3. Đứa trẻ xinh đẹp giống mẹ

3. The Beautiful Child Resembles His Mother

He held the gleaming silver coin in his hand and turned it this way and that. He had never touched a silver coin before — not directly. When he'd owned countless numbers of them, they were beneath notice; now that he'd lost everything, a single one was priceless. The soft grey metal, so much more fragile-looking than platinum, was like the crystallized residue of an ephemeral dream. Night after night he held its polished surface up to the orange-tinted sky and deliberated.

Should I buy bread? With a large loaf studded with plenty of raisins, eating one a day, this would last a good six months. He could even afford sugar on the side. Or a blanket for the coming winter. Or a pair of warm, fur-lined boots. Or he could take this coin and travel south to a warmer city — the winters there would not be this brutal. What should he do?

Aeroc crouched in the shed, face buried in his knees, and agonized. Once, he would not have given such matters a second thought. He would have walked straight to a stationer's, bought pen and paper, and written to every address he still remembered. And not a single one of those countless letters would have received a reply.

Everyone who had once scrambled for his invitations now turned their backs. Even Derbyshire and Wolfrake, with whom he had been genuinely close, refused to see him. After being turned away at the gate without so much as setting foot inside, not a soul would acknowledge him. The only person who had extended a hand was Kloff — and looking back now, that hand had led him down into a deeper hell.

Knowing full well that no reply would come, he could not waste this precious money on a futile gesture. He was not even hungry. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity he doubted would ever come again. He had no desire to spend a priceless silver coin on bread he could get simply by offering his body.

Aeroc thought of the thing he wanted most. With this money, perhaps — just once — a dream could become real. He agonized all night without sleeping, then slipped out of the shed before the men could come to collect their dues. Until dawn broke, he wandered the streets searching for a high-end tailor's shop from his distant memory.

By the time the sun was fully up, the shop owner — afraid Aeroc would ruin his establishment's reputation — chased him away before he could even set foot inside. After several rounds of pleading and showing the silver coin, the fussy-looking tailor pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose and sneered:

"You can't buy a tie in this shop for a single silver coin. Now get out."

He was slightly stunned. He had thought this precious coin could buy at least a modest suit, if not a fine one. To learn he could not even afford a tie — the sort of thing he had once used and discarded — was a blow.

He walked in the shade, biting his lip. He tried every shop-like establishment he could find throughout the day, but was lucky to escape without being struck, let alone receive decent service. In the end, he gave up on the main avenue's fine shops and found the shabbiest secondhand clothing store in the common quarter, where he was able to purchase a very old suit and a pair of worn shoes. The silver coin paid for it all, with a few coppers returned. Those he spent at another shop, on soap.

Heart racing with an excitement he could not contain, he half-ran to the riverbank. Before it was too late, he washed himself clean out of sight of others and carefully dressed in the clothes that smelled faintly of dust and mildew. He put on the shoes. He wished he could press the wrinkles out, but such luxury was not permitted.

Aeroc combed his still-wet hair back with his fingers and walked. People glanced at him here and there, but they no longer showed the hostility he had grown used to. Heart pounding, he walked on. Most people passed without a second look, though one or two young alphas stared at him fixedly. He could not fathom why, and the fear it caused sent him veering into the shade.

"Excuse me."

Someone spoke from behind. Aeroc spun around to find a complete stranger wearing a friendly smile, hesitating as though about to say something more. In the distance, a group of what appeared to be the man's friends were grinning and whispering to each other. Aeroc's skin crawled.

"I'm — I'm sorry. I have somewhere I need to be."

"Oh — could I at least have your name?"

"I'm sorry."

He answered quickly and hurried away. The man seemed to follow for a moment but soon fell behind. His startled heart pounded hard enough to hurt. The ill-fitting shoes had rubbed his heels raw, but the pain did not slow him.

After more than two hours of walking, Aeroc stood at the end of a reasonably clean street in the middle-class quarter. Beyond this point lay the district where aristocratic mansions stood in rows. Passing a single estate's front gate could take a full ten minutes on foot. Unlike busier city streets, almost no one walked here — everyone used carriages. The rare pedestrian was invariably a servant making rounds to ward off strangers.

When he had first been cast out, he had come back here without thinking about his appearance and been chased off by the staff repeatedly. He had been beaten unconscious more than once for resisting.

Aeroc forced his rigid shoulders straight and moved forward. Thankfully, a servant passing on the far side watched him with wary eyes but did not move to seize him — the secondhand clothes, dusty and faintly musty though they were, were not so different from the servant's own. Still, Aeroc felt the prickle at the back of his neck and quickened his pace.

Deep into the aristocratic quarter, he walked on into the late afternoon until at last he stood before a truly magnificent and enormous estate — one distinguished by a row of cedars running along its side.

On the ornate stone column beside the tall iron gate, a brass plate bore the owner's name. Where it had once read Teiwind, it now read Bandyke.

The iron gate and the manor's entrance were separated by a garden so vast it could not be taken in at a single glance; shouting from here would reach no one. As he paced uncertainly, a carriage approached from the distance. It was not the enclosed coach favored by the nobility but a small two-seater, and riding in it was a woman he knew well. The solidly built, middle-aged omega woman spotted Aeroc standing before the gate, widened her eyes, then narrowed them, and stopped the carriage. The gatekeeper, having noticed the approaching carriage, emerged from deep inside the grounds.

"Good day, Count. What brings you here?"

"Martha."

The gatekeeper — a man Aeroc had glimpsed perhaps once or twice since the estate's new owner, Viscount Bendyke, had hired him years ago, and whose name Aeroc had never heard — opened the gate. Martha gave a curt nod and drove the carriage through. She appeared to be returning from purchasing household supplies in her capacity as housekeeper.

He could have asked her for help getting inside, but the words would not come. Considering what he had done, he had no right to ask anything of her. Better to wait for Kloff. He would come out or come home eventually. When Aeroc stood in silence, the gatekeeper studied him with an impassive gaze, then turned and walked back toward the manor.

Kloff had originally been the second son of the Bendyke barony — a minor house with a small estate in the provinces. By the standards of the capital's high nobility, he was closer to a commoner than an aristocrat, with nothing to his name. That was no longer the case. He was now a self-made entrepreneur and a brilliantly successful investor who received enthusiastic welcome even in the exclusive salons of the royal court.

Every government bond venture he touched had turned an enormous profit, and his contributions to economic diplomacy had earned him national distinction. At the same time — backed by the patronage of numerous nobles and through backroom dealings no one could fully trace — he had recently been awarded a title.

Not a common knighthood, either. Citing his baronial bloodline, he had secured nothing less than a viscountcy — and a hereditary one at that. In the present era, the granting of hereditary titles was an extraordinary departure from precedent.

Rumors and exaggerations swirled around him. The five years he had vanished after losing his beloved wife and unborn child to hired thugs had spawned countless stories. No one knew where he had been or what he had done. They only knew that when he resurfaced in the capital's social circles, he held staggering wealth in his hands and shook the city's entire economy.

Aeroc's trajectory was the precise inverse. His fortune evaporated; every investment failed. He had entrusted a large sum to someone he believed trustworthy and been swindled. It was strange. However poor Aeroc's judgment in investments might have been, it should not have produced losses this relentless. It was as though someone had laid traps and was waiting.

Before long his fortune was gone and he was buried in debt. Setting pride aside, he appealed to those around him — and everyone turned away. That had been the greatest shock, and in the end, he had no choice but to sell the manor. He had liquidated every other property, but the debts multiplied by the day, doubling and tripling faster than he could pay them down. The great estate with its famous rose garden now belonged to Kloff Bendyke, the most powerful economic official in the country.

Now Aeroc was waiting outside the gate of the manor where he had been born, waiting for its new owner.

By the time the sky began to tinge with gold, the gatekeeper emerged again.

"Are you the count?"

Aeroc pushed himself off the wall and stood before him. The gatekeeper looked him up and down with undisguised skepticism. Aeroc squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and lowered only his eyes to meet the man's gaze.

"The viscount has extended an invitation. Please come in."

The gatekeeper opened the gate and stepped aside. Had Martha spoken to Kloff? Aeroc gave the gatekeeper a brief nod and entered.

On the walk to the entrance, the garden he surveyed had kept its old form. Though it had been only a few years, the memories felt impossibly distant, as though from another era. He wondered whether the rose garden his mother had loved — her face now nearly lost to him — still looked the same, but it was not proper to wander the grounds without the owner's permission.

At the entrance, a butler emerged — not the elderly Teiwind butler who had tended the manor for decades, but a young man. Aeroc followed the unfamiliar butler to the drawing room. The interior decorations were almost exactly as they had been — he had sold the estate in such haste that the furnishings had been included in the sale.

One thing alone had changed: the portraits. Most of the paintings that had hung along the walls were replaced with different works. Among them, Aeroc spotted pieces by a gifted young painter he had once had his eye on. If the artist's work now adorned the drawing room wall of the nation's most prominent nobleman, the painter had done very well for himself.

Aeroc felt a small flicker of pleasure that his eye had been right. He had no talent for investment, but he could judge art. Shown into the empty drawing room, he slowly examined the paintings. Standing here in a suit, in a room that was strange yet still familiar to his body, contemplating art — the illusion of having returned to his former life stirred briefly. His shoulders straightened a little further, his chin drew in of its own accord. With a quiet smile, Aeroc studied the painter's delicate brushwork.

"That painting sold at auction for the price of a decent house. It was quite a good investment."

Kloff had entered without a sound. Aeroc was startled, but the aristocratic training that had surged back to life allowed him to nod as though he had known Kloff was there all along, and step back from the painting.

"It's a very delicate, emotional work. The painter must have loved this space. That's why he poured such bold color into it — flooded it with light. I doubt this was the only piece he painted of this scene. He likely produced several across seasons and times of day. If it's a series, keeping them together would add considerably to their value."

"It's from a four-seasons series — early summer. I'm having the other pieces tracked down."

"Mm."

Aeroc nodded and turned his gaze toward Kloff.

"You have a good eye. This must be an early work — it's impressive you recognized it."

His breath was slightly short, his chest faintly tight, but not unbearably so.

The gaze Kloff directed at him was much like that night on the street. The slight difference was that the street had held nothing but icy contempt, whereas now there was a touch of astonishment — and a corresponding measure of revulsion.

The conversation died.

Those dark eyes still burned with cold hatred. Aeroc could not bring himself to speak a word. He could only lower his lids and watch the man's hands, which trembled almost imperceptibly. He had provoked him again, it seemed, though he did not know how.

Those large, warm hands were beginning to curl. Aeroc worried a fist might fly at his cheek. Being struck would hurt, but worse — if he angered Kloff, he might be thrown out immediately. He had only half-fulfilled his wish. To prove he meant no harm, Aeroc smiled at the perpetually furious alpha. But that seemed to be a poor choice. The loosely curling fist clenched until the knuckles went white.

Just as the fear of being hit made him take an involuntary step back, the freezing atmosphere was broken by the butler entering with a tea service. He gave his master a precise bow, then set the tray on the table. Kloff, who had been radiating dark fury, let his expression ease slightly. With a cold smile, he gestured Aeroc to sit. Still afraid, but Aeroc nodded faintly and took his seat at the table.

The tea the butler poured was the same fine black tea Aeroc had once drunk every day. One sip of the warm liquid, and the tension in his body loosened slightly. It had been so long since he'd had tea. No — this was the first tea he'd had since leaving this manor. A single sip that had once meant nothing now moved him enough to compose a lengthy ode of gratitude. Cradling the cup in both hands — improper etiquette, but he needed the warmth — he sat in silence until Kloff spoke first.

"You're looking much better than last time, Count."

The tone was flat rather than mocking, but for an instant it gripped his chest like a vice. Aeroc set down the cup to hide the faint tremor in his fingertips, then lowered both hands beneath the table.

"Thanks to you."

"How did you find your way here?"

"Find what?"

Kloff leaned back, crossed his legs, and answered.

"It's been two years since you last came to this estate, hasn't it? It's just another house to me, but to you, Count, it's practically a homeland. I was a little hurt that you never showed your face."

His words said one thing; his tone carried no sincerity at all. The guileless directness that once surfaced whenever he was displeased had vanished — Kloff now spoke with a facility that suited Viscount Bendyke far better. Put another way, every one of his barbs was landing precisely where intended.

"One thing and another."

The truth was that Aeroc had tried to come here many times. He would not enumerate the things he had endured before learning that this was a futile hope — a fantasy he might never realize. Even if Kloff had a just grievance, there was no need to describe those wretched days in detail merely to satisfy a man whose appetite for vengeance knew no limit. Aeroc took another sip of the cooling tea and met Kloff's gaze quietly.

Now he wanted only one thing. They had been born by a method he had never imagined and never wished for — but the fact that those lives carried his blood was unchanged. He wanted, just once, to hold those angels. To let them know who had given birth to them. That was all.

He had no desire to tell them what he had done, what price he was paying, or where and how he lived now. Small children should not have to carry the original sin of a dark past simply because they had borrowed his body to be born. He only wanted to see them once — to know whether they were happy, whether Kloff, who had chosen this cruel method of revenge, was at least sparing them any unnecessary cruelty.

At last, steeling himself, Aeroc met the gaze that cut like a blade and spoke.

"The child was beautiful."

The faint smile on Kloff's lips distorted slightly. His deep brown eyes flashed with something terrifying. The thin mask this perpetually furious man wore cracked. For a moment he glared as though ready to snap Aeroc's neck on the spot — his lips trembled — and then, just as suddenly, the confident sneer resettled.

"When did you see him?"

"The other day. By chance."

At this candid reply, Kloff let out a scoffing laugh — "Ha." He propped his chin on his hand and studied Aeroc for a long moment, as though weighing whether it was the truth.

"The child doesn't look like you."

This much hostility Aeroc had steeled himself for. Even if the argument or the violence exceeded what he could bear, he had to try. If he lost this chance, there was no telling when the next would come. Summoning a firm inner resolve, he forced an air of composure and met the cold gaze head-on. Kloff showed no sign of being moved. Only the faintest tremor at the corner of his mouth — and then, in a light, easy voice:

"He takes after his mother."

At first Aeroc did not understand. No — for an instant he thought Kloff had lost his mind again. There was no way Kloff would think of him in those terms — He blinked several times, mouth hanging open, and then it struck him.

Ah.

The hope that had been holding his composure together shattered into countless pieces. He wanted to scream, to lose control entirely. But the suit constraining his body, the shoes on his feet, and the scent of tea that conjured old lessons back to life drew from him, almost involuntarily, a deeper smile.

"Thank you for the tea. The aroma is lovely. I'd like to have more, but I should be going."

"Leaving already?"

Kloff's tone was sardonic as Aeroc rose from his seat.

"Thank you for the tea at an unconventional hour."

"You won't be going far."

He did not even stand.

Aeroc walked out of the drawing room without looking back and left the manor. The gatekeeper, who had seen him approaching at a slightly hurried pace from the distance, opened the gate without a word. Aeroc could not manage even a word of thanks before passing through, white-faced.

Yes — to say he hadn't expected it at all would be a lie. The thought had crossed his mind. He had pushed it deep down and refused to dwell on it because he had wanted to leave room — room for the belief that someday Kloff would forgive him and accept him.

But that had been nothing more than a wild delusion. The hatred of a man who had lost his beloved wife and child was greater and fiercer than anything Aeroc could have imagined. Even as Aeroc's life guttered toward its end with nothing left to lose, the man with the grudge did not stop his revenge.

It was all futile. No matter what Aeroc did, Kloff would never see him. He understood that now — after years of wretched, wretched days. Together with the weight of the sin he had committed. His reason had known it all along, but feeling it was a first. The solid paving stones seemed to soften beneath him, swallowing him to the knees.

Since the day he had glimpsed Kloff by chance and fallen into one-sided love, nothing else had been visible, nothing audible. Even Rapiel had met Kloff later than he had. The man with the dark brown hair and the deep eyes should have been his — and rage had consumed him when someone else had stolen what was rightfully his.

He had believed with ironclad certainty that he — superior in family, fortune, beauty, and talent — was better in every way than the shabby Rapiel, who had nothing to offer beyond being omega. Being alpha, he'd had no choice but to endure it, but now that was no longer the case. The drug Kloff had forced on him — half by coercion, half by deception — had turned alpha into omega.

You took my wife and child from me. You owe me compensation.

That was what Kloff had said, and Aeroc had given him what he lost and one more besides. He had committed a sin, yes, but not on purpose. He had lost his fortune and his house and paid for his crime. The arrogance he'd once worn had been ground off in the gutter — surely that was enough. Surely Kloff would see him eventually. How could a dead woman defeat a living one?

But now he saw the truth. A living person cannot defeat the dead. In Kloff's memory, Rapiel was preserved forever — beautiful, gentle, eternal. A place the withered, skeletal Aeroc could never again defile.

The skin beneath his eyes burned. It felt as though tears might fall. But none came. He had never cried in his life, and he had forgotten how. He wanted to weep but could not, and so he swallowed the bitter liquid that scorched him from the inside and walked on, unable to hide his contorted, ugly face.

The two children would probably never know him. They would be told that the person who bore them had died long ago, tragically, at the hands of a wicked nobleman. Yes — perhaps that was for the best. Better than bequeathing them his guilt. If they were the children of Kloff's "wife," then Kloff would at least love them without reserve.

At that thought, Aeroc felt a small measure of happiness. It hurt immensely, but he was so very, very happy that it seemed tears might come again. And yet, no matter how he screwed up his face and forced out the sounds of sobbing, no fluid would flow from his desiccated body. His flushed cheeks burned.

Wrapped in a sunset as red as blood, he walked. There were not many places he could go. To the clatter of his loose, rattling shoe heels, he headed for the place where he had once set flower petals adrift. Perhaps today he would send something else downstream — a body as dry and light as a straw husk, from which everything had already been blown away.