Swan Grave - Chapter 53

“The weather is nice today. Let’s take a walk in the garden.”

Rothbart pushed Anna’s wheelchair toward the garden. The mansion’s servants bowed one by one to the newlyweds. Behind their backs, they all agreed that Rothbart was showing deep devotion to the bride he had finally gained after so long.

“There’s one thing I’m grateful to my father for.”

His low voice quietly spoke from behind Anna. She remained silent, listening to his words.

“For not killing you and letting you go back alive.”

Rothbart’s father had killed the black magician who was Rose’s teacher, and then had killed himself. Looking back, it was almost strange that he hadn’t killed Anna as well.

“If you had truly died, perhaps he feared I would end my own life and fail to fulfill my mother’s wish? Maybe he wanted to watch me thirst and suffer, clinging desperately to a single fragile thread of hope.”

“……”

“But thanks to that, I could reunite with you like this. If he sees this sight from hell, how much must he lament?”

Rothbart chuckled. The genuine scorn boiling up from deep in his chest left Anna even more speechless.

Just then, Svanhild, who happened to be outside, spotted Anna and Rothbart and ran over.

“Are you going for a walk?”

“…Yes. What were you doing, Svan?”

Anna awkwardly answered Svan. It had been hard to deal with him when she thought he was just the young master of the mansion, but now that she knew he was her son, she had even less idea how to treat him.

“I just stepped outside before lessons.”

Recently, a new tutor had arrived at the mansion to replace Rose. He was an elderly gentleman. Though Anna was startled by the sudden change, since no one spoke of Rose, she too refrained from mentioning her.

Svan clung to Anna and Rothbart, begging with a childish tone unlike his usual self.

“Can I come with you too?”

“Svan.”

Rothbart sternly refused. Anna smiled awkwardly and tried to persuade him.

“It’s fine until his lesson starts. Let’s take him along. Yes?”

“……”

Rothbart looked displeased but didn’t shake his head. At his silent consent, Svan grinned and fiddled with Anna’s hand resting on the wheelchair’s armrest.

“As expected, only Mom understands me.”

Perhaps still unable to truly believe that Anna was his mother, Svan called her “Mom” countless times each day, sometimes even with teary eyes. Every time he said it, excitement sparkled in his red eyes, so much like his father’s.

People were surprised to see prickly Svanhild treat Anna like his real mother. After all, he was still only eleven years old, an age that still needed a mother’s care. Since he had always been unusually attached to Anna, some speculated that this was why the Marquess had made the lowborn maid his wife instead of just his mistress. But the truth was known to no one.

The scattered family was together again, and all were joyful. Though the process had been chaotic, the outward picture was one of warmth and harmony.

***

The gardener who greeted the Lohengrin family was an unfamiliar face. Whatever he had heard from the other servants, he bowed excessively and quickly scurried away.

While walking in the garden, Svanhild heard his tutor calling and realized it was time for lessons. Pouting, he trudged back reluctantly.

As soon as Svanhild left and even the sound of his footsteps faded into the distance, Rothbart hastily lifted Anna’s skirt.

“Roth, here…?”

“You weren’t about to say no, were you, Anna?”

Kneeling on the ground, Rothbart stopped with his head under Anna’s skirt and looked up at her. Meeting his red eyes, Anna found herself unable to push him away.

“Uhh!”

Rothbart’s lips sucked hard at Anna’s lower lips. As her clitoris was touched, Anna’s body stiffened, and her hands gripped the armrest of the wheelchair with force.

Rothbart gripped Anna’s buttocks tightly and swallowed all the juices flowing from her pussy. Enjoying the feel of her intimate flesh against his tongue, he thrust even deeper. The knees of his fine suit became soiled with dirt, but he didn’t care in the least as he devoured Anna.

“Ah, Roth… stop, ah, I’m about to…”

“I never told you not to come.”

“Now, ahh, mmm…!”

Her back arched, forcing her chin to tilt upward. The red flower bushes of the garden filled her blurred, receding vision.

Anna twisted her body, but that was all. She couldn’t escape Rothbart’s firm grip. In the end, she climaxed while still trapped by him.

“Ugh, mm, ahhh!”

Though Rothbart had brainwashed those around them, she was still conscious of her surroundings. Anna tried her best to stifle her voice, but the moans that escaped through her clenched teeth were unavoidable.

Exhausted, without the strength to even lift a finger, Anna gasped for breath. Her chest heaved up and down.

But Rothbart gave her no respite. He pulled Anna’s trembling thighs toward him. Losing her balance, her upper body slid down against the back of the wheelchair.

While Anna flailed, Rothbart hastily undid his waistband and pulled out his throbbing erection. Without hesitation, he thrust it into Anna’s wet flesh.

“Ahhk!”

“Haa, Anna… Ianna…”

The sudden intrusion stole Anna’s breath, catching sharply in her throat. As if her windpipe were clogged, she trembled, her mouth hanging open.

Despite the overwhelming pressure she felt, her insides quivered and yielded to his movement. Feeling the tender flesh of Anna clinging to him, Rothbart moved his hips with a slow, deliberate rhythm. The lewd thrusting, accompanied by wet, squelching sounds, fueled the heat between them.

“Ahh, ngh, Roth…”

Rothbart persistently covered Anna with his own scent, as if intent on erasing every last trace of the fragrance from her original world that clung to her body.

Through her haze, Anna glimpsed Rothbart gasping with the rose bushes behind him. Once, long ago, she had walked hand in hand through this garden with him, when he was still a fresh young man…

That pure, innocent place of memory was now twisted by depravity and lust, and it was all Anna’s fault. They could never return to those days. Biting back sobs, Anna swallowed her cries along with her moans.

Could it be coincidence? Rothbart, too, was imagining the same memories as Anna. Remembering Anna from over ten years ago, he stroked her cheek with a tender touch.

“While I spent my years alone like this, whenever I realized you had remained unchanged since those days, it was truly heartbreaking. That our time had grown so far apart…”

Rothbart lifted Anna’s hand and pressed it to his cheek. Her fingertips faintly felt the wrinkles beginning to form on Rothbart’s skin. Like warmth melting frozen hands, heat spread from Anna’s hardened fingertips.

As Anna was about to caress his cheek with an affectionate touch, Rothbart pulled her hand away and sighed regretfully.

“But don’t worry, I can’t die before you do.”

“Ugh!”

“How could I let some man meddle with this place after I’m gone? I could never allow such a thing.”

“Ugh, haah!”

Rothbart’s thrusts grew even rougher. Since that day, he always spoke of death. Perhaps, since brainwashing magic didn’t work on Anna, he was trying to hypnotize her in a proper way by repeating and repeating himself.

Rothbart’s hand tightened around Anna’s neck like a snare. Her breath caught, and the air grew thin. Barely clinging to her flickering consciousness, a faint, deflating sound escaped Anna’s lips.

Like prey caught in a trap, the more it struggled, the more it was wounded. Like a white swan caught in a snare, Anna tilted her slender neck in sorrow and accepted Rothbart.

That submissive attitude seemed only to provoke Rothbart more, and he growled roughly, “No matter how long you live, I will live exactly one day longer. The moment your funeral and your coffin are laid to rest, I will enter with you and be buried whole. Do you understand? That will be my only death. Even if you recoil and shudder…”

Contrary to Rothbart’s expectation that Anna would recoil, his words soaked her with joy.

Because he had once believed in her and lost her, he would never again let go of tension and suspicion. His lifelong obsession. It was too much for her to bear, yet she accepted it.

Anna had once abandoned her lover and child, but in return, she had been able to watch over her mother’s final moments, and thanks to Rothbart, who had ultimately summoned her back, she was reunited with them. In the end, she had lost nothing.

It wasn’t a lonely death she faced, but a life with Rothbart. He had said there would be no other man for her, but likewise, there would be no other woman for Rothbart.

Everything was just as she had wished. So there was no reason to refuse. Accepting everything Rothbart poured into her, Anna lowered her gaze. The darkness behind her eyelids swallowed the world.

Then, a thin light seeped in like a crack. As if the sun were rising over a hill at dawn.

Ah, there is a grave on the hill.

My grave and Roth’s.

As Roth wished, we will at last be buried together…

It struck Anna’s mind like a prophecy. The ecstasy of knowing he would never abandon her until the moment he died. Her pale face, veiled by long eyelashes like a curtain, brought the long tale to its end.

― Swan Grave

The End