Swan Grave - Chapter 10

Soon, only Anna and Svanhild were left in the corridor. Svanhild smiled faintly and stepped closer to her.

“Don’t mind what Teacher says too much.”

His voice was gentle. Though he was unreadable and had a personality so willful he was called a tyrant, Svanhild treated Anna with surprising warmth. Because of that, she had been assigned to his room as soon as she entered the mansion. Perhaps it was because she reminded him of his mother. Some people hated her simply for having the appearance of someone from the eastern continent, while others gave her favor easily for the same reason.

But Anna had found Svanhild unsettling from the very beginning. The oppressive aura that made others shrink was the same in both father and son.

Lowering his long lashes, Svanhild said quietly, “Teacher always wants to go into the forbidden room. That’s why she’s so frantic. She’s never been inside.”

Why bring up the forbidden room now, of all times? As if… he knew she had entered it.

Anna’s heart pounded. First Rose, now Svanhild. The incident that had stayed quiet until now suddenly tightened around her neck.

How much did Svanhild know? The pressure bearing down on her was nothing like when Rose had cornered her.

As though he could read her fear, Svanhild fixed his pomegranate-red eyes on Anna and asked in a whisper, “Did you sleep with Father?”

“Young master!”

At Svanhild’s blunt words, Anna cried out. Her face turned so red it looked pale.

An eleven-year-old boy suddenly asking about sleeping with his father was not only offensive, but it was chilling. All the more so considering the circumstances.

“You did, didn’t you?”

Perhaps reading confirmation in her sensitive reaction, Svanhild’s face broke into a bright smile, as though it was exactly what he had hoped for.

Anna drew in a sharp breath.

Svanhild was certain she had entered the forbidden room, and that something had happened there between her and his father.

Thinking back, there had been more than just one or two strange things. The uneasy feelings she had carelessly brushed aside now surfaced one by one, like things digging their way out from beneath buried sand.

Why had Svanhild, who was not a talkative child, told her about the Marchioness’s diary?

And even if she was in charge of cleaning his room, how could she have stolen a key he cherished so easily…

Perhaps… Svanhild had orchestrated all of this from the beginning?

But why?

“As I thought.”

The boy smiled faintly. With his pale face, the red of his eyes and lips stood out starkly. The child of a demon was a demon indeed… his smile seemed to shout it. Anna shivered and muttered without realizing.

“What on earth…”

“I want a mother, Anna.”

Svanhild said this as he wrapped his arms around her waist. His thin arms, only reaching up to her chest, clung to her like a water ghost dragging its prey down. Anna, horrified, wanted to shake him off immediately, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so.

“And the only one who can be my mother is you.”

Svanhild had deliberately dropped hints, knowing she would be drawn to the forbidden room. Could he have realized she was a swan? Then what was it that Svanhild wanted? A mother? Anna, her?

Endless questions swirled through her head, but not a single one made it to her lips.

Sometimes there are things one does not need to know, and things one must never know. Opening the box called Svanhild was clearly the latter. Too afraid to hear the answer, Anna couldn’t even think of returning the boy’s embrace. She only stared at Svanhild, who had burrowed into her arms, and chose silence.

***

Rose Schwartz, hearing that the Marquess had called for her, immediately brightened and went to find him. Her face, like that of a porcelain doll, flushed red and seemed all the more beautiful with its newfound liveliness, but Rothbart only cast her a cold, fleeting glance.

“Did I call for you?”

Rothbart lowered his eyes back to the documents. Their moment of eye contact was brief, but the blazing fire in his red eyes clung to Rose’s face, heating it up. Fearing he might misunderstand that she had come to him under false pretenses, Rose quickly explained.

“Yes, young master Svanhild clearly…”

“That boy’s pranks are excessive.”

Though his smile was not directed at her, Rose’s heart trembled at the sight of his faint grin.

Rose loves Rothbart. She couldn’t help it. Though she stayed in the mansion as Svanhild’s governess, Rose was originally a black magician. And for a black magician, loving a demon was almost inevitable. The source of black magic was mana, and among it, his power was far too irresistible.

There were many black magicians waiting to be chosen by the demon Rothbart, but the one he had chosen was Rose.

Because she was the only one who knew how to summon a swan.

The rumor that a demon could only sire a child with a swan was widespread, but no one knew how to call forth a swan. Thus, when a demon was born into a family, it usually meant the end of that bloodline. The House of Lohengrin was the only exception.

The founder of the Lohengrin family, the first lord, was a demon. Not just centuries ago, but nearly a thousand years in the past. So much time had passed that few still knew the truth. As a fallen demon, the first lord was well versed in all forms of black magic, and as a fallen demon, he carried both superiority and an unusual obsession with his bloodline. To prepare for the possibility of his descendants being born demons, he secretly left behind the method of summoning a swan.

And that arrangement of the fallen demon revealed its worth with the birth of Rothbart.

Rothbart’s mother, the former Marchioness of Lohengrin, was a typical noblewoman who lived only for her house. Petty worldly gains were for upstart nobles; her pride lay in the old family history that had stood since the founding of the kingdom.

But the royal family did not look kindly on that pride. For generations, they had kept the Lohengrin family in check, wary of their prestige, and by the time of the former Marchioness, the title of Marquess had been reduced to near insignificance.

For her, the thought that her own child might be born on the cursed day was pure joy. After nearly a thousand years, at last a demon would descend again into their house. And through her own womb. To relive the glory of their founder, how could she not rejoice? She firmly believed that only a child born a demon could be the salvation of the Lohengrin family.

The former Marchioness prepared everything for the birth of her demon child. As part of that, she told her husband, Duke Albert, of the swan summoning ritual.

Duke Albert faithfully carried out the wish of his beloved wife, who had begged him to continue the Lohengrin line by any means.

When Rothbart began to show signs of puberty, Duke Albert sought out a discreet and capable black magician to perform the swan summoning ritual.

The one chosen was Rose’s teacher.

The result was the Marchioness being drawn into this world, and she bore Svanhild, the heir. Afterward, she returned to her original world… The goal of continuing the Lohengrin line had been achieved, but that was only the goal of the former Marchioness and Duke Albert. Rothbart, who had no intention of letting her go, sought another way to bring her back.

But there was a problem.

After the Marchioness ‘departed,’ Duke Albert too passed away, and Rose’s teacher, who knew the family’s secrets, was killed by Duke Albert himself, wary of their knowledge leaking outside. Thus, the method of summoning a swan was lost once more.