My child 4

 Chapter 4. There was nothing I wanted more

    ****

    The flow of air at my back felt strangely reversed.

    If I strained my ears, I could hear the rustle of someone's clothes.

    ‘Robbers? Assassins? There's no way Henderson has returned from overseas already…’

    I pursed my lips, which had been dry for who knows how long.

    Then I tried to think of a way out of this situation, if someone had indeed gotten in. But my mind was a blank slate.

    The slip dress I was wearing was soaked with sweat and clung unpleasantly to my skin. The tears were no longer flowing. At that moment, I heard footsteps.

    Shuffling, shuffling.

    I jerked my head stiffly in the direction of the sound and saw a suspicious figure with a hood over his head.

    I froze in place. I couldn't make out the slightest hint of his identity.

    Even as I shivered with fear, I realized that if he was an assassin, I wouldn't mind dying.

    I had lost two people I loved, and life had lost its meaning.

    The figure stopped walking in front of the bed, and almost simultaneously, a low voice rang out.

    "Are you heartbroken?"

    The words were unexpected.

    Instead of answering, I studied him. The person in the robe was tall, with broad shoulders and a deep voice.

    I assumed that this newcomer must be a man.

    I straightened my body and opened my lips. My lower lip was trembling slightly from nervousness.

    "Who are you?"

    "I am a shaman. Here to help you with my lesser abilities."

    Shaman. As soon as I heard the word, a socialite's tale came to mind.

    "They say there's a way to kill people these days without using your hands. They say shamans make it possible."

    My heart began to race in my chest.

    "How does that mean you can help me?"

    "There's something you need to know first, lady Riley."

    The man's voice was calm, a calm that seemed to calm me.

    I responded quite eloquently.

    "Tell me about it."

    The man blurted out a shocking story without warning.

    "Your child died at the hands of Lady Helena."

    "....!"

    "To be more precise, the shaman she hired put a curse on the child that caused a slow death."

    "And how did you know that?"

    I sounded suspicious, but there was a strange credibility to the man's words.

    I remembered how Helena had seen Eddie as a hindrance.

    I shot the man a look of suspicion.

    "If you know that, does that mean you were in on it, and now you're telling me about it?"

    If this man had anything to do with my child's death, I wasn't going to let it go.

    "I can't believe you're so angry at someone who came to help. I have never confessed to having done anything.”

    "Don't lie to me. I can tell right away who you are. I'm the Emperor's daughter, and my father will help me."

    The man called my name quietly.

    "Lady Riley."

    It was at that moment that the air around me turned chilly. The hairs on my body stood on end.

    The man's eyes were hidden by his hood.

    But I could feel his sharp gaze on me through it.

    It was a dangerous, threatening gaze.

    The man spoke in a commanding voice that seemed to stamp out my existence.

    "If I had anything to do with it, why would I bother revealing my presence?"

    The man was right. I pursed my lower lip, at a loss for words.

    "And with the help of His Majesty the Emperor......."

    "...."

    “Lady Helena is only the daughter of a Count. And she is a clever person. How could such a person kill the duke’s son, much less the princess’s son, without any hesitation?”

    The man was right again.

    I wasn't convinced that Helena would have killed Eddie, for it seemed unlikely that a woman of such quick profit and loss calculations would have gone to such lengths.

    But if Helena didn't have a big liver, she had a "backing" that emboldened her.

    There were only three people who could ignore me, the Princess and Duchess of the Empire.

    My brother, the crown prince, and my parents, the emperor and the empress.

    But my mother and brother loved Eddie as if he were their own child.

    The problem was my father.

    He didn't recognize Eddie, who looked exactly like Henderson, as his own.

    "Take him out."

    Every time I brought Eddie to the palace, my father was busy shooing him away. The way my father looked at him was chilling.

    "You don't mean to tell me that my father...... is involved in this?"

    I couldn’t say with confidence that my father loved me with all his heart, but at least we didn't hate each other.

    Did that mean he was complicit in killing my child?

    Why? Why on earth?

    If he hated Henderson so much that he didn't care if Eddie was dead......

    Who's involved in my child's death, and when did it start?

    A million questions raced through my head in the space of a second. But there were no pointed answers.

    "I can't give you any answers."

    And the shaman didn't answer my questions.

    "Coward."

    He wouldn't tell me anything definitive about the subject that created my doubts.

    I heard the shaman sigh shallowly at my accusation.

    "Ha. I'll tell you one more thing, then."

    The shaman pulled something out of his robes and tossed it at me.

    It was a rolled up piece of parchment.

    There was no further explanation. He simply waited for me to unfold it.

    Inside the parchment was a single, meaningful sentence.

    "If a child of mixed blood becomes a member of the imperial family, a century of imperial discipline will be shaken."

    "He was willing to kill my child because of this?"

    "Because Henderson is an illegitimate son, and Eddie is the child of such a father?”

    I was stunned, speechless.

    But knowing how serious my father was about the oracle, I couldn't deny that it couldn't be true.

    "It's an old oracle, Lady Riley, and as you know, the Emperor swears by it."

    The shaman seemed to know that, too.

    ‘If this oracle is true, then...... then my father must have really been involved.'

    The hand that held the parchment tensed.

    "Let me help you."

    "How can you help me? You can't possibly resuscitate Eddie?"

    "I can't revive a dead man."

    I hung my head low.

    Even if he had all the tricks in the book, it would be impossible to bring a dead man back to life.

    Even knowing that, I couldn't let go of hope.

    It was then that I heard a sound that rekindled my hope.

    "But I can take you back in time."

    "..."

    "I think I can do that."

    "Go back in time?”

    Did he mean I can go back to before Eddie died and save him?

    I lifted my head to look up at him.

    "When can I go back?"

    "I can't tell you exactly, but I can help you get back on the day you want, Lady Riley."

    The day I want to go back is.............

    I thought about it for a moment, but quickly decided on a day.

    I wanted to go back to the day after I had Eddie.

    To the night I'd spent with Henderson, whom I'd met at the masquerade ball, and decided to marry him.

    I wanted to give birth to Eddie again, my child who had died in vain.

    I didn't want anyone else's child.

    It had to be the same child.

    I wanted to atone for Eddie.

    Although others may have been directly responsible for his death, I was not without blame.

    I should have taken care of him. Even if my child looked like Henderson.

    And I would not mind going back to that time.

    "Okay, I'll go back in time. Send me back seven years, to the day after the Duke of Graham's masquerade ball."

    I even gave him a specific date.

    "I'll do my best to send you somewhere near the day you want."

    "Okay."

    I didn't hesitate to return to the past.

    Even though I still didn't trust the shaman, I wanted to ask him a favor.

    I would give up everything I had now to see Eddie again.

    I wanted to see his lovely face again.

    I wanted to look into his eyes and have a conversation with him.

    There was nothing I wanted more.

    ****

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