211- The Weight of Mercy
POV Aldren Valmorin:
Seated beside Korlina, I watched her rise with difficulty and, in a surge of rage, strike my face with a slap before breaking down in tears.
I felt the burn of her palm and every finger with nausea, as if bacteria were corroding the patch of skin she had hit. In my throat, an unbearable bitterness that would not fade, no matter how many times I swallowed.
Under any other circumstances, my beast would have taken control and Korlina would now be a lifeless old woman.
But there, she had the right.
Beyond being my alpha, she treated me like a son. Motherless, I received her care when I needed it most.
And my repayment?
A life sentence for her grandson.
The frail lady, wearing a long beige linen dress, raised her arm to strike me again, but I sprang up from the upholstery and firmly grasped her lifted wrist.
“Enough, Korlina.”
With her free hand, she began to slap my chest. Tears streamed down the deep wrinkles of her face.
“Damn you! Ungrateful!” she screamed, her eyes soaked in raw pain. “I worried about my Kehin, and now I find out he’s imprisoned! You didn’t let me see him! You didn’t come to me! Damn you!”
I told her that Kehin had betrayed me twice, but I concealed our conversations in which he admitted he had been acting behind my back for much longer. She had few years left to live; I did not want to tarnish the image she held of her own grandson.
If I told her, perhaps she would hasten her death from sheer grief. Like me, she saw him as an honorable wolf, the only one who could succeed me.
“Any other wolf would have been punished with death.”
Giving me one last shove, she glared at me, her face twisted with discontent.
“What are you saying? That you’re a benefactor because you sent him to life imprisonment instead of killing him? Then kill him! My Kehin is suffering far more with those filthy elders!”
“KORLINA!” I roared her name, demanding respect for the figures I regarded as my parents.
“You want me to love those who decimated my family in Romania, Aldren?”
“Silence, Korlina! Do not make me regret having spared you.” I released her wrist roughly, and she clutched it, rubbing it until the mark faded.
When she looked at me again, all I saw was pain.
“If no guard…” she stammered, sobbing through tears, “…had seen what my grandson did… would you still have imprisoned him?”
“Yes,” I answered firmly, swallowing the bile in my throat.
“Why, Aldren? Why?” She shook her head, inconsolable.
“Laws exist because we are beings who need them to shape our characters, Korlina. Kehin betrayed me and revealed his own. If I hadn’t arrived in time, he would have risked letting the spy escape out of sheer whim. Betraying me was his choice; punishing him is my duty.”
For a few moments, the lady closed her eyes and brought her hands to her face, weeping profusely. I would have embraced her if I could, but I could not—nor did I believe she would want my arms around her.
“The fault is mine,” she murmured.
“Don’t blame yourself, Korlina. You raised him well.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
A silence settled in. What, then, was she talking about?
Drawing air into her lungs as if seeking an end to her tears, she wiped the droplets from her face and looked at me, her gray eyebrows drooping.
“Let me at least visit him, Aldren.”
“You know it’s forbidden, don’t you?”
She nodded, her chin trembling, the slack skin of her face quivering.
“Even so, I ask that I may see him one last time before I die.” I turned my gaze away from her to the potted plants on the wall beside the door. “Please, my son…”
I ground my teeth when I heard her call me by the affectionate term she had always used.
“You understand what your grandson did, and that I will not free him, correct?” I fixed my eyes on her, clenching my fists.
“I understand…”
“I will ask the elders for authorization, and one of my guards will take you if permission is granted.” The truth was that I did not need to ask the elders anything; it would be enough to send them a letter requesting the visit, and they would accept it for my sake.
Her response was to throw her body against mine, embracing me. Short, her face pressed against my abdomen, dissolving into fresh tears.
Clenching my teeth, I fought against the desolation that struck me. I had surrounded myself with traitors.
I lost what I thought was a brother.
I wounded my adoptive grandmother near death.
I dishonored my own promise not to give in to the lust of other lips.
My beast fell silent, and my failure became complete.
It seemed too much to bear, but there was still one other difficult thing left for me to do before the sun rose on the horizon.