Today was the day Headrin was returning to the townhouse after nearly a year.
It was the first time since Aziel was born.
Blair had personally chosen the dress and ornaments she would wear today—a task she hadn’t performed in a long while.
After finishing her preparations, Blair stepped into the nursery connected to her bedroom. A small cradle sat in the center of the room.
The child wasn’t fussing at all; he was playing by himself, clumsily reaching his fern-like hands toward the hanging mobile.
Blair reflexively offered a soft smile and picked the child up.
“My baby, were you playing nicely? You didn’t wake up and cry?”
“Woong. Eueu! Eububu!”
Held in his mother’s arms, the child giggled and babbled incomprehensibly. He seemed to be in a good mood, as if he sensed it was the day he would finally meet his father.
However, the eyes of Blair, who was looking out the window while holding the child, were sunken in bitterness.
Headrin had left for the main castle of the Del Marc Duchy in the North shortly after Blair discovered she was pregnant.
On the surface, he claimed it was to suppress the magical beasts that rampaged every summer. But Blair knew full well that he was simply fleeing the wife he had been shackled to through an unwanted contract marriage.
Even so, she would stroke her belly as it grew day by day, praying that Headrin would remain safe.
Her husband was a war hero, the continent’s only magic swordsman gifted with the power of divine beasts, yet she could not help but tremble with worry. Whenever insomnia took hold, or he appeared in her dreams, she sent him a letter.
She wrote of the child growing healthy in her womb. She wrote of her hope that he would return without a single scratch.
A reply never came.
She told herself that no news was good news. As the lord of the vast North, it was only natural for him to be busy.
…She had to believe that.
Time drifted by. The summer and autumn, seasons when magical beasts grew volatile, bled into the approach of winter.
Even then, Headrin had not returned to the capital.
The child in her womb grew rapidly and began to move with purpose. From that point on, Blair spent many nights awake in tears. It felt as though the child, who boasted of his existence with increasingly vigorous kicks, was searching for his father.
*I’m sorry. I’m sorry, my baby…*
It was cruel that the child was denied his father’s love. Her heart ached as if it were entirely her own fault.
Then, one winter day, six months after his departure, Headrin finally descended to the capital.
He had come only for business at the Imperial Palace and declared his intention to head straight back to the North without stopping at the residence. Hearing this, Blair—her full-term pregnancy making every movement a struggle—rushed to find him.
It was their first meeting in six months.
But his blue eyes, surveying his wife after such a long absence, were as cold as a frozen winter lake.
‘Why have you come here? Your body must be heavy enough as it is.’
Faced with that silent hostility, the words “I missed you,” which had been lingering on her tongue, died in her throat.
In his presence, she was always the sinner.
Her heart, which still beat for him while forgetting the resentment and sorrow of the past, felt pathetic.
Blair steadied her emotions and spoke with a strained, calm expression.
‘Headrin. Could you spare me one hour? No, even thirty minutes…?’
Her voice trembled at the end of the request. Headrin, who had been watching her blankly, nodded with obvious reluctance.
The two rode in the carriage together. Blair was granted only the time it took to travel from the Imperial Palace to the Del Marc Ducal Residence.
In the silence, punctuated only by the rhythmic clatter of carriage wheels, Blair fiddled with her fingers. She had thought she had so much to say, but the moment she faced him, her mind went blank.
Just then, the child in her womb began to stir—a violent movement, as if trying to announce his presence to his father.
Blair furrowed her brows and stroked her belly.
‘He seems to be healthy, just like his father. His kicks are so strong that it’s even hard to sleep at night.’
‘Is that so.’
‘Would you like to touch him…?’
‘…No, I am fine.’
At his blunt refusal, as if dealing with a stranger’s child, Blair quietly shut her mouth.
She had hoped he would understand her pain, even a little. Perhaps she had wanted to be spoiled, just for once.
She had managed throughout the pregnancy, but as the due date approached, her fear of childbirth had bloomed into something terrifying. Hearing that other noblewomen had their own mothers by their side, she had cautiously asked the Empress Dowager for the same.
It was a request she would never have made had she been her usual, guarded self, but her dread was so profound that she had risked the rejection she knew would come.
The Empress Dowager had refused, as expected.
The reply was, ‘It is something every woman goes through once, so what is there to be afraid of? Even if I went there, what could I possibly do?’ She was sent only a midwife from the Imperial Palace.
That was why she wanted to ask her husband. To stay by her side, even if only for a few days when the time came.
But in the face of his indifference, Blair could not speak. The child, who had been wriggling busily, also went still. She felt as though she might burst into tears.
That would be incredibly unsightly.
Blair stared out the window, swallowing the emotion rising in her throat.
Before she knew it, the carriage arrived.
Headrin stared at Blair’s belly with an expressionless face, then offered a greeting one would use for a passing acquaintance.
‘I wish you a safe delivery.’
The butler opened the carriage door.
Now was the time to part, but Blair hesitated. There were so many things she wanted to say, but she was full of things she could not voice.
Blair, moving her lips soundlessly, managed to think of one last request.
‘…A name. Please give this child a name.’
Perhaps unable to refuse even that, he contemplated for a moment before offering two options.
‘How about Diana if a girl is born, and Aziel if a boy is born?’
He added that it didn’t matter if she chose a different name, but Blair named the child Aziel.
Because it was the first thing his father had given him.
However, Headrin did not come to the townhouse, even after Aziel was born. And now, he was returning only after another six months had passed.
“My Lady, His Grace is arriving soon!”
The maid Lina entered the room to deliver the news.
Blair kissed the child’s chubby cheeks and whispered.
“Aziel, your father is here.”
“Abba?”
Blair carried Aziel and went down to the first floor. All the servants were out, waiting for their master.
Before long, a carriage appeared in the distance, accompanied by the thunder of horse hooves.
Blair’s heart swelled, even though she knew it was a foolish wish.
She knew that he resented her. She remembered the countless nights she had spent in tears, holding her swollen belly all alone.
But now, Aziel was between them.
No matter how much he hated her, he was the child’s father, and she was the child’s mother.
Blair wanted to build a complete family with him. For the sake of this lovely child.
She felt that if he saw the boy who resembled him so perfectly, he would soften.
As the carriage reached the residence, the door opened and Headrin stepped out.
Forgetting her past resentment, Blair approached him, excited to show him Aziel.
“Headri—”
But Headrin did not look at Blair or Aziel. Instead, he reached out his hand toward the inside of the carriage.
The person who took his hand and stepped out was a beautiful woman with dazzling silver hair. She stood side-by-side with Headrin.
The ducal servants began to whisper. A woman who had ridden in the same carriage as their lord. Even without knowing her identity, one could guess from the way he treated her that she was someone precious to him.
Blair’s footsteps stopped dead. Her violet eyes began to tremble.
It was then that Headrin’s cold blue eyes and the golden eyes of the beautiful woman fell upon her.
“Hello, Madam.”
The angel-like woman smiled and greeted her. Her golden eyes sparkled like jewels.
Blair stared blankly at the woman her husband had brought back.
The humid air of late summer, thick with heat, suffocated her. More so than that summer a year ago, when he had first left.