Silas breaks out of his stupor, the image of his younger self and the woman he knew so many years ago fades and her place is Giselle who’s standing in front of him looking worried. Her hand holds his face and asks him, “Is everything ok?” she seems to be looking over his face as if looking up for any problems, sighing in relief to not see anything wrong.

“I’m all right,” Giselle frowns and he quickly reassures, “I was…thinking something that happened ages ago.”

Silas turns to his mother, who’s crouched in a lively Eira on the opposite chaise. “Who’s a pretty girl! Yes, you are!” The Martiarch of the Aethelstan clan loved children, despite her nearly murderous-looking resting face. The Aethelstan grandchildren were always terrified of their grandmother–even her voice was enough to make the second cry as a child. It wasn’t until their later years they stopped seeing their grandmother as ‘Daphne Aethelstan’ and not the someone who was killed on a battlefield in her father’s place. 

But Eira? She was clapping happily as the woman known as the “Silver Wolf” of Aethelstan.

“Mother? We have to get Giselle and Eira acquainted with the staff.” His mother frowns before turning to him, turning to Eira with a soft, smile that even sent a chill down Silas’ back. 

“Grandmere will see you later sweetie!”

Giselle is handed her daughter and she and Silas leave the room with…complex feelings.

“My mother loves children, I hope you don’t mind her.”

“Why would I? She’s her grandmother after all. Plus I think it's very cute.”

Silas stops and blinks at her.

“You that’s cute?”

Giselle stares back at him and laughs before continuing their walk down the corridor.

“Yes, I do. She looks like a mother who loves children. You probably don’t remember it, but she was probably like that with you as well.”

Silas continues beside her and thinks about her words. His nanny told him about his mother’s life before she was born, perhaps it was her way of humanizing her when had to follow in her path.

His mother became the heir to their duchy at a young age after the death of her father–her siblings were too young so it was on her to grow up and put her heir training to work. She was a beautiful rose that had many people trying to covet her, hoping for a petal, her stem, or to pull her from her roots. Because of this, at twenty-two, she married his father, the neighboring duchy’s son. 

Marriage gave protection to a young girl who–needed to take care of her siblings who were still in school. His parents didn’t love each other, he knew that. They knew what their roles were, and acted accordingly. So between them, he never saw warmth but instead in its place, respect.

His birth nearly killed his mother. She was eighteen years old by the time she became pregnant with him. She was pressured to give birth to an heir, and with great difficulty she gave birth to Silas. However, she didn’t wake for days that turned into weeks, months–it took the former saint, Angelica to heal her,  and when she woke up, her child was three months old and didn’t recognize her.

His nanny, known then as a young girl named Julia said it was the first time she saw her mistress cry. She held her child and said “Mère didn’t mean to leave you alone” and “Mère is sorry”.

“You were a very pretty child, dressed in her white gown, with her hair and eyes.  Perchance you knew she was your mother because of that you smiled and giggled at her and called her mama.”

“Even after finding out that the child she had would be her last, she’d look at me and tell me she’d protect that child with her life since the gods brought her another chance.”

He’s always been close to his mother, she was the one that taught him everything he knew even after his father died. She wasn’t a very emotional person, she wasn’t overly gentle like most mothers but she always knew when to hug him. So even if the mother he knew was cold and detached on the outside, he knew that she was a person who despite everything, was a warm person who loved her family. 

“You’re right, she was,”