The Forgotten Field - Chapter 156

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 156
Then, the crying that had briefly subsided returned once more. Talia withdrew her hand with a start, her eyes distorting as she gazed toward the window. That piercing wail grew increasingly unbearable. The fact that I could do nothing to silence it felt as though my very entrails were being torn asunder.
She clutched her abdomen, aching as though a blade were lodged within it, and trembled as her fingers explored the taut skin. In that moment, a thought—one that bordered on madness—surfaced unbidden.
‘…I can simply begin anew.’
Though I dimly sensed my thoughts spiraling in an abnormal direction, I found myself utterly unable to restrain them. I reached out as though drawn by some invisible force.
As I drew his crumpled tunic upward, his tightly cinched waist and firm abdomen were revealed. I traced my fingers slowly across them.
Grasping the loose-fitting trousers favored by the Eastern Faction, I pulled slightly, and the taut sinews leading to his groin and the sharply defined iliac crest came into view. Yet the tightly fastened leather belt prevented me from descending further.
I fumbled to undo the leather cord. My clumsy fingers only tightened the knot further. As my nerves grew increasingly taut, I pulled at the cord with mounting irritation, when a large hand—its veins prominent—seized my wrist in a vice-like grip.
Lifting my gaze, I beheld his face twisted in confusion. His eyes, a grayish-blue now unfocused, narrowed as his voice emerged, tinged with a metallic rasp.
“What… are you doing.”
Talia replied with unruffled composure.
“I… want to have a baby again.”
The drowsiness vanished from his eyes.
She turned her gaze from his face—which bore an expression of disbelief—and reached toward his trousers once more. Then, as though possessed, she murmured.
“Give me another one. This time I will bear a healthy child.”
Then my baby will cease its sorrowful cries.
With desperate resolve, I pushed my fingers into the loosened fabric of his clothing. At that, Barcas, who had been rigid as stone, suddenly rose upright and seized both my wrists in a strangling grip.
At his attempt to pull away from me, something within my mind snapped with a sharp crack.
Talia cried out, her voice as though her very entrails were boiling.
“Why… why are you refusing me?”
The man’s eyes gradually contorted. I could see his pupils, dilated pitch-black, trembling with minute convulsions.
Everything else blurred, yet why was this man alone so devastatingly clear.
Feeling something akin to revulsion toward myself, I twisted my wrists violently.
“You said you would do anything I desired! You said you would grant whatever I wished for! Give me my baby back! My child whom you would not even hold… return her to me!”
In that moment, I saw something crumble within his eyes.
The man, uttering words I could not comprehend, seized the sheet and wrapped it around her.
Talia thrashed with increasing violence, like a fish caught in a net.
“Liar! You are nothing but a liar with a silver tongue! You promised to protect my baby, yet you would not even look at her! You cast aside your vow to me as though it were refuse!”
A voice like a scream—one that sounded horrifying even to my own ears—poured forth ceaselessly. It was as though I were possessed by a malevolent spirit.
Unable to bear the anguish rising within me, I struck and clawed at his body.
The man held her fast, unmoved. As though to receive all the filth she poured forth, he gripped her convulsing form tightly in both arms, breathing heavily.
In doing so, I became all the more contemptible and wretched.
Blame me instead. As I do myself.
It was I who sought to bear a child in this broken body, and it was I who failed to protect that child.
I know this already. So tell me. That it is all my fault, that I brought this upon myself. Tell me that I killed our child.
Fall into this abyss with me. Wallow in the mire. Become as ruined and broken as I am.
I gazed up at him, my words laden with longing and curse alike.
Within my tear-scorched vision lay his face, twisted in anguish. Yet he was a being who could never descend to the depths where I dwelled.
It was always only I who became shabby and wretched. This man who rendered me endlessly sordid and insignificant….
At last, she surrendered all resistance, her limbs falling limp.
Her chest, burned to ash with nothing but cinders remaining, was battered by a withering wind. The turbulent dust swirling in her belly finally spilled from her lips.
“…From now on, I will never trust you again.”
She felt their bodies, pressed together without gap, stiffen like stone. Yet he uttered not a single word. With his arms tightening around her, he merely leaned back against the headboard as if exhausted.
A silence like ruins descended upon them.
She realized the baby’s cries had ceased, yet Talia could find no solace in it.
* * *
Not long after, rumors began to circulate through Laedgo Castle that the Grand Duchess was suffering from madness.
Though the Head Handmaiden, stern as steel, kept a sharp eye on the Handmaidens’ tongues, the whispers scarcely diminished.
The woman, who had slept like one bereft of her senses since regaining consciousness, had begun to unleash every manner of cruelty upon the Grand Duke.
Her anguished curses and laments were heard more than once, piercing through the chamber door and echoing down the Corridor.
At times, the sound of breaking objects and tearing fabric could also be heard.
After such tumultuous scenes, when summoned and rushing into the chamber, the servants would find the Grand Duchess unconscious and the room in complete disarray.
In it all, only the Grand Duke seemed untouched.
The man, his face as cold as ice as if nothing had transpired, commanded in a chilling voice that the High Priest be summoned. The Handmaidens, frozen in shock, immediately obeyed.
This occurred repeatedly.
As the Grand Duke remained unmoved, the woman’s frenzy intensified with each passing day. The sympathetic voices directed toward the Grand Duchess gradually fell silent.
Many whispered that while losing their firstborn so wastefully was lamentable, pouring such resentment upon the innocent Grand Duke was excessive.
Yet even those who gossiped found themselves unable to speak when confronted with her desolate visage.
The woman who had once roamed the Garden throughout autumn and winter with flushed cheeks and a dreaming expression had lost all vitality, transformed into a specter.
Those who glimpsed her slipping from her chamber and wandering the Castle, piercing through the Grand Duke’s iron surveillance, could not help but understand his forbearance in enduring her every desperate struggle.
With a face hauntingly beautiful yet hollow with emptiness, she moved with precarious steps as if searching for something, appearing as though she might scatter like smoke at any moment. None could witness her pitiful form without compassion.
Yet apart from the Servants at the Main Castle’s sympathy toward the Grand Duchess, the discontent among the retainers seemed only to grow with each passing day.
“Is the Grand Duchess still unchanged?”
Brisa, carrying a laundry basket as she passed through the Corridor, spotted Daren Dru Sierkan ascending the stairs and hastily bowed her head.
The man, leading Knights toward her, pressed urgently.
“I asked about the Grand Duchess’s condition.”
“Your Highness is currently resting after taking her medicine.”
Though Brisa understood his question concerned the Grand Duchess’s mental state, she deliberately feigned ignorance.
The man, who had regarded her with cold eyes for a moment, soon released a heavy sigh and extended a parchment scroll sealed with red wax.
“Deliver this to the Grand Duke.”
Brisa quickly set down her basket and accepted it. As if his business were concluded, the man promptly ascended the stairs.
Watching his retreating figure, Brisa turned her steps toward the Grand Duke’s Bedroom to carry out the suddenly imposed task.
“Your Grace, may I enter?”
She knocked carefully on the door, and permission to enter was granted at once. Brisa stepped into the dim Bedroom, taking care to make no sound.
The Grand Duke was changing out of clothes disheveled from managing his wife’s rampage.
The man, rolling up the cuffs of his black velvet tunic, cast an indifferent gaze over his shoulder.
“What is it?”
“As I passed through the Corridor…I was ordered to deliver this to Your Grace….”
Brisa, bowing respectfully, held out the parchment scroll in her hands. The man who received it broke the seal and unrolled it at length.
Brisa could discern that the contents of the document had deeply displeased the Grand Duke.
The man’s brow furrowed deeply as his eyes darted across the parchment with urgency. He crumpled it in his fist and hurled it into the Fireplace.
A desolate voice echoed through the chamber.
“I shall absent myself for a time. Do not let your gaze stray from her.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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