RAMHM Chapter 122

A Truth Too Heavy to Bear

Olivia still trembled at the mere memory of that day.

The day Duchess Pirreta went into labor a full month before her due date, while the duke was away.

Rain poured from a sky that had always been clear, and the labor continued for two days.

When the duke—who loved his wife dearly—canceled his schedule and returned, the birthing room reeked of blood.

Ignoring orders to never enter, the duke stepped into the birthing room and immediately witnessed a tiny, blood-covered child and his wife's body growing cold.

"Helene... Helene. Why isn't Helene breathing?"

The midwife kept silent, and Olivia—the maid who had served the duchess since childhood—burst into tears.

"Helene, Helene!"

The duke searched for light in those jade-green eyes where it had been extinguished, then wailed without even closing the dead woman's eyes.

The midwife, as if this were a familiar scene, broke the silence and handed the duke the baby she'd washed and wrapped cleanly.

"Hold her. She's a beautiful princess."

The duke didn't even look at the midwife who kept urging him. His gaze remained fixed on dead Helene until the baby began crying frantically, then shifted there.

The duke stared at the thick smell of blood and the glimpse of golden hair resembling himself with a distorted expression.

"...I don't need a child who killed her mother."

"!"

The midwife instinctively hugged the blood-covered infant tightly. Words too cruel for an unopened-eyed infant poured from the duke's mouth.

"Throw her away."

With those words, the duke never looked at the child again. The duke's guard snatched the child from the midwife and left the birthing room.

"Your Grace! You cannot do this! To abandon a princess who's still an infant! Mistress Helene will see this from Abadhelia and wail..."

"Shut your mouth if you don't want to die."

"Your Grace!"

"I cannot give Pirreta to a child who was born killing her mother."

As Olivia glared at the duke—who simply wouldn't listen—soaking both cheeks with tears, about to rush out of the birthing room to find the child—

"A-another baby is coming!!"

The duke's eyes, which had collapsed while gripping Helene's hand, wavered for just a moment.

"What, what a miracle!! It must have been twins!"

The midwife, who had been in a daze after losing the baby, dove between the dead woman's legs.

The head of a baby preparing to emerge from the mother's body, which couldn't exert strength, began to appear.

Unlike the first child who had made the mother suffer so much, this baby came out of Helene's body in one go through the midwife's desperate efforts.

The midwife washed the child while sobbing.

"A princess, it's a princess! Twin sisters!"

When the baby didn't cry, the midwife spanked its bottom, then began artificial respiration. The duke stared blankly at the midwife who continued working while crying desperately to save the child.

"Father. Is the baby... dying...?"

A child's voice echoed through the birthing room, quiet yet desperate.

"Gregory."

The child who had followed his father as he barged in couldn't endure the continued commotion and stepped his small feet into the birthing room.

"My, my sibling... is dying...?"

As moisture gathered in those large jade-green eyes, the duke groaned lowly and swayed.

In young Gregory's eyes, he must have seen Helene.

"Is it Adrian, is it Adrienne?"

"..."

"Adrian if it's a boy. Adrienne if it's a baby sister."

Gregory approached the pale Helene and the duke beside her, beginning to shed thick tears.

"Mother and I chose those names together..."

"Waaaaaaaaahhhhh!!"

Immediately, the baby's crying resonated through the birthing room. Gregory rushed to the midwife.

Instead of handing the baby to the father who was the duke, the midwife gave it to the young boy who had practiced holding babies with his mother.

The baby, who cried a bit longer, soon quieted as if finding her brother's embrace quite comfortable. Gregory finally smiled broadly at the red baby whose eyes couldn't open yet. A smile he could show because he didn't yet know about his mother's death.

"...Adrienne."

"Father?"

"Her name is Adrienne Pirreta."

Perhaps unable to throw away the child after seeing that sight, the duke spoke without looking at the child who had barely survived.

It seemed Gregory's smile—so resembling his mother—had preserved the duke's last remaining reason.

Olivia felt relief that Adrienne was alive, but immediately rushed out to find the other twin child.

"It can't be."

"I know. It really is unbelievable. If the Lord knew, it would be worthy of divine punishment."

Olivia, who had barely staggered to her feet and sat hunched in a chair, buried her face in her handkerchief.

"You know, don't you, my lady? That I lost a daughter first."

"..."

The reason Olivia—from a minor but noble family—volunteered for the nanny work usually done by commoners was precisely that.

First, infinite loyalty to Duchess Pirreta.

Second, to overcome the grief of conceiving a child around the same time as the duchess, only to have to send the child to Abadhelia right after birth.

In that period, Olivia had been half-mad.

Her husband, who died of illness before she could even announce her pregnancy. Her child, who died immediately after birth. She believed the aura of death hung over her so heavily that even her mistress the duchess had suffered its consequences.

Olivia fled the birthing room and ran frantically, soon snatching the child from the guard and shouting.

"The duke has entrusted this matter to me, the duchess's confidante!"

Since killing an infant was distasteful even to the guard, he readily handed the child over to Olivia.

Olivia debated whether to return to the birthing room as she was or hide the child.

Though Gregory's appearance and the miracle of the barely surviving child had briefly softened the duke's heart, would that mercy extend to this child as well?

She hid the child in her own estate outside the great mansion and waited for the right time. The milk insufficient from nursing Adrienne—she even brought in another wet nurse and raised this child like her own daughter.

But even as the baby's red skin turned luminously white, and she opened both eyes wide and made eye contact with those same jade-green eyes as Helene Pirreta... the duke never searched for the child.

Olivia always cried while nursing Adrienne.

Whenever she saw Adrienne looking up at her with unknowing eyes, she would think of her sister at her own residence rather than the Pirreta mansion, and inwardly wail toward Helene Pirreta.

One day, as she held her breath and watched only for the duke's mood:

"The guard said you told him you'd kill the child."

"..."

"Did you kill the child?"

She had waited for the duke to finally come to his senses and say he wanted to bring back his daughter.

"You killed her properly, didn't you?"

And with those heartless words, even her last faith shattered completely.

"...What choice did I have? With the mistress gone, my master is Your Grace."

She answered thus, and fearing the duke might verify, she left the child with the neighbors.

Sure enough.

That night, she led the guard who came to verify and handed over the coffin after digging up her own daughter's grave, which she'd buried in her heart.

The guard's horse departing.

She beat her chest and wept as she sent off her daughter's small coffin resting obediently on that saddle.

"From now on, you are my daughter, Bliea."

And she gave the princess the name 'Bliea'—which had been her daughter's name.

At this unbelievable story, I collapsed into my seat with a thud. No one present could easily add words.

"When the mistress was alive, the duke rarely left his territory. But after the mistress passed, the days he stayed in the territory could be counted on one hand. So I always resented him. The reason I—a mere nanny—could occasionally stand up to him was because I was the mistress's person who had seen everything."

"If you'd told him later that Bliea was alive, would Father have killed her?"

"The midwife who received you died soon after in an accident. I'm certain it wasn't an accident. I was afraid of the duke. Even if he learned she was alive later and brought her into the mansion, I believed all His Grace could give Bliea would be cold gazes and wounds."

"It might not have been that way. Father's eyes when he looked at me weren't like that."

"That was because he saw Mistress Helene in you with your weak body. So while I wished for you to become healthy, in one corner of my heart I always hoped you'd grow like a delicate flower. I feared that if you were ever healthy, His Grace might one day turn cold eyes on you."

"Bliea... then how did Bliea survive?"

I finally pulled out the question that had been gnawing at my insides.

It felt uncomfortable, like a fishbone caught in my throat.

"For some time I hid and raised her at the edge of Pirreta territory, then sent her to relatives living in Ellaconia. Though I desperately wanted to be with Lady Bliea... I also had the duty to care for Lady Adrienne, so I visited during holidays."

"So that's why the investigation results always showed she was from Ellaconia."

Rhodness suddenly interjected with a sigh. He gripped my shoulders firmly from behind, but I could barely control my trembling body.

"Then one day, I heard news that Lady Bliea had run away, and just as I was about to leave for Ellaconia immediately, Lady Bliea—who'd supposedly run away—came to my estate at the edge of the territory."

Olivia shed tears again as she recalled that day.

"It was when news of Lady Adrienne's marriage was causing all of Ronteaux to buzz. She came clutching several newspapers and... asked repeatedly about the family I served, about Lady Adrienne. So then I, like a fool..."

Olivia's sorrowful crying voice settled on the floor.

"Like a fool, I told her everything. I wanted to ask forgiveness. I'd decided to make her my daughter but couldn't stay by her side. Lady Bliea returned right away, though not to the relatives' house. But occasionally she sent letters saying she was in Ellaconia and asking after me."

Olivia wiped her face with her thoroughly soaked handkerchief, retracing her memories.

And then.

Rotsy, who had been listening quietly, opened her mouth.

"I think I'm the person she lived with after running away."

Everyone's gaze turned to her.

"It's starting to become clearer now. Blonde miss. The reason you could open that mana stone coffin."

Rotsy forced up the corners of her mouth with a somewhat relieved expression.

"It's certain Bliea infused her own magic into the mana stone. But magic is something you're born with."

I gazed vacantly at her with eyes still filled with shock.

"The reason you had a weak body. The reason Bliea's magical power was strangely powerful."

"Powerful magic? Are you saying Bliea wasn't some run-of-the-mill sorcerer but had genuinely powerful magic?"

"The puzzle is solved. Pirreta territory was the capital when Ronteaux was an ancient kingdom. Though not many people with magical power exist now, the land was originally a magic kingdom, and the power buried in that land occasionally manifests in a select few—like Bliea. Pirreta blood is mixed with ancient royal blood, so the probability is high. But since you're twins, you should have shared it while growing up together."

"Then..."

"That magic should have been divided between you and Bliea originally. So you had a weak body because you didn't have what you should have had, and Bliea overflowed with power. Even though your souls switched, the magic Bliea infused into the mana stone recognized you as its owner. So the coffin had no choice but to open."