webnovelfull Chapter 391 --391
Chapter 391 --391
"Before him, my life was a living hell," she said. "I woke before dawn every single day. Two kilometers on foot just to fetch food. Eighty liters of water hauled on my head and waist until my neck and back gave out in chronic pain. I was beaten regularly by the servant woman who had originally found me. The old master watched me with filthy eyes, and his mistress tried to have me killed out of jealousy. I survived purely because I refused to do otherwise."
The grandmother closed her eyes. A single tear escaped, tracking down her wrinkled cheek as the image settled — her aristocratic granddaughter, scrubbing floors and hauling water in a provincial backwater.
"But after I married him," Heena continued, and something genuine, quiet, and undeniable threaded into her voice. "I lived well. He fulfilled every demand I made, no matter how unreasonable. He protected me. He came all this way into the capital — into this den of vipers — to stand beside me, when he could have easily lived a safe, peaceful life without the trouble."
The grandmother opened her eyes. The sorrow in them was crystallizing rapidly into something cold and murderous.
"How did you fall from that cliff, Seera?" the matriarch asked, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Was it truly your mother?"
Heena’s smile was hollow and entirely without warmth. "Who else could it be, Grandma?"
The grandmother leaned heavily on her cane, her gaze turning inward. "Your mother was always... different. Cold. Calculating. Detached in a way I could never quite name. She was never the daughter-in-law I wanted for my son, yet I tolerated her for the sake of the family’s peace. I gave her everything she asked for. When you were born, I thought — even if she is indifferent to everyone else, surely she will love her own child. I never, in my darkest imaginings, thought her capable of killing you."
The wood of her cane groaned faintly under her grip. Her eyes returned to Heena, burning with confusion and fury. "But for what reason? What could possibly drive a mother to murder her own child?"
Heena tilted her head back and laughed. It was a sharp, beautiful, entirely dark sound that rang off the cold stone walls. She lifted one hand, elegantly dabbing a fictional tear of mirth from the corner of her eye.
"Because I had found out the truth, Grandma," she said, her eyes completely devoid of light. "I discovered what Kavien truly was. Every last rotten secret he had been hiding. So my dear Mama pushed me off that cliff to silence me and protect her favorite parasite."
The grandmother’s breath hitched violently.
She stared at Heena as the full, abhorrent weight of it landed. To murder the golden bloodline of the Marquisate — the true heir — simply to protect the secrets of an adopted stray.
The hands that had held absolute power over the capital for half a century began, visibly, to tremble.
The grandmother’s fist clenched at her side, her knuckles white, a fine tremor running through her aged hand. "That wild woman," she breathed, her voice low and murderous. "I will kill her."
Heena looked at her for a long moment, then exhaled a soft, quiet sigh.
"Grandma," she said gently. "Do you really think it is all that simple?"
The old woman paused. Her burning eyes shifted to Heena’s face.
"Think about it," Heena continued, her voice calm and measured. "Does it make sense to you — genuinely make sense — that a mother would kill her only child simply to protect an adopted stranger? Even setting aside a mother’s love entirely, let us be coldly rational about it." She tilted her head slightly. "If Kavien was stealing from the household coffers and I had discovered it, what would any reasonable person do first? Beat him. Punish him. Throw him out of the gates. And even in the absolute worst case — even if my mother for some incomprehensible reason wanted to shield him — the simplest solution would have been to threaten me into silence. Bribe me. Lock me away. There were a dozen options available to her before murder ever entered the equation." Heena’s gaze was steady and pitilessly clear. "What kind of person kills their own daughter over that?"
The grandmother did not answer. Her eyes drifted slowly toward the koi pond, watching the fish glide in long, unhurried arcs beneath the dark water. But the question was already turning behind her gaze, restless and relentless.
Heena pressed forward, her voice softening but losing none of its precision. "Grandma. I know that in this era, a daughter is not considered something to be proud of. I understand that. But I was the only marked heir of this family. The only one. There is no rational person — no matter how greedy or threatened — who would eliminate the sole bloodline heir of a Marquisate simply because they feared her inheritance. It is nonsense. It gains nothing. It destroys everything." She paused. "Which means the reason behind what was done to me runs far deeper than a stolen ledger and a protected parasite."
The silence stretched.
The grandmother’s fist tightened again. She exhaled — a long, heavy sound, like something old and brittle finally giving way. "So what is it that you want, child?"
Heena looked at her grandmother and smiled. Not the practiced, performative smile she had worn all morning. Something quieter than that. "Nothing extravagant," she said. "I only want to understand why. And how." Her eyes sharpened. "Because Grandma — my birth was hidden remarkably well. Far too well for one woman working alone. My mother is many things, but she is not that proficient. And I do not believe she is the only one who wanted me gone." She let the words settle before delivering the final line with absolute composure. "How many people stand to benefit from this Marquisate suddenly losing its heir?"
The grandmother was quiet for a long moment. Then, without a word, she moved to the stone table and lowered herself onto it slowly, as though the weight of the conversation had become physical. Heena sat beside her.
"I do not know everything," the old woman finally said, her voice stripped of its earlier fury, leaving only something tired and grieving beneath. "After you disappeared, I tried. I searched. But whatever trail existed had been buried cleanly — far too cleanly for my resources alone to uncover. I had my suspicions about your mother, but suspicion without proof is nothing in a house like this. And I still needed to find you." She was quiet for a moment. Then she turned, and this time when she looked at Heena, a trace of warmth had crept back into her ancient eyes — fragile and aching, like an ember refusing to die. "Seera. My baby girl. Your grandma wanted to keep you safe in the palm of her hand."
She turned back to the bare cherry blossom tree, her gaze distant. "But this old woman does not have many years left. Your grandfather is away from the capital now, but he will return soon. Even so—" her voice carried a quiet, resigned weight, "—the two of us are not long for this world. And the one we raised to carry this family forward..." She let out a short, humorless breath. "He is not without his uses. But he is a fool. A thorough one. He would not notice if his own wife sold him out from under his feet one day."