"I hate you! I want you to die! Die with me! Don't leave me alone!!"
"Stop yelling, you'll scare the children!"
I hit him and curled up against the bed, my tears slowly draining me of my life force as they left my eyes.
He tried to gain my trust by moving closer, but I remained terrified and more broken with each step he took.
"I'm like this because you abandoned me...I'm like this because of you...it's not fair...you were just as guilty as I was..."
"What are you talking about? Just lie down...you'll hurt yourself."
He grabbed my arm, which was too much for me, pulling his arm back before saying very aggressively:
"Don't you dare touch me, Behean. Not after what you did to me."
Izua frowned, observing his scratched arm under the orange candlelight. He could have lashed out at me, but he did nothing, just leaving the room with many questions he kept to himself, letting my fever and delirium subside with it.
I remember arriving exhausted, still in the icy corner, sitting in the small nook between the bed and the nightstand, hiding from my nightmares as well as from reality. I wanted to run away, more and more, the thought intensifying in my head. It swirled and worsened my fever, giving me the repugnant urge to give up on everything
I wanted to stay with my children, to stay with my joys as well as my sorrows, but the more time passed, the more this dark bile gained ground. Soon my mind was nothing more than a fleeting burden from which I had to separate myself as soon as I closed my eyes. Gently... ever more gently, like a path of peace being dug, I saw there a feeling of well-being, a warm bed whispering to me to surrender to it. It was warm and luminous, cradling my greatest pains and transforming them into an insolent temptation: "If you die, you will suffer no more...if you die, you can erase your story, your mistakes, everything you have lost will disappear forever, they will no longer be a void, and your love can bloom again because it will never have belonged to that man."
I woke up, suffocating, my hands around my neck. It was still dark...but a day had passed because the room was clean and so was my body, it smelled good.
I slowly caught my breath because my throat was congested, only able to draw in a trickle of air rippling in my inflamed bowels.
I remembered everything I had done, the foolish things I had said
As always after my blackouts, I remembered and sank down because of what I'd said.
"I don't know...the details of the story...I wasn't there for most of what happened...but...you're free to ask me whatever you want after what happened yesterday..."
"I don't care. I have more important things to do..."
"If you want to know my story, ask me now because I don't know if I'll be here tomorrow..."
He remained silent all day. Luckily, my children came to take care of me. They chatted with me and fed me because I had no strength left.
"Mom, when will you be better?"
"I don't know. Maybe tomorrow, who knows?
I hope I can go play with you soon."
I said to Amaiera, who was already all dressed up to go play in the snow
While my eldest was robust, ready to brave anything to go on an adventure, Euria had a harder time. What made me happy was that he wasn't quite like me. He had an older brother who took him everywhere he went.
It allowed him to face his fears and become stronger than I once was.
I was fragile, fearful; I regret not having used those years of confinement to go out and discover village festivals, to talk and eat with other people.
Seeing the three of them, I told myself that they could count on each other and that, deep down, I wouldn't be sorely missed...
While they were all gone, Izua came to check on me and clear away the toys they had left lying around me.
"Sweetheart... I'd like you to give her this... it's..."
"What is it?" Izua asked, taking the folded paper in the palm of her hand, staring at my pale face, the purple circles under my eyes, and my lips whitened with fatigue.
"The location of the Beste seal. I'm the only one who knows where it is. That's all I'm asking of you..."
He frowned, but I closed his hand, taking it in mine, using my last bit of strength hoping I could get him to help me.
He didn't understand, and I knew he wouldn't do it properly unless I told him the whole truth. I waited until he sat down in the chair to tell him what I knew...
The death of my parents, the seal I'd hidden when I was 11, what Lorea had told me to do, how I'd ended up marrying him off, what I'd recently seen in a dream, and Lorea's current position in society...without the seal. I tried not to talk too much about Behean, but I had to...only I was afraid he'd suspect Amaiera
"If I die, Lorea will be the sole heir of the Beste family...she removed me from political life with this marriage, but she was never able to use my name. If I want to keep this family alive, it needs the seal."
He opened the paper hesitantly, raising his eyebrows at where it was hidden, how ridiculous it was, and yet so difficult to find because no one had yet cracked this secret. I smiled and, sadly and ironically, said in a small voice:
"Yes, it's hidden in my teddy bear..."
"...ah..."
He stood up with the weight of my words on his shoulders, knowing now that this small scrap of paper, as light as a feather, was actually so heavy that he had trouble keeping it on him.
He was about to take it out, unsure of carrying out my last wishes. I saw him come back to me a few seconds later and hand me the slip of paper.
"Write her a letter, give her a lecture, and don't give it to her too easily. I'll keep the seal safe and tell her she must repent..."
There was a long moment of silence after that as we looked into each other's eyes. That spark that had died in the 13-year-old girl I was had never reappeared; another had been born from its ashes, one brighter but also gentler, who had become aware of others through suffering, had won little and lost often, balancing her sadness with the little happiness she had.
I was writing my instructions in more detail to make things easier for him when I was no longer there. He was reading carefully; the questions were, of course, open-ended. I expected the first thing he would ask to be:
"This man... Behean... is he..."
"It's the Duke of Odola. You need to go see the Duke. Lorea probably won't let you in, so ask to see the Duke. Tell him it's for Lorea, don't mention me, he won't read it..."
"You don't just meet a Duke like that... it might be a difficult task."
I clutched the duvet in my hands as I continued writing. This action was likely to take place in several weeks, maybe months...if I wasn't there to remind him of the details, he would forget.
"Tell him you're a merchant from the South, that you've come about a painting. Behean likes art, he'll let you in. When you get there...you'll have to pretend you're lost, say you were Lorea's guest, that you were being escorted but the maid had to leave. This time you can reveal your title. Tell him...I'm dead...and tell him you're bringing him my last wishes, in a way...then go home. You mustn't linger there, meeting the duke will ruin the plan."
He put his hand to his head, sighing deeply before looking at me wearily.
"How can you be thinking about this right now? Aren't you exhausted?"
"I am..."
He took the paper and pen away from me, letting my head fall into my pillow as it began to rain heavily outside.
It was time to rest now that he was going to bring the children inside, seeing the snow that was starting to fall.
Tonight... was shaping up to be the worst night of my life... very likely... the last.
It was very cold, more so for me than for the other activities; the last vestiges of fever were carrying me off with exhaustion. I didn't want to fall asleep; I fought as hard as I could not to close my eyes because deep down I suspected that I wouldn't be able to wake up so easily after this.
"I...feel...bad...."
Everything was black around me, the noises in the house rumbled in my ears, and no air entered my body
I tried to scream but nothing came out, when I tried to wave my arms nothing moved.
Even my eyes...was I going completely blind...?
I really...really felt like throwing up.
I was panicking so much.
"Ederra! Ederra, wake up!"
I felt hands pressing hard on my shoulders and squeezing my chest to make me cough.
The doctor had to put his hand in my mouth to make me vomit, and then I could finally breathe after coughing up the contents of my lungs.
Hands were supporting me so I wouldn't choke as I painfully coughed up everything that was stuck in my throat...
His arms were cold, even frozen, and it wasn't long before I heard the little ones crying and running towards me before I was fully awake...
"Who are you..."