Chapter 38 – The One Who Taught Him to Feel
The corridor was quiet.
Sirius hadn't meant to linger. He'd only come for a book, a brush, perhaps a little silence before returning to his room.
But then he heard it.
His mother's voice.
Muffled behind the doors of her private chamber. Sharp. Bitter.
"I carried him. I raised him. I gave everything to that child. And for what?"
A pause. Then her voice cracked—part anger, part sorrow.
"He doesn't look at me. Doesn't speak unless necessary. And now I see why... That woman. That damn phantom girl he paints over and over like she's some holy relic. Who is she to him? What did she ever do for him? It's as if... as if I never existed."
Sirius stood still.
Not a breath. Not a blink.
Inside, the Grand Duchess continued, her tone turning colder.
"She bewitched him somehow. She stole what I raised. I should've destroyed those paintings the moment I saw them. It even crushed me—knowing I gave birth to a boy who would worship a fantasy more than his own mother."
Crushed? he repeated the word silently, expression unreadable.
For a long moment, nothing moved but the flame in his eyes.
And then—
Silence.
Not around him.
But within.
Something closed.
He could feel it—the slow, final shutting of a door inside his chest.
Not with rage. Not even disappointment.
But with indifference.
Sirius did not feel pain at her words.
Not anymore.
Because the one who had truly broken through to him—the one who had reached into the pit of his monstrous, ancient soul and pulled out something warm—was not her.
It was her.
Abylay.
The girl with silver hair and laughing eyes. The one who had once kissed him beneath a tree while mocking his pride. The one who made the Demon King pause, made him wonder, made him feel—not out of weakness, but something stronger.
Love.
She was the one who taught him tenderness.
The one who made him question the thrill of killing. The one who made his hands hesitate.
Without her, there would've been no hesitation. No heart. No human body. No rebirth.
Only death. Carnage. Power.
He would've burned the world again.
He might have burned it now.
His mother's voice, her venom, had been enough to justify it. To slit her throat where she sat and reduce her bones to ash.
But then—
"Try not to kill someone… if you can help it," her voice echoed softly in his mind.
She'd whispered it once, when he was still the Demon King, his hand soaked in blood.
Back then, he laughed.
But now—
Now he understood.
He turned away from the door.
Just once, he looked over his shoulder. His expression still calm. His steps measured. But the warmth, the flicker of softness he had once reserved for his mother, was no longer there.
"She was the reason I could feel," he thought. "The reason I came back at all. And you… you speak of her like she's filth."
The decision was quiet. Cold.
And final.
"I'll let you live," he murmured under his breath, walking away. "Once."
Only once.
Because she had given him life.
Because her blood ran through his veins.
Because without her, he would never have had the chance to see Abylay again.
But that was all.
She would never again be his mother.
Not in his heart.