Chapter 377: Will Things Change?

That childlike voice broke Arian's heart. Just one word. The only word that an almost two-year-old child could say. "Mom."His father did not even hesitate to grab him by the neck, it was with pure intention to kill.

Then the voice came—low, tight, filled with something sharp and rotten.

"Why were you born?" it asked.

The child flinched. His eyes widened in response. He could barely understand anything, but one thing he understood was that he was in danger.

His father pressed harder and even lifted him off the ground, left to dangle in the air.

The voice continued, hoping each word he uttered would hurt like a dagger to the heart. "Was it just to shame me? Just to take everything precious away?"

The child could not even wail. He was gasping for breath. He did not listen to what this man was saying, nor could he understand it... After all, he was just a child.

He only recently learnt to talk.

Anger. Blame. That was only what he understood.

"You were born wrong," the figure went on. "A half-wolf. A mistake. Do you know how humiliating that is?"

Half-wolf... Humiliation? A mistake. He concluded. Children were fast learners.

"First," the voice said, colder now, "you took my honour. My pride by being born like this."

A pause. The air seemed to tighten.

"Then you took the love of my life."

The child's lower lip trembled. His hands curled, hoping to pry his father's hands off.

"And third," the figure said, leaning closer, its shadow swallowing the small body whole, "you will come for my title. My land. My future. My heir? Hah, I refuse to let you take away one more thing from me."

The words washed over the child like a storm he couldn't escape. He didn't understand the title. Or property. Or heir. He barely understood himself.

But he understood this: whatever he was, it was bad.

His chest hurt. His throat closed. He opened his mouth to cry, but no sound came out. Tears spilt silently down his cheeks, his small body shaking as he tried—and failed—to be quiet.

He had already learned this much: crying too loudly only made things worse.

"She is not here to shield you anymore. I don't intend to ever." He let go of the child, making him fall to the ground with a loud thud, it was easily a three-foot drop. But he could not feel the pain, only the relief that he could breathe again.

"Twenty months... You killed her in twenty months! It is your fault. Remember that. Whatever happens to you from now on. It's your fault."

The child remained where he was, crying without sound, staring out at a funeral he did not fully understand—mourning someone he would later realise he was never allowed to grieve.

So this was... Him.

Live as if you were dead.

That sentence followed him everywhere.

It was spoken plainly, without cruelty in the voice, it was stated as a fact.

The only person who had ever loved him was gone. He did not yet have the words for death, but he understood absence. He understood that her footsteps would never return to the hallway, that her voice would never call his name again, that the warmth he used to press himself into at night no longer existed.

He was alone.

There were servants, guards, distant relatives—but alone in the way that mattered. Surrounded, yet alone.

They dragged him out of that room one morning. He did not know where they took the things inside it. The bed was gone. The curtains. The small stool she used to sit on while brushing his hair. Even the smell disappeared. It was as if she had never lived there. As if loving him had been erased.

He started to learn.

No one came to tuck him in. He lay awake the first night, staring at the ceiling until his eyes burned. The second night, he cried into the pillow until exhaustion won. By the third, he did not cry anymore. He learned how to sleep alone.

He learned how to brush his own hair. He pulled too hard at first. It hurt. No one corrected him.

He learned how to tie his shoes by watching the servants from a distance. When he failed, he went barefoot.

He learned how to eat without complaining.

The food was different.

Nothing tasted like what she used to make. He remembered carrots—how he hated them, how she would smile and insist anyway, how she would sit with him until he finished. He ate carrots now without resistance. There was no one to insist. There was no one to care.

One day, they served him something red and steaming.

He took one bite and froze.

It burned. Not just his mouth—his throat, his chest, his eyes. His breath hitched.

"I— I can't," he whispered. "It burns."

The woman standing nearby did not even look at him."Eat it or starve. I don't care."

She left.

The bowl sat in front of him. His hands shook. His stomach hurt. He remembered being told not to waste food. He remembered her voice telling him to be good.

So he ate.

He cried as he chewed. Silent tears fell into the bowl. His tongue felt like it was on fire. He choked it down, bite after bite, until he couldn't take it anymore.

He ran to wash his mouth out with water.

And there, hunched over the basin, shaking and gasping, he learned something else.

No one was coming.

He wiped his own tears with the back of his hand. He pressed his lips together until the sobs stopped. He stood up straight. No one would wipe his tears for him anymore.

Arian was shaking, seeing his past, he wondered, was this the life he lived?

"This is the new Madam, and this is her son." His father introduced his new stepmother and Julius.

The child looked at them with some hope. Were things going to change? He could will himself to forget everything that had happened till now. He would not blame his father... Because Mother left them, things had been tense. But things will change, right?