I had another dream...but who was it? I was beginning to wonder if it was a figment of my imagination or if reality was blurring together...
It felt like a nightmare, but... I quickly put on the dress and used the key to go get my children.
I hurriedly searched for noise in every room, my ear pressed to every wooden door. Finally, I stopped in front of one of the doors; I didn't know why...I knew it was her. Was it maternal instinct? Or the same mechanism that guided my paintings when I was a child? I didn't know...but I thanked whoever had brought me here.
I entered calmly, disappointed that I had been such a cowardly mother. Even if I had been kept away from them, I could have tried to rebel more.
As I entered the room, I saw a crib. It was silent...complete silence. They were all probably asleep. I leaned over to see my youngest, whom I hadn't yet had the chance to meet. This one didn't look like any of the others...no, I could already tell. He had his father's face...
I was stroking him before I heard a noise next door.
Amaiera didn't look very well. His eyes were all red and swollen...
My heart broke and tears welled up in my eyes. I was so selfish for not having thought of my children...they must have suffered...and I...
I was startled by a familiar voice. A blond figure sitting on the sofa behind me put a finger to their lips and told me to be quiet so as not to wake them.
In someone's arms was Euria, sleeping peacefully; he too seemed quite sad. They were stroking his back to lull him to sleep.
"He told me he was hungry but he didn't want to eat anything."
I went to take him in my arms, tears in my eyes. He looked at me with his big green eyes...
I thanked him with a nod for taking care of my children and went to put him to bed next to his brother.
"I really like the middle one," he said, leaning over to watch him sleep.
"Euria? It must be because he's soft."
"No. He looks just like you. Not one of his features is different. As soon as I saw him, I recognized the little girl who hid behind her mother's dresses. Whenever you came to the castle, I watched you get scared of the guests. You only came to enjoy the biscuits, haha?"
My memory was hazy, but he seemed to remember it like it was yesterday. I stared into space, trying to remember, until finally he bent down to wake Euria.
"Your mommy came to give you your yummy."
He held him in his arms until he came to, but I preferred to pick him up directly to feed him. I was a little embarrassed to do this in front of him, so I used the baby's blanket to cover what seemed to bother him.
"It's natural, why hide? It's probably the most beautiful phenomenon in the world, so don't hide, I don't care."
I looked at him hesitantly, then took the shoulder of my dress off and used the baby's body to cover myself as much as possible, even though it wasn't easy. My breasts were enormous, they were so full... I was supposed to be able to feed three children with that, but I had spent most of my time in bed for the past two weeks.
"He's really adorable. If I had a child, I probably would never take my eyes off him."
"Hehe, I'm doing my best, but it's a little hard on my own. I still think they're the most beautiful children in the world... of course, that's because they're mine, but... I'm trying to take good care of them, give them a high enough sense of self-worth, and not interfere with their future."
He invited me to sit next to him on the couch, which I gladly did because I still hadn't fully recovered my energy.
"You're scared because of the prophecy... the one about Behean beheading me?"
I stared ahead, an expression of fear gripping me. I felt Euria's lips and small teeth against my nipple, my hair standing on end, and my throat tightening.
"A certain Lorea Beste...told me she'd had a vision of him perishing at the hands of a man and declared war on me. Of course, it struck me as odd. Not the vision itself, but the fact that she was the one who had it. She was too confident, too abrupt for someone I'd never heard of. Then...I had that memory of you, Ederra.Yes...I remembered you well when you used to come to the palace with your mother...but then why two Beste daughters? I quickly realized that this Lorea was an illegitimate daughter like me and that some fool had taken the liberty of giving her the status of rightful heir. So I searched for the real one this usurper had disposed of...and what do I see frolicking in the corridors of my castle..."
He ran his fingers through Euria's hair as I swallowed. He was accusing me of something, even though I had never once acted with bad thoughts... never...
"Tell me the truth, Ederra Beste. Tell me what you saw that day."
There was no way I was going to tell him...if he found out that it was actually my son...he would kill him now. I myself wasn't sure of the truth of my prophecy, so...
The door burst open violently, and Izua flew into a rage.
I quickly put away my breast and entrusted Euria to Hitzac, afraid something might happen to her.
Luckily, Hitzac had managed to hide behind the curtain, knowing full well that he mustn't be seen.
"VERMIN!"
"What gives you the right to call me that?!"
He raised his hand to slap me so loudly that the sound echoed even in the corridors. It was followed by a deathly silence broken only by the baby's cries.
"Where did you find these clothes?..."
"I'm not going to tell you."
"How did you get out?"
"I won't tell you that either."
Maids were calming the baby, and Izua was leading me back to the bedroom, probably to punish me. He made me go back into the bedroom, but away from my children, where he ripped off my pretty dress and tore it with his bare hands.
"You're just a slut, you're not a woman. A woman obeys, you're nothing, NOTHING! Not even a female dog, you're nothing!"
"No! I won't! Let me go!"
No matter how much I struggled, he always managed to grab me...he always managed to hurt me, to rape me. I think if I had to describe what made me the most unhappy, it was these punishments, and he understood that perfectly. I felt humiliated, invisible. I was no longer a person; I was just a toy that kept repeating that it hurt, but it didn't matter...because it was an object, and he deserved the pain.
It was in those moments that, even though I knew it shouldn't be, I thought it would be better if I died.
My husband...no...this man who despised me was finally getting tired of "playing" with me. He fell asleep in a good mood, as if nothing had happened. I lay numb, motionless, my face soaked with saliva, blood, and tears. The bed too...it was full of blood. It wasn't the first time I'd bled after he'd taken me aggressively, but this time there was more than usual, so I...I didn't dare move. I felt dirty, I felt exactly as he'd so aptly put it: Nothing. I was just the remnants of the girl I was supposed to be.
After a while, I tried to push myself up on my arms... The tattered white dress lay scattered on the floor at my feet...and a foul odor hung in the air...
A carnal odor, a odor of blood too...
"I'm sorry...I didn't want to go out...I was scared..."
I started to cry, my heart weak... I couldn't hold back, I felt broken. It wasn't ordinary pain, no, it was mixed with something even harder...that pressed on my chest and made it hard to breathe.
The next day, Izua came to get me while I was still lying down, my head suffocating under the blanket, my body hidden from the outside world because I was afraid...that someone would see what I had become, even if it was just a mouse or an insect.
He dragged me out, dressed me, and I left, my face blue...my nose still full of blood, a lingering metallic taste in my mouth. He sat me next to Amaiera, who couldn't stop crying. It was the first time I'd ever seen him cry, him, whom I thought was the strongest. Euria also came to me, crying her heart out. I wanted to comfort them too, but deep down, a disgust rose within me...I didn't want to touch them anymore. It was disgusting...I wasn't a good mother, I wasn't a mother at all anymore, I shouldn't touch them, I didn't want to...
I still had to hold Sola, my youngest, in my arms, whom I hadn't been able to see for two weeks.
I spent the journey staring out the window at the repetitive countryside landscape, the road making me want to vomit, and the children's breathing irritating me as they fell asleep from crying.
Izua continued reading his documents, his face closed off, his hair taut, and his gaze lowered, full of coldness.
I finally turned my head to stare at him, not admiring him personally, only the mediocrity of the situation, the chaos he had created.
In a weak, amused voice, I said with a great deal of resentment:
"Are you proud of yourself?"
"Your madness has reached new heights at the castle. At home, I could set you straight properly."
I ignored his speech as he continued to spout nonsense, putting my hands over my ears so I wouldn't hear him. He was the one driving me crazy; without him, my mind would be perfectly clear...but who knows why, sometimes I feel guilty about things I haven't done.
My daily life was returning to normal as my relationship with my children slowly improved. There were still beings I had to protect, three children who were dear to me.
I was trying to stop giving Euria milk now that he was two, but he still asked for it, so I secretly fed him along with Sola, his little brother, who was now 10 months old.
Amaiera was slowly developing a conflicted relationship with his father. Since the incident at the castle, something inside him had broken. He already had trouble with his father, but now he wouldn't even let him near him. He had developed his language skills well; now he answered him... I was afraid that the punishments would start for him too, which, of course, I would prevent if that happened.
But... since I'd been back home for the past nine months, I'd found it increasingly difficult to control my nightmares. They were becoming more and more intense, as if my visit to the palace had awakened them. I, who had only dreamt of trivial things, now saw so many things dying in my mind.
That night I woke up crying, having felt all the suffering, the pain, and the misery of the decimated fighters in green.
They carried our banner on their shoulders.