At that moment, the woman's eyes flashed with an eerie light.
The fingers gripping the back of his hand suddenly tightened with unbelievable strength. It felt as though his hand had been caught in a steel vise.
Then the ancient language of the East flowed from between her cracked lips.
“This oath will become a powerful curse that binds you. Until your very last breath, you will be compelled to uphold the words you have spoken. Even so, can you still say that your oath remains valid?”
Sharp gasps echoed throughout the room. It seemed everyone believed the Empress was using an ancient Khan ritual.
In truth, he thought they might not be entirely wrong. He could clearly feel some incomprehensible force wrapping itself around him.
A question arose in his mind.
Why was she going this far?
Someday he would command immense military power, but that day still lay far in the future.
At present, the influence he could wield was insignificant. And yet the Empress behaved as though the fate of her children depended entirely on his answer.
Suddenly, a rumor surfaced in his mind—that she possessed the gift of foresight.
Had she perhaps glimpsed a future in which she believed he had to be bound this tightly?
As he silently looked at her with suspicion in his eyes, the stern expression on the Empress's face instantly crumbled.
He realized she was struggling with something.
Her pale face was drenched in cold sweat. She looked as though she might burn away the last of her life at any moment and vanish without a trace.
He carefully wrapped his hand around hers, where every tendon stood out beneath the skin.
The Empress's eyes widened.
Even at the moment she had resolved to steel herself, she could not bring herself to become completely ruthless.
He knew this woman had shown him affection in her own way.
But in the end, he could never repay what he had received.
If nothing else, he wanted this woman standing at the edge of her life to close her eyes in peace.
After hesitating briefly, he answered in the language engraved into the depths of his soul.
“Until my final breath, my oath shall remain valid.”
Relief and guilt crossed the woman's eyes at the same time.
Tears welled beneath her thin eyelids and streamed down her pale cheeks.
“I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry to you. I won't ask you to forgive me.”
“Please don't say that. I......”
“You don't understand what you've sacrificed.”
She cut him off.
“You're only thirteen years old. I know I should never have done something like this to someone your age......”
The Empress's hollow gaze shifted toward her children.
The pupils, which had expanded until they seemed as black as spilled ink, slowly regained their natural color.
She looked at her young children with an expression mingled with regret and sorrow before turning back to him.
“Varkas Laedgo Siorcan, you may believe that life holds no meaning... but one day you will find something that makes you want to keep living. When that day comes, you will regret this very moment.”
Her clouded eyes slowly closed.
Drawing ragged, dry breaths, she murmured in a cracked voice,
“When that day comes... resent me as much as you wish.”
The moment he was about to tell her that such a day would never come, a fit of dry coughing burst from her lips.
The High Priest hurried over and poured divine power into her, yet the Empress's complexion only continued to darken.
Seeing their mother's condition worsen as though she might stop breathing at any moment, the twins burst into loud sobs. They clung to the bedside, desperately grasping their mother's frail hands.
He had stepped back to watch the scene when Marquis Oristein placed a hand on his shoulder and led him into the corridor.
“Pay no mind to Her Majesty's final words. Ever since her illness suddenly worsened, she has been seeing things that aren't there.”
Once they had reached a deserted part of the corridor, the man spoke with a heavy sigh.
“Lately her mind hasn't seemed entirely sound either. I'm afraid she won't survive this month.”
The Marquis appeared to have aged dramatically in just a few months.
Looking out the window with a face filled with grief and anger, he continued in a somber voice.
“I truly appreciate what you did today. Thanks to you, Her Majesty was at least able to ease her heart a little.”
A large hand bearing the signet ring of his house rested upon Varkas's shoulder.
The Marquis seemed to regard the ceremony that had just taken place as nothing more than a dying woman's final wish, a performance meant to soothe her heart before death.
Varkas made no attempt to correct that misunderstanding.