WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Malfoid

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Fragments of Thorns and a Cradle ◈

Chapter 24

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Content Warning: bereavement; child abuse; domestic abuse; physical violence; suicidal thoughts or self-harm.

It was very early.

The air felt bleak and sinister. Marie had not even realized someone was holding her hand.

She had been crying in a dream while held by her father. Then Agnes shook her awake.

Marie believed she was still dreaming and cried endlessly before wrapping her arms around her mother.

Agnes said nothing. She carried Marie out of the bedroom.

Her feet were cold against the corridor floor.

At the end of the endless corridor, they reached the enormous glass garden. Agnes stopped briefly and looked at it.

Marie came fully awake and looked at her mother.

Her mother seemed absent-minded, but her face was clear like glass.

Marie watched the pale face that seemed ready to vanish into the darkness and sensed someone following them with a rustle.

As she began to turn, her wrist was pulled again.

Without a word, Agnes brought her to the lakeside.

The still, green surface was as large as a reservoir.

"Marie..."

"Mother."

"My baby."

Agnes crouched and pulled Marie close.

Marie rubbed her wet eyelids and sniffled.

Agnes kissed her cheek as she always had and whispered love to her.

"From the moment you entered my womb, you bore the name of blessing. My life became complete because I loved you. It finally held meaning. It finally held value. You, you..."

"My baby. You are my treasure. And I..."

Agnes kissed Marie's forehead with an expression of pain.

She held her for a long time, then stood.

"I cannot leave you behind. I cannot watch you be ruined. I cannot let you become like me..."

"..."

"Let us go see your father."

Agnes took Marie's wrist again.

Marie stared at her mother blankly, then began following her into the lake.

"Let go of her hand!"

It was a young voice.

Before Marie could turn, a boy rushed at her and tore her away from Agnes.

His strength was too fast and powerful for Agnes to resist.

Marie fell into the muddy ground.

Endymion immediately lifted her and held her in his arms.

"She is mine."

Agnes stared at Endymion.

Marie struggled to push him away, but Endymion only held her tighter and spoke coldly.

"If you want to die, die alone."

Agnes's eyes, clear and cold as ice crystals, looked at Marie in Endymion's arms.

Marie sobbed and tried to run to her mother.

Endymion whispered so only she could hear.

"Live with me. I will cherish you."

Had Agnes heard?

She turned away.

Her unmoving feet carried her into the lake.

A pale half-moon scattered light over her thin body.

Marie sobbed and searched for traces of her mother as the lake swallowed her.

"Mama. Mama..."

Endymion held the trembling, struggling Marie and walked back along the road they had come.

Words Agnes had spoken before fleeing circled in his mind. Sharp wounds remained in his hazy memories like a paperweight, weighing heavily upon him.

Agnes died because his father betrayed her.

Because Randolph abandoned her devotion by betraying her trust.

There were two things he could not have at once. He had needed to let go of one, but Randolph betrayed Agnes's faith to obtain a legitimate heir.

But Endymion...

He stroked Marie's thin back.

They returned to the bedroom and waited for morning.

Marie developed a fever.

Endymion stayed by her bed and heard his father's screams.

The cries shaking all of San Arzok were like the shrieks of a demon being disemboweled alive.

Following Agnes's trail, Randolph reached the lake and found her body floating on the water.

He screamed madly.

His whole body convulsed as he tried to revive her. He tried to force breath into the lungs of a woman who was already dead.

He looked like a man driven beyond reason.

"Your Excellency, please come to your senses. Agnes is..."

Even when the head steward rushed in to stop him, Randolph clung to Agnes's dead body for nearly two hours.

Mad with rage, he cut the head steward who tried to restrain him.

When the steward fell clutching his bleeding throat, maids screamed and ran to Lucrezia.

The situation had become too serious for her to ignore.

She sent the wounded steward to the infirmary and ordered her knights:

"Subdue the marquess and imprison him in his bedroom."

It was not an order normally given to the marquess's knights.

But they could not leave a marquess who had lost his reason and harmed the people of the castle unchecked. And the person giving the order was the marchioness, who could act with the marquess's authority.

The knight-attendants had no choice but to subdue him.

Two died in the process. Three were gravely injured.

At last, the marquess was overpowered and confined to his bedroom.

The people of San Arzok believed then that his sanity would never return.

Lucrezia thought the same.

After having her husband bound in his bedroom, she went before Agnes's body.

The injured and imprisoned Randolph kicked the bedroom door and screamed abuse. As time passed, he began to beg Lucrezia.

"Please. Please return Agnes to me, Lucrezia. Give Agnes back to me. Agnes alone. Agnes, only Agnes..."

"..."

"She cannot live without me."

No, Randolph. You cannot live without Agnes.

Lucrezia looked away from the bedroom door, which shook as though it might break.

She stared at Agnes's body.

"Please show mercy, Marchioness."

The night before, Agnes had knelt before her and begged.

Lucrezia had looked out the window rather than at her.

She knew what mercy Agnes meant.

Death.

Agnes wanted to step into the afterlife where her husband, her dead lover, waited.

Lucrezia had looked away from the woman begging for death in a state worse than a brothel prostitute.

As long as she could remember, Agnes had always knelt at her feet asking for help.

And Lucrezia had always looked away.

She had no reason to help Agnes. Helping her would bring no benefit.

Agnes seemed to know that. Her dry lips moved.

"I will no longer be of use to you, madam. My survival will not benefit you."

It was true.

Randolph had gone completely mad.

And Lucrezia no longer needed him.

Before Agnes fled, he had demanded a divorce. When Lucrezia refused, he threatened her with her illegitimate child and intimidated her through constant conflicts with Durak.

She had endured for five years because Endymion was there. Because Endymion, who could replace a Randolph who wandered outside the castle, remained within it.

That was why she had survived for five years.

But she could endure no longer.

As Agnes had said, Agnes's survival was not beneficial to Lucrezia.

Lucrezia had no intention of divorcing Randolph.

Randolph believed that if he divorced Lucrezia, Agnes would look at him again.

That was why he searched for her and dreamed of beginning again.

If Agnes was not fit to become marchioness, he would find a respectable noble house and have her registered into it.

He even seemed to intend to visit the family home Agnes had poor relations with and demand that her name be placed in the lawful wife's family register.

He was truly ridiculous.

As always, Lucrezia found Randolph more disgusting than Agnes.

"All right."

"Thank you, madam. I will never forget this kindness."

Agnes smiled faintly.

As Lucrezia turned away, Agnes grabbed her again.

"May I ask one more thing?"

Her wet voice shook pitifully.

"If I fail to take Marie with me... please watch over her."

Agnes sobbed softly.

Lucrezia watched her for a long time. Without nodding, she turned away.

Once she left the bedroom, Agnes's miserable crying grew louder.

While Randolph was absent, Lucrezia had servants make the guards leave their posts.

"Poor thing."

It was Lucrezia's first time seeing a drowned body.

She had once seen a body with the neck and torso separated, but never someone who had drowned.

How could someone go so beautifully?

She did not know.

But Agnes was still beautiful. She did not look greatly different from how she had in life.

Her small, frail body was pitiful.

Lucrezia asked an undertaker to prepare the body and arranged a coffin.

Agnes would be laid to rest in the Gwendel family cemetery.

Even in death, she was Gwendel's woman and a person of San Arzok. It was proper.

The funeral proceeded swiftly.

Only Agnes's brother from her birth family and Lucrezia attended.

Marie, Agnes's daughter, lay ill with fever.

And Randolph...

"Agnes! Agnes!"

Outside the chapel, a man who had become gaunt as a skeleton in only a few days cried out.

He was covered in blood, as though he had killed another person.

Without frowning, Lucrezia signaled to the knights.

They hesitated, then approached him.

Randolph ground his teeth with blazing eyes.

The struggle outside the chapel continued without pause. The priest conducting the funeral watched uneasily.

Lucrezia ordered him to continue and prayed.

While Agnes's coffin was closed, Randolph cursed and screamed without stopping.

It was a miserable and futile sight.

Not long afterward, the marquess's body was found in the lake that had swallowed Agnes.

Marie opened her eyes that day.

Everything was over.

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