I Only Want Your Child - Chapter 30

A roof beam weakened by the fire collapsed between us.

I instinctively pulled Marie into my arms and quickly rolled backward. Pain wracked my entire body as though it were breaking apart, and my nose and throat burned sharply.

The flames had grown so enormous that I could barely see anything in front of me. Jared was no longer visible through the collapsed debris.

“Madam! Are you alright?!”

Jared’s urgent voice came from beyond the wreckage.

Holding Marie tightly, I looked around and squeezed my eyes shut.

There was no opening through which we could escape.

At this rate, Jared and the other child would also…

Realizing the situation, I forced myself to steady my choking breaths and shouted with all my strength.

“Jared! Take the child and get out!”

“What are you saying!”

No matter how capable Jared was, he couldn’t clear away the burning collapsed debris in an instant. Trying would only put all of us in danger.

“Hurry! This is an order from the lady of Baldomer!”

At the word order, Jared fell silent.

Then I heard his trembling voice, as though he were gritting his teeth.

“…Understood.”

I could feel Jared’s presence moving farther away.

Relieved, I curled my body around Marie as tightly as I could.

The flames were already devouring everything around us like an enraged monster. I used my ability to suppress them as much as possible and keep them from approaching.

A barrier of fire formed around the child and me. But I couldn’t completely block the smoke.

Without hesitation, I tore the hem of my dress. Spotting a broken water bottle lying nearby, I soaked the cloth with what little moisture remained on the floor. Then, instead of covering my own nose and mouth, I covered Marie’s.

Marie slowly opened her unfocused eyes.

“Madam…”

She lay limp, seemingly without even enough strength to move a finger. Holding the child tightly, I murmured as though reciting an incantation.

“It’s alright. Everything will be alright.”

My consciousness was gradually fading.

It felt as though the inside of my chest were burning.

Even so, I didn’t loosen the arms holding the child.

Unlike me, who repeatedly lived and died through meaningless lives, this child’s life was more precious than anything.

So I had to protect it.

Just then, something white fluttered down through a gap in the collapsed roof, piercing through the flames.

A snowflake…?

Watching the snowflake shimmer through my fading vision, I lost consciousness.

* * *

Kallion stared blankly at the burning forest and cliff.

A dream…?

Below the cliff, pitch-black flames opened and closed their enormous mouths as though waiting for a sacrifice.

And someone was standing at the very edge of that cliff.

Dazzling blond hair like the sun, and crimson eyes holding fierce flames that seemed capable of burning everything around her.

It was his wife, Juliana.

In a world engulfed entirely in flames, she stood with her back turned to him.

Her back looked so precarious, as though she might shatter at any moment, that his voice escaped before he realized it.

“Juliana?”

She slowly turned her head.

Her face was expressionless, but for some reason, he thought she looked as though she were crying. At the sight, an inexplicable ache spread through his chest.

“You killed our child.”

Child…

Our child?

Juliana’s face, her lips pressed tightly together, looked red beneath the reflection of the flames below the cliff.

Then, before he could stop her, her body tilted over the edge.

“Juliana!”

He belatedly ran toward her, but her slender body had already been swallowed by the flames below.

* * *

“No!”

Kallion’s eyes flew open as though he had suffered a seizure, and he found himself panting heavily at the familiar sight of his office.

Had he fallen asleep?

It had only been a dream, yet his heart was pounding with an inexplicable sense of unease.

Wasn’t she the daughter of the enemy house he hated more than anything?

It had only been a dream, yet he couldn’t understand why he felt so restless and anxious. On top of that, the words she had spoken, ‘our child’, kept circling through his mind.

Just then, accompanied by the sound of hurried footsteps, the office door flew open without so much as a knock.

“Lord Kallion! Something terrible has happened!”

It was the head butler.

“What is it?”

Already on edge, Kallion frowned and asked irritably.

But at the head butler’s next words, his expression immediately froze.

“Th-The orphanage caught fire, and the Madam is still inside!”