The Forgotten Field - Chapter 168

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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 168
In that instant, her eyes gleamed with an eerie, unsettling light.
The grip of her fingers upon the back of his hand possessed a strength almost impossible to fathom—a pressure as though his hand had been caught in a vice of steel.
Then, from between her cracked lips, the ancient tongue of the Eastern Territories flowed forth.
“That oath will become a powerful curse binding you. You must honor every word you have spoken until your final breath leaves your body. Even knowing this, can you still declare your oath valid?”
Around them, rough breathing echoed through the chamber. All present seemed to believe the Empress was invoking some ancient sorcery of the Khan People.
Perhaps there was little difference in truth, I thought. I could distinctly feel some inexplicable force binding itself around me.
A powerful question arose in my mind.
Why would she go to such lengths?
Though I would one day command formidable military power, that day lay far in the distant future.
My current influence was negligible at best. Yet the Empress conducted herself as though my answer held the fate of her children in its balance.
Suddenly, the rumor of her possessing foresight flashed through my thoughts.
Had she glimpsed some future so dire that she felt compelled to bind me so thoroughly?
As I gazed up at her with suspicion in my eyes, the stern composure of her face crumbled in an instant.
I perceived that she was wrestling with something profound.
Her pallid face was drenched in cold sweat, appearing as though she might exhale her final breath at any moment and fade away into nothingness.
I carefully enfolded the woman’s hand, where sinews stood taut and prominent. The Empress’s eyes widened.
Even in the moment I had resolved to become ruthless, I could not follow through with such cruelty. I knew she had shown me a measure of affection in her own way. Yet I could never return what I had received. If nothing else, I wished to grant this woman standing at the threshold of life’s end some small comfort in her final moments.
After a brief hesitation, I responded in the language carved deep within my soul.
“Until my final breath, my oath shall remain valid.”
Then relief and guilt mingled in her eyes.
Tears, pressed against her thin eyelids, streamed down her pallid cheeks.
“Forgive me. I am truly sorry. I will not ask you to pardon me.”
“Please, do not speak such words. I….”
“You do not know what you have sacrificed.”
She cut off my words.
“You have only just turned thirteen. I knew I should not do this to one so young, and yet….”
The Empress’s hollow gaze turned toward her children. Her pupils, dilated to their limits and dark as ink, gradually recovered their natural light.
The woman, who had gazed upon her young children for a long while with an expression mingling regret and sorrow, turned her eyes back toward me.
“Barcas Laedgo Sierkan, you may believe your life holds no meaning… but there will come a day when you discover something that makes you wish to live. When that day arrives, you will come to regret this very moment.”
Her dimmed eyes slowly closed.
The woman, breathing in ragged, parched gasps, murmured in a fractured voice.
“When that time comes, curse me freely.”
Just as I was about to respond that such a day would never arrive, a dry cough erupted from her lips.
Though the High Priest rushed forward and poured his sacred power into her, the Empress’s complexion only grew darker.
The Twin Children, witnessing their mother’s appearance as though her breath might cease at any moment, burst into loud sobs. They clung desperately to the skeletal hands of their mother beside the bed.
Standing back to observe the scene, I was guided into the Corridor by Marquis Orisstein, who had placed his arm around my shoulders.
“Pay no mind to the Empress’s final words. Since her chronic illness worsened dramatically, she has been seeing illusions frequently.”
The man, having moved to a place with few people, exhaled a heavy sigh and spoke.
“Recently, her mind seems unsound as well. I suspect she will not survive this month.”
The Marquis seemed to have aged considerably in the span of mere months.
The man, his neat features etched with anger and sorrow, gazed out the window and continued in a somber tone.
“I am truly grateful for what you did today. Thanks to you, Her Majesty will be spared further anguish.”
A large hand bearing the family seal ring descended upon his shoulder.
The Marquis seemed to regard the ceremony that had just taken place as merely a performance meant to console the heart of a woman whose life was drawing to its inevitable close. He saw no reason to correct this misunderstanding.
The Empress had placed shackles around her own neck. He was acutely aware of this fact, yet it troubled him little. From the moment of his birth into House Sierkan, he had been bound by chains of duty.
What difference would one more restraint make? The Grand Ducal House would support the Crown Prince of legitimate succession, and he would follow the will of his family.
Having heard the sound of weeping from one end of the Corridor, he soon began walking along its length.
An endless dark and gloomy Tunnel stretched before him. How long had he walked through that pitch-black expanse, like the intestines of some colossal serpent? Before long, rain began to fall upon him.
Before his eyes lay a Garden filled entirely with black roses.
In the Garden where Bernadette had once tended her beloved plants, now uprooted and gone, magnificent flowers bloomed like the glistening organs of some beast, their enormous petals opening softly.
He crossed through that clammy, humid Garden, the air thick and viscous, toward the rear Garden. Beyond the black sky pouring rain, the roof of the Grand Cathedral loomed faintly visible.
After Bernadette’s passing, he had left the Empress Palace Residence she had provided and entered the Priest’s Quarters of the Grand Cathedral. It was his return after seven years since the Empress’s hand had drawn him from the Punishment Chamber.
Some priests had been bewildered by the prospect of living alongside the heir to the Grand Duke, yet the High Priest and other senior clergy welcomed him with a gentle demeanor. It was as though the unfortunate incidents of the past had never existed.
They led him into strict discipline as though greeting a prodigal son returning home. Thus he began a life in which all desires were once again thoroughly constrained.
Yet he could not feel the same discomfort as in his childhood. Rather, he found a certain comfort in this controlled existence.
Only then did he realize that he harbored a measure of guilt for failing to meet the Empress’s expectations.
He felt sorry toward her, who had hoped for him to recover his senses, but he did not wish to feel anything. This boundlessly serene state was convenient for him.
He had come to sympathize, to some degree, with the priests’ teachings.
Sensation is a poison that clouds the mind.
The Emperor, intoxicated by beauty, abandoned honor and descended into the path of sin.
The Empress, fallen into blind love, grasped the power of the realm yet pushed herself toward misery.
Such destructive emotions were unnecessary.
With frozen eyes, he gazed up at the dark sky, then began walking again.
It was then that he discovered a small Young Girl in the rain pouring down like mist.
He could not understand why he had stopped before that Pit.
Perhaps even unto the end of his life, he would never know what had caused him to encounter her in that place on that day, nor what had compelled him to speak first.
What was certain was that on that day, in that place, he had found something he had never sought.
It was much later that he came to dimly perceive this truth.
At thirteen years old, knowing nothing, he extended his hand to the small girl mired in mud.
“Take it.”
Large eyes that radiated an overwhelming presence from her small face grew wide as lanterns.
The Young Girl, who had hesitated for some time, slowly approached him. Then, suddenly, she looked down at her hands clasped against her chest and shook her head.
“I can’t. I’m holding something in my hands right now.”
He narrowed his eyes and fixed his gaze upon her small, pallid hands.
“Is it important?”
“It’s not important.”
“Then discard it.”
“Even if it’s not important, I cannot discard it.”
The girl shot back with a displeased expression.
Something in those words scraped against his nerves.
He had discarded everything that held no importance. In doing so, the world became clearer still. Whatever lay in his grasp would not be worth clinging to while drenched in muddy waters and rain.
He had meant to say as much, but seeing the child before him—a head shorter than himself—he abandoned the urge to quarrel. Instead, he bent his knees and lifted the small, rain-soaked body with ease.
Aria gasped in surprise and flinched. Restraining her startled movements, he ascended the slope of soft, marshy mud in a single breath.

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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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