Swan Grave - Chapter 22

If the wound was that deep, it must have hurt terribly. A pang of pity stirred in Anna’s heart. But she forced herself to ignore it, fearing Svanhild might harbor false hopes.

Anna clasped Svanhild’s hands gently in hers and spoke with quiet sincerity, “I must return to my homeland. My relationship with the master is just… fleeting. Until now, many servants have worked in this mansion and then moved on elsewhere. I am no different from them. In the end, I am just someone passing through.”

“……”

“So please, don’t say such excessive things. If others in the mansion who will remain hear such words, they will come to hate me.”

If hatred was all she faced, it would be fortunate. Especially with the governess Rose, Anna wished not to become any more entangled with someone like her.

Svanhild looked at Anna with eyes that were difficult to read, as if he understood yet refused to accept it. Perhaps it was closer to that. Anna felt the same. Pretending to know nothing, she patted Svanhild’s hand and rose from her seat.

Anna passed by Svanhild and returned to her quarters. She didn’t look back, and Svanhild, left alone in the corridor, didn’t try to stop her.

***

“When will you make Anna my mother?”

After Anna had left, Rothbart was receiving a report on the tasks he had ordered the butler to do when his son’s sudden outburst made him raise an eyebrow. Svanhild barged into the office without warning, his face flushed red with anger.

A conversation between father and son, especially about a woman, was not something outsiders should hear. The butler Barrett took the hint and withdrew.

“Since the report is nearly finished, I will take my leave.”

When Barrett left, only Svanhild and Rothbart remained in the room. Despite Rothbart’s overwhelming aura, Svanhild shouted in frustration.

“You promised! You said if I succeeded in the experiment, you would find a way to keep Mother in the mansion. But what is this? Anna says she won’t be my mother. She said she’s going back to her homeland. That’s not true, right? You won’t let that happen, will you?”

“Svanhild.”

Rothbart’s gaze toward his son was so cold it was hard to believe it came from a father.

Though he was the only child born of his beloved wife, Rothbart was merciless toward Svanhild. If he thought of him as a child born of a wife who only sought to escape him, then not hating him was mercy enough. Rothbart truly believed that by sparing Svanhild’s life, he was fulfilling his duty as a father.

“Impatience is of no help. I told you to endure. I thought you had become somewhat useful after succeeding in the experiment, but… How long will you continue to act like a child?”

At Rothbart’s harsh rebuke, which held no trace of indulgence, Svanhild’s eyes flared defiantly. If Rothbart was a merciless father, then Svanhild was a rebellious son. He didn’t cower, but instead raised his voice.

“But—”

“Anna will not become your mother.”

At Rothbart’s sudden words, Svanhild blinked in confusion. Rothbart then made it clear with firm resolve.

“She is your mother.”

At Rothbart’s assertion, Svanhild’s face lit up. Though father and son shared a dreadful relationship, there was one thing about his departed mother that Svanhild trusted his father completely on. His father had never lied about his mother. Because of that, Svanhild looked up at Rothbart with hopeful eyes.

Rothbart continued, as if recalling the past, “Neither you nor I could hold on to her. We had no worth that could bind her.”

Worthless. A sharp pain pierced Svanhild’s chest. To be denied by one’s parents shook the very foundation of existence. But Rothbart, indifferent to the wound he inflicted, went on speaking.

“But in the end, didn’t she return to our arms like this? In the end, it’s only a matter of which side gives up. Since we have no intention of giving up, we must force her to yield.”

They spared no means in their attempt to bring back the departed Marchioness Ianna. They didn’t hesitate to stain their hands with countless lives, nor even to cut into their own flesh.

Svanhild’s gaze fell upon the old scar visible beneath Rothbart’s left sleeve. His own scar would soon fade the same way. The pain of the blade had been excruciating, but brief, and the scar, though cumbersome, was nothing much. If in exchange for that fleeting moment he could bind his mother forever, Svanhild was willing to bleed again and again.

“Before long, your mother will be perfectly caught in the snare.”

Rothbart’s red eyes gleamed with a gloomy shine. As if even if it did not happen, he would split and carve her until it did.

Overwhelmed, Svanhild nodded quietly. Then, as if he had no further business, he stormed out of Rothbart’s office.

Left alone, Rothbart gazed at the quietly burning fireplace. The flickering flames wavered restlessly.

Rothbart muttered in a low voice, “She looks obedient on the outside, but inside, who knows what she is thinking…”

Rothbart knew Anna far better than she guessed. One might even say he knew her inside out. But even so, Anna had many things she kept hidden. That man from the Eastern Continent she claimed was her elder brother was one of them.

An elder brother? What a laughable notion.

Rothbart’s instincts sharply caught and warned him of any man who stood against him over a woman. Except for the time he was bewitched by his wife, his instincts had always guided him with unerring accuracy.

He had wondered if perhaps she loved that man, but it didn’t seem so. Had she truly loved him, she would have chosen to stay with him rather than bear Rothbart’s child.

That she did not love him was fortunate—or unfortunate.

“What a pity.”

Rothbart recalled Ianna’s last words to him, words that bound him like a reverse scale.[1]

“There is someone I left behind. I can’t leave that person alone… That person has only me.”

Rothbart trembled with rage at that love of her original world, deaf to the cries of a husband and child in this world. A love he could neither reach nor defile, a love that only grew more beautiful in her imagination as time passed. A love so precious she wouldn’t spare even a single word to him, swallowing it in silence for five years. That love had stolen his wife from him…

So this time, he hoped even that beloved person would fall here with her. If they fell into this world, they would be in Rothbart’s grasp.

But it seemed to have failed. Instead, some useless husk had latched onto her, merely aggravating him. A pity.

Of course, the fact that Anna did not love that man didn’t mean Rothbart would leave Sehyun alone.

That man shared with Anna what Rothbart didn’t know—knowledge of the original world. Knowledge only the two of them possessed.

And on top of that, by some cruel coincidence, the age difference between that fool and Anna was the same as the difference between Rothbart and Ianna in the past. Twenty-five and twenty-eight… Standing together, they looked every bit the perfect young couple.

But what about himself now? Anna remained just as she was in his memories, while only Rothbart had aged. He no longer matched her…

There are kinds of love that can only exist at a certain age. Rothbart could no longer have such a fresh love as in the past. It was something Ianna had taken away from him, and something Rothbart himself had ruined, throwing himself into decades of festering hatred and resentment.

[1] “Reverse scale” (逆鱗 / 역린) is a metaphor from Chinese classics. A dragon was said to have one scale growing in the opposite direction; if touched, the dragon would fly into a rage. Figuratively, it refers to a person’s most untouchable sore spot.