Chapter 214: The One With The Mark
Osric could understand the hurt that coursed through Isabella’s heart. She had expected love and had received little in return. One could argue that their union had been a contract, a matter of duty rather than desire, but the human heart seldom obeyed contracts. She had underestimated her own longing, her desire to be cherished in return. She had told herself she could live without expectation, without reciprocity... but she had failed, terribly.
It was hard for her to accept because her heart was filled with love. All of that might have been true. He pitied the girl he had raised.
But...
"It gives you no excuse to stand idle while your eldest butchered his brothers. No excuse to kill the child born of love. And no excuse to break the oath of our blood, nor the vow you made: to him, and to me!"
His voice cut through the room with scathing fury, yet beneath it burned a deeper, quieter flame: personal disappointment.
The dowager’s fingers toppled the porcelain vase on the table as she spun to face him, fury dancing across her face. The vase broke into shills, just like her heart was. She had opened herself to him, and yet he still cast blame.
"Where were you all this time, uncle? You blamed my son for ruling his way, and vanished. And now you return, only to blame me?" she demanded, voice trembling.
Osric’s lips curved faintly, knowing the trap she tried to set. "You dare claim I abandoned you? Perhaps my love waned too, for I saw how quickly you washed your hands in the blood of those you deemed enemies."
Tears streaked down her cheeks, lips quivering, and Osric’s stoic indifference cracked. He saw, more clearly than anyone, the depth of her love, the girl he had raised, who had trusted and loved him above all others.
He straightened, gripping his silver cane, its metal clicking against the marble floor as he moved toward her. Every step was measured, deliberate, yet tender, the frailty of his age belying the weight of his presence. He reached her side and, with a careful motion, wrapped his arms around her, patting her head gently.
"You still have me..." he whispered.
The dowager leaned into his embrace, shaking and sobbing, letting her grief flow freely. He allowed her to unleash it, silently bearing her burden.
"It seemed plain to me you were meant for Hadrian Arvand... You two would have fared nobly, shaping the world for good, had your hearts been guided by love," Osric murmured. "But perhaps fate had other designs..."
She let out a bitter laugh, the sound trembling in his ears. "There was always that possibility. He... he’s dead, Uncle. My friend is dead, and all I could think was... I’m glad he died. I wished all the secrets would die with him..."
Even now, in the cradle of his frail embrace, her mind turned first to survival, to securing herself, to preserving her son’s throne. Osric felt the pang of her pragmatism, tempered with heartbreak, and understood that even in grief, she moved with purpose.
"It’s not late, child... you can still turn back," Osric said softly, his voice carrying the weight of years, but tempered with gentle insistence. His hand lingered on her shoulder, steadying, grounding. "You need not bear all this burden, not alone. You do not have to chase shadows of the past, nor drown in the echoes of betrayal and ambition."
The dowager’s eyes flickered, her tears glinting like sunlight on dark water. Osric’s gaze softened as he continued, his words weaving a delicate tapestry of memory and longing. "Do you remember the autumn afternoons of your childhood? When the air smelled of fallen leaves and dew, when the garden was ours alone? Just you and me, child... we would watch the flowers sway in the wind, chasing the butterflies from bloom to bloom, laughing at the simplest things."
He paused, letting the image linger between them, the warmth of his memories brushing against the cold ache in her chest. "No crowns, no conspiracies... no weight of legacies or secret oaths. Just the sun on your face, the hum of bees in the lavender, and the sky wide above you, endless and forgiving."
The dowager’s breath hitched. The vision he painted was achingly real; the laughter of a little girl unburdened, the simplicity of joy untainted by courtly games. Her heart throbbed at the memory, as if her very soul recognized that freedom, that innocence, that happiness she had long denied herself.
"You could return to those days," Osric said, leaning slightly closer, his voice a tender whisper. "Leave behind the scheming and the cruelty, the bitterness that clings to these walls. Let the garden be your world again, let the air fill your lungs without fear. You could walk among the flowers, child, and let your heart remember what it feels to be alive, to love without calculation, to laugh without regret."
The dowager’s hands trembled, her body tilting ever so slightly toward him as if drawn by some invisible gravity. The tension between duty and desire, between the throne and the girl she once was, hung thick in the room. Her gaze softened as she imagined it: Osric’s steady presence, the warm sun on her shoulders, the scent of blooms, and the endless blue above.
Could she... really leave it all behind? Could she return to that simplicity, to a life untouched by betrayal, blood, and the relentless demands of empire?
Her lips parted, a fragile, trembling whisper escaping: "But... what about my son?"
Osric’s hand closed gently over hers, the pressure soft yet unyielding, a quiet promise in the grasp. "At last, perform the deed your younger self lacked the courage to attempt," he murmured.
Her pulse surged; the childish wonder that had briefly bloomed on her face flickered and vanished. Osric took a careful step back, reading the change in her.
"I cannot give up my son’s birthright. I cannot let some bastard take it... Not after all I have endured."
He drew a deep breath, steadying himself. "What will you do?" he asked, voice even, though the weight of it pressed against the walls of the room.
The dowager’s eyes widened in raw hysteria, fingers trembling, her face twitching with fury. "I’ll do what I should have done long ago! I should have killed him when I held him fresh from his mother’s womb with that damn mark! Who would have blamed me?"
Osric scoffed, sharp and dry. No one could blame him for not trying. For the sin of raising her with no true love in her heart, he had offered her a choice, and she had recoiled. His heart shattered seeing the only one whom he had considered family, standing in front of him with a murderous rage. She no longer cared about promises and legacies. She only cared about herself.
He let a grim satisfaction touch his gaze. "I foresaw your hand would spill the babe’s blood before his first cries had faded. Thus, I committed the blasphemy of snatching him from his mother’s arms and sending him into the shadows. And lo... see what mercy or madness has wrought. Blessed be my eyes to witness him now, adorned with the bearing of a sovereign touched by heaven."
He smiled softly, a rare light in his otherwise austere expression, his heart swelling with the quiet joy of witnessing history unfold firsthand. To see the culmination of what had been carefully guarded through generations filled him with a solemn pride.
"From Lion and Bear, the bloodline kept veiled,
The heir of the Dragon, by fate now unveiled..."
He recited the lines of the ancient poem, the words crisp and deliberate, each syllable carrying the weight of centuries and the legacy of houses long thought lost. It was a song of destiny, of bloodlines hidden and now revealed, and of the careful hands that had kept them safe.
But the dowager was somewhere else entirely. Her breath hitched, sharp and incredulous, her gaze narrowing into disbelief and betrayal. "You did it? I always thought it was my husband! It was you... You betrayed me, uncle?"
Without hesitation, her hand closed around a jagged shard of the broken vase, and she lunged at him.