

But now I understand. It was us who sent you to the battlefield. You chose to stain these hands with blood for us. You decided to bear the heaviest burden in the harshest place for us.

Now I know. No, only now do I know.

“… Please, answer me. If you just let me hear your voice one more time… If you just do that… I’ll…”

What could I even do for this child now? That too was a mystery. He probably didn’t need me anymore.

A child who wouldn’t miss me if I were gone. What could I possibly do for him?

I finally understood that offering a replacement for the woman he loved was nonsense. If someone had offered me a replacement for my husband or son, I too would have drawn my sword in rage.

From another’s perspective, my actions were horrifying.

To this child, I was no different from the trash who had wronged me.

“Ah… Now that I think about it, there’s one thing I can still do for you.”

Fortunately, even someone like me still had one thing I could do for this child.

“If… you just answer me… I’ll disappear from your sight forever. I’ll live quietly in some remote countryside, unseen by anyone, and die like that… Please… answer me.”

But his hand only grew colder. His tightly sealed lips still did not open.

“……”

What use was this regret and guilt now? What use were these emotions that could never be undone?

I couldn’t turn back the clock. I couldn’t take back the words I had spoken. I couldn’t undo what I had done to this child.

Those obvious truths weighed heavily on my heart. Just as the rationality I had demanded had tormented Raul.

“Arthur… Please… tell me… What am I supposed to do in a time like this…?”

No answer came to that question either.

The man who had always been right, who had died in guilt and regret, would never answer the plea of someone who had betrayed him.

A face that resembled mine. But with the hair and eyes of that detestable man. But now, none of that mattered.

If only I could have one more chance, if only I could turn back time, if only this child would open his eyes now. All those “if onlys” buried me.

The cruelest part of regret is that it forces you to recall the past that caused it.

Even now, a fragment of that past brutally scraped through my mind.

Raul was that kind of child.

Once, a maid spilled hot tea on Raul’s clothes. Naturally, Raul was scalded, the butler was furious, and the maid kept apologizing, kneeling and begging to be killed.

I didn’t take sides in that incident. If you made a mistake, you had to take responsibility. Even if the victim was the child I hated. I thought I had the right to punish those who wronged me.

“… It doesn’t really matter. More importantly, I don’t like this tea, so bring me something else. Make it cold, if you can.”

Raul changed his clothes without much fuss and casually drank iced tea as if nothing had happened.

“Why didn’t you punish her? In any other noble household, such a mistake would have been punishable by death.”

“… It wasn’t intentional, was it? Her hand slipped, and by chance, the tea spilled in my direction.”

His words seemed indifferent and dry, but now I realize that even back then, Raul was an incredibly kind child.

And that kind child, while casually reading a book, said this:

“She apologized, didn’t she?”

“… Apologized?”

“She said she was sorry. Even if it was a mistake made out of ignorance, a mistake is still a mistake. But… if there’s even one word of apology, then forgiveness isn’t impossible.”

Ah. So that’s how it was.

When I tried to apologize last time, you were harsh because…

I hadn’t properly apologized.

It wasn’t an apology. It was an excuse.

What a pitiful woman I am. To have lived this long without knowing how to apologize. I truly was… a pathetic woman.

“Raul.”

I won’t beg for you to wake up anymore. What I’ve done is no different.

I won’t struggle to ease this regret and guilt in my heart anymore. This is a pain I must bear.

So, the words I’m about to say now…

They are words I must say. Words I have to say.

“I’m sorry… truly…”

It might go against rationality, but now I just want to tell rationality to go to hell.