The Heiress's Comeback
Chapter 94: [Volume 1] - 94- Connection between us

Chapter 94: [Volume 1] Chapter 94- Connection between us

"Is the baby asleep?" Esme asked, her voice casual as she attempted to divert the conversation.

Helga looked at her with a knowing stare. "Esme!" she repeated, her tone firm.

Esme pressed on, ignoring the warning. "What are you doing here? Aron must have missed you; you two have been apart for so long."

"Esme!" Helga interrupted again, but Esme continued, clearly trying to avoid the real conversation. "You’ve been away for such a long time. Why don’t you go to sleep?"

Helga wasn’t having it. "Esme!," she said again, more forcefully this time, trying to bring her back to the topic at hand.

Esme, realizing she couldn’t dodge it any longer, sighed deeply. The lightness in her voice disappeared, replaced with something heavier, tinged with pain.

"They know about Cain."

The mention of the name made Helga freeze. "What?" she whispered, shock creeping into her voice.

Esme looked away, the seriousness of the situation finally breaking through. "They knew about Cain," she repeated, her voice quieter now, as if each word was weighted with its own burden.

Helga’s expression shifted drastically upon hearing Esme’s words. "I’m not asking what you said," Helga began, her voice strained with a mixture of confusion and concern. "I can hear you clearly. What I want to know is, what do you mean by ’they knew Cain’?"

Esme locked eyes with her, the weight of the truth evident in her gaze before she sighed heavily. "They knew about Cain—his death. And they knew about my connection to him."

Helga’s heart skipped a beat. She was stunned. Although many people knew of Cain, no one except a few close individuals understood the depth of Esme’s love for him. She remembered how joyful Esme used to be back then, how she introduced them to each other with a light in her eyes that Helga hadn’t seen in years. But Cain... he was a secret. Only a select few knew about him, and even then, they knew him under a false identity, a name that had nothing to do with his real life. Esme and Helga had made sure to keep everything about him buried. So how could these people possibly know?

Helga collected herself, taking a deep breath to regain her composure. She couldn’t afford to lose her cool now. She looked back at Esme, her expression hardening with resolve. "So what?" she asked, her voice steadier. "Even if they knew about Cain, so what? I don’t see how that’s enough of a reason for you to marry them, to live here. And to try to rebuild Aron’s group from scratch, after everything."

Esme’s face remained unreadable, but there was a flicker of something in her eyes—something Helga had never been able to fully understand.

Helga pressed on, her voice firmer. "You can’t tell me that’s all there is to it, Esme."

Esme leaned back in her chair, eyes closed as if the weight of her memories was too much to bear. "I knew fooling you was never an option," she began, her voice softer now. "Do you remember the day the Valhalla family attacked me?"

Helga’s posture stiffened. Her eyes flickered with a familiar intensity as she met Esme’s gaze. "Of course, I remember," Helga responded in a serious tone. "How could I forget that day? I thought I’d lose you."

Esme gave her a small, almost wistful smile, a hint of warmth beneath her otherwise guarded demeanor. "That day," she continued, "when I sent you away, hoping you’d escape from the office... someone came. A mysterious figure."

Helga repeated the word quietly, "Mysterious?"

"Yes," Esme nodded. "It was a man. Black hair, tall. That’s all I remember about him. But the strange part... he had a beast with him. A divine beast." She opened her eyes, watching Helga’s reaction carefully.

Helga’s face tightened, her shock evident. Divine beasts were rare, and even rarer in the hands of mer. The idea that someone involved in such dark dealings could possess one... it didn’t add up. "A divine beast?" Helga echoed, her voice barely above a whisper.

Esme nodded again. "Yes. Even through The Aron brothers have their divine beasts, but that mer... he wasn’t like them. There was something darker about him. And yet, the beast—" she hesitated, searching for the right words. "It obeyed him completely. It was like he commanded it with no effort."

Helga couldn’t hide her surprise. The connection between a divine beast and its master was sacred. It wasn’t something easily inherited, especially not through bloodshed or manipulation. And to think there was someone out there, someone tied to Cain’s death and Esme’s past, with the power to control one... it was almost unthinkable.

"Esme, are you saying this man, this... stranger, has something to do with Cain’s death?"

Esme’s lips pressed into a thin line, her expression more pained than before. "I’m not sure," she admitted. "But I do know he’s connected. Somehow, he’s part of all this. And the Aron brothers... they know more than they’re telling me."

Helga leaned forward, her voice laced with determination. "But Esme, if you want to find out who that mysterious mer was, why not start by investigating the beast? A divine beast leaves traces—marks that only a few can control. If you find out more about the beast, you might uncover who they are."

In this world, only a few ancient families had the power to command divine beasts. It wasn’t hard to tell who they were; their names were known, passed down through stories and legends. People admired and feared them in equal measure. Their power wasn’t just in controlling these creatures but in the deep, old knowledge they carried—the kind that had been passed down for generations.

Esme looked at Helga, her gaze steady and earnest. "Don’t think I didn’t try, Helga. You must remember when I sought to find your family. Thanks to your divine grace, it wasn’t difficult, and we found them."

At those words, Helga’s head dropped, the weight of the painful memory pressing down on her shoulders. She could feel the familiar ache of loss creeping back in. From her childhood to the age of nineteen, she had lived as an orphan, feeling the cold emptiness of loneliness wrap around her like a shroud. When Esme had finally tracked down her family, it had felt like a flicker of hope in the darkness.