“Where are we going?” 

“Anywhere. The capital would be nice.” 

“……” 

His voice was soft and dry. Swan didn’t turn around. She felt that if she looked at him, he would get up and leave again. It was better not to face him, not to see him walk away from their shared gaze. Instead, she focused on the child. The gentle rise and fall of his chest was beautiful. 

“Have you ever been to Solam?” 

Solam was the capital where the Emperor resided. It was said to be vast. Tom had told her about it, describing it as a place where nothing was lacking – a city that was both rich and holy. Tom’s expression had been so vivid when he had mentioned buying a house there, as if he had seen it with his own eyes. 

“Swan.” 

That was all she knew of Solam. It was all she had heard. It seemed impossible for her to go there. After all, Swan was a woman who struggled just to get from the valley down to the village. He called her again, almost as if to convince her. 

“No, I haven’t been there.” 

“It’s a nice place.” 

“……” 

“You’ll like it.” 

“……” 

“The child will like it too.” 

The child will like it? Swan let go of the blanket. She looked at the baby sleeping in the blanket. 

“I hope you’ll think about it.” 

“What happens if I don’t go?” 

It was a direct question. She hadn’t intended to turn around, but when she came to her senses, she found herself facing him. Atlion glanced at the woman in front of him. Normally, women gained weight when they were pregnant, but the woman before him seemed to be the opposite.

Contrary to what he had expected, her green eyes were calm, unclouded by emotion. It was as if his own indifference had been transferred to her. Atlion watched her in silence. Just looking at her stirred emotions in him, so Swan quickly looked away.

“Well, I don’t really know. I haven’t given it much thought.”

He looked at the hands the woman had carefully placed on her lap. Her tightly clenched fists showed the tendons in her arms. Atlion looked down briefly. It wasn’t something he said in response, but because that was how he really felt. He hadn’t thought about it. Returning to Solam was something that had already been planned.

Now that the child was here, there was no need to stay. He had never really enjoyed this remote, almost wild life in the hills.

Everything Swan had offered, everything she had given him, had been a part of that.

So there was no reason to stay any longer. In fact, just to have lived this long felt like an achievement. How had he managed to carry on in this life when every day felt more exhausting?

“Think about it.”

“Maybe it’s not so bad.”

He left the words behind him and rose from his seat. As usual, he picked up his pipe and lit it. The woman didn’t move her lips until he opened the door and stepped outside.

***

The next day, Swan’s mind was filled with thoughts of “Solam”. The city, which she had never paid much attention to in her life, now filled her thoughts completely, leaving her in a daze. Even the simple tasks she had done over and over again seemed to go wrong, and it became tiring, but there was no clear conclusion.

In fact, the conclusion was probably already clear.

“Well, I haven’t really thought about it, so I don’t know.”

Her expression was indifferent. Had she really not thought about it? Or did she simply not care what happened next? Swan was inclined to believe it was the latter, but as always, she clung to a glimmer of hope only to abandon it.

If she said she wouldn’t go, it would be predictable. He would leave her behind. He had no interest in the child, so there was no chance he would change his mind or reconsider. Swan knew him well – too well, in fact, which frightened her.

No, she knew a man who didn’t love her. The terrible indifference he had. An affection so small it was almost non-existent. He wouldn’t look back. He wouldn’t come back.

Even after he’d regained his memories, he hadn’t said a word about himself. He hated life in the cabin so much that it disgusted him. Well, well…

‘Once I let him go, he won’t come back.’

The thought made Swan gasp. She feared it would be the end. Even though she knew it was inevitable, she feared he would be cold to the end. She remembered how coldly he had reacted last night. It was as if nothing mattered to him. Although she knew that she was the weaker one in any situation, she foolishly held on…

However, when it came to hunting, he was far more skilled than the hunters in the village. Tom acknowledged this. Even on the day he hunted with another man, a self-proclaimed hunter, the man caught far more animals than the supposed expert.

With his skills, it seemed he could catch a tiger with his bare hands. On the day Tom said this, the man returned to the cabin with two otters, two deer and four rabbits.

Although he had secretly hoped the man would bring back leather for winter boots, after receiving gold coins from the craftsman who had worked on the pelts, the man sold everything instead.

It was still a positive outcome. It benefited the cabin. The man took over Swan’s duties, as her pregnancy had prevented her from gathering herbs. In the end, his income from hunting was greater. Perhaps the villagers preferred leather to herbs.

Instead of selling the furs through Tom, he went down to the village himself and became a trader.

What was she afraid of? Her eyes, wet with tears, trembled. The baby’s nappy she had been fiddling with slipped from her hands and fell to the floor. She wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand. She realised she couldn’t let him go. But if that was the case, then she had to go.

Could she go? She lifted her head. The man who had left early to check the traps in the forest returned with a dead animal slung over his shoulder. Swan watched him with tearful eyes. He was a man with no talent for most things.

“Did Tom come by?” 

“No.” 

“Did you make the stew yourself?” 

He saw signs of a fire in the kitchen and turned to look at her. Despite the clear traces of tears on her face, she said nothing. Swan lowered her head, her chin trembling. 

“Yes.” 

The man let the animal he was carrying over his shoulder fall to the ground with a heavy thud. Swan looked at him with dull eyes before she burst into tears again. Her thin sobs shook the cabin. Sporadic sniffles filled the room as Atlion walked over to her. 

“Swan.” 

She didn’t answer. Swan kept her head down, biting her lip. Atlion knelt before her. His hand came to rest on her shoulder. Swan, heaving quietly on her own, finally raised her head. 

“Did the women buy it?”

Her eyes darted nervously back and forth. She tightened her eyelids to stop the trembling of her lashes. Some of the animals he caught ended up with the women at the market rather than the leatherworkers. This was the case when arrowheads had damaged the hide or the pelt was uneven.

From the start, leatherworkers who supplied goods to the nobility wouldn’t accept hides with such defects. The remaining skins were sent to the village market. There were those among the village women who would buy all his goods and then offer him a subtle smile.

“No.”

“Did the women come with you?”

“No.”

Swan couldn’t bring herself to say more. She didn’t nod, but kept her eyes on his pale, slightly bluish chin. Her eyes fell to his long arms, exposed beneath the rolled-up sleeves. The taut veins and firm muscles were unmistakable. She knew exactly how women looked at those arms – or rather, how they looked at him.

She understood the thoughts behind their purchases, the reason why a man who left at noon could return in less than an hour. Swan bit down on her lip, fighting to suppress the waves of emotion that were surging through her.

She imagined the day he would leave the cabin and never return. A day when he would be the husband of another woman, the father of another child. A day when he wouldn’t even remember how to get back, let alone remember to look for Swan.

The man, who had been kneeling on one knee, stood up. Swan, who had been about to respond to his suggestion that they leave the cabin together, clamped her lips shut. She had expected him to bring it up again that night, but days passed and he remained silent.

Maybe he was intentionally stretching out the wait, giving her time to think. However, whatever his intentions were, the moment of decision arrived far sooner than she had anticipated.

***

His gaze was keen, almost predatory. The sidelong glance he cast downward carried a trace of arrogance. One of the men briefly glanced at Swan before letting his cold, calculating eyes roam the interior of the cabin, meticulously inspecting the furnishings and betraying a single, unmistakable emotion.

‘Contempt.’

It was the same look riders cast at those who stood beneath the heads of their horses – nothing surprising. But as the man’s eyes settled on her, Swan felt a jarring sense of familiarity.

That cold, unfeeling face. Even now, as her body bore the traces of his seed and a newborn, flushed and struggling for breath, clung to life, his expression remained utterly detached—sharp and indifferent, like the edge of a blade.

“Where is His Majesty…?” 

A young knight, his face tense with excitement, pushed his way past the men standing guard at the narrow doorway. The two middle-aged knights in front of Swan frowned deeply at his abrupt intrusion, their expressions a silent rebuke for his lack of decorum. 

The young knight with the unruly golden hair ignored them. Instead, he turned his sharp, accusing gaze on Swan, his eyes glittering with menace. 

Under the weight of his gaze, Swan instinctively tightened her grip on the child, pulling it closer to her chest. A feverish heat rose to her eyelids as a cold shiver ran through her. Her lips parted slightly, but she quickly bit down, silencing any words.