Even If It Means to Break - Chapter 31

In truth, she had struck her lower abdomen again and again beneath the blankets. When bathing alone, she often recalled the way the man would sometimes push his whole hand inside her, rummaging within.

She had imagined, hundreds of times, using the long skewer that came with roasted lamb to stab into herself. And then, perhaps it would be better to die.

If only this wretched life would simply end.

Baby. My baby. Perhaps you would be happier if you were never born.

Yet after hearing the man’s words, she could no longer bring herself to do anything so cruel. From the moment she asked whether she was being watched, she never once attempted to end it.

It wasn’t simply because she feared his threats.

It was because the child in her womb—unwanted not only by its mother, but treated as a life that could be discarded even by the father who planted the seed—was too pitiful to bear.

Baby. My baby. My tiny baby.

So many parents in the world would treasure your life like a star—so why did you have to come to a place like this?

…Poor, wretched little life.

Even if it was conceived from the seed of someone she hated as an enemy, a new life was innocent and pure. Once she acknowledged that truth, painfully and at last, she could no longer raise a cruel hand against it.

What sin could you possibly have, you little clump of flesh? If there is guilt, it belongs to your father and to me.

Her belly began to swell little by little, enough to be seen with the naked eye. Hill would sometimes stroke her lower abdomen. But otherwise, she left it as it was.

Then one day—

As he had every week, her father was brought to her.

The moment Raban was released from others’ hands, he giggled and rolled about on the floor. Then suddenly he lifted his head and began crawling toward her.

When he finally reached her feet, her father slowly stretched out his hand. His age-spotted fingers touched her lower abdomen.

“Hiiil.”

“…Father?”

“Hiiil. Hill.”

Smiling with a toothless grin, he called her name in broken, clumsy sounds. Hill. Hiiil. His fingers, so thin they looked ready to snap, kept fumbling over her belly. A faint warmth spread beneath her clothes.

…Ah.

Tears surged up all at once.

Hill clutched her small, emaciated father and wept without end. She was grieving the happiness of the distant past that now felt unbearably far away.

Hill’s mother, who had died not long after giving birth to Aill, had raised the two sisters with boundless love. Gentle words, soft hands, warm affection. Their father had been the same. Though endlessly busy as a minister, he had been a kind and loving father, and Hill remembered it vividly.

She had grown up wrapped in such precious love. And yet, her own child…

Hill herself had been raised hearing ‘I love you’ until it rang in her ears, but she had never once spoken a warm word to the child curled within her womb.

Because it was that man’s seed, she had kept it at a distance, like something no better than livestock. Now, faced with emotions swelling like a river after heavy rain, she didn’t know what to do. She clung to her father, and then to her own belly.

Baby. My baby.

My poor, precious baby…

For the first time, the life inside her truly became her child. Just thinking that this small being, without even the hint of movement yet, was hers made her emotions surge beyond control.

Tears kept spilling. She cried without stopping until someone came to take her father away.

From the next day on, her life began to change.

She asked the man for the freedom to get some air, and from then on, she took one walk outside each day.

Feeling sunlight on her skin and breathing in fresh air was something she hadn’t done in so long it felt unreal. The light was so brilliant and unfamiliar that even behind her veil, she had to squint.

She walked very slowly, matching her pace to the woman holding a parasol beside her. Simply being outside felt dreamlike.

Her senses, long from crouching, cautiously spread their wings. The crunch of sand beneath her feet, the dark, rich soil beneath the trees. Everything felt new and overwhelming.

Resting briefly beneath a great tree, she thought,

Perhaps… just perhaps… She was so trapped in her own misery that she couldn’t see anything beyond it.

She had only ever thought about escaping—about getting away from that madman at any cost. She had never once asked him for anything. To her, he had been nothing more than the source of her suffering: the man who killed her sister and destroyed her happy life.

Had all that struggle been nothing more than stubbornness without direction?

Assumptions she had buried dozens of times rose again into her consciousness.

What if, instead of running away with Aill, she had fallen at his feet and begged?

What if, the first time she was captured and brought back, she had obeyed him instead of plotting another escape?

What if, instead of blindly struggling to break free, she had played to his temper and sought another path?

Wouldn’t she be living a far happier life than this?

Yes, perhaps resisting him at all had been the mistake. In truth, the man was not a being that fit within human limits. Wasn’t he said to be exceptional even among the bloodline of giants?

He could heal wounds with his blood, move objects freely without touching them. His strength was inhuman; they said he had killed monsters with his bare hands.

The reason a tyrant who could wipe out three villages on a whim continued to reign as king of the desert was because of the superhuman power granted by giant blood.

She should never have opposed him.

She should have submitted.

He was never something that could be judged by human standards in the first place.