Chapter 444: A solution_Part 2
Belle kept holding her hand until her sobs subsided, understanding the vampiress carried deep fears. "What if this one becomes different?" she asked, handing a handkerchief to her friend to wipe her tears.
Evenly took the handkerchief and said, "I always had that thought during those four times. I don’t want to put my hopes in this one or even tell Rav about it." She stopped wiping her eyes and added in a panicked voice, "Can you promise me he won’t hear about this? Men don’t take it lightly when a woman carries their child and then loses it..."
Rav was already acting distant, behaving like a man giving her the cold shoulder about their marriage and relationship. It would be best to keep the pregnancy to herself. He didn’t have to know, not until she lost it. Because no matter how confident she was that he wasn’t like Josh, there was still that part of her that feared he might turn out the same. Her pregnancy had been the very reason she had seen Josh’s true colors.
"At what stage do you usually miscarry?" Belle asked gently instead of promising not to tell Rav.
Evenly clenched the handkerchief tightly in her fists as she replied, "It always happens at the same stage, my second month. And if I’m right about the time Rav and I did it..." She blushed and muttered, "Then I’m in the second month of this one as well."
Belle stared at her friend, knowing how the past experiences left little room for hope. Then she said, "Then we’ll just have to wait and see the outcome. You shouldn’t stress yourself so much anymore. Rohan will bring a few maids to take over the castle work tomorrow. Our journey has been postponed, and he doesn’t want me doing too much in my condition. You’re also not in the condition to do that work anymore."
Evenly nodded. Though she usually didn’t mind the work in the castle, it had become exhausting lately. Rav no longer worked beside her, and Belle grew tired so easily that she often had to stop and take naps between tasks, leaving most of the work to her. For a noblewoman turned into a nobody, it wasn’t easy. Hearing that she wouldn’t have to do it anymore was reassuring enough to make her sigh and give Belle’s hand a gentle squeeze.
"You can’t keep it from Rav, Evenly. He has the right to know," Belle advised after a moment of silence, her heart tightening at the thought that if Rav was to become a father again, he wouldn’t live to welcome his child into the world.
For days now, she had lived with that dreadful thought of his death. It did nothing to ease her heart, even now, knowing he would be a father.
That night, after leaving Evenly, Belle went to meet her husband in his study, where he was going through some documents while their son lay on the couch with a storybook filled with drawings open in front of him, his little eyes scanning the pages with interest.
When she entered the room, both father and son looked up at her at once. Angel gave her a quick smile before turning his attention back to the book, while Rohan set the documents aside and watched as she dragged a chair closer to his. But before she could sit, he pulled her gently onto his lap instead.
Belle gasped, glancing at their son and then back at him. "Angel is here. You shouldn’t be doing this," she scolded, trying to get up, but he pinned her down with his arms around her waist.
"Tsk, so what if our son is here?" Rohan teased with a grin. "Let him see me cherishing his mother and kissing her. It will teach him to do the same to any woman fortunate enough to be his wife in the future." He leaned forward and kissed her but didn’t deepen it, sensing the weight of the worries in her heart, and knew she had come here to share them with him.
Angel didn’t even turn their way, too absorbed in his book to care what his parents were doing behind him.
Rohan moved back from the kiss and raised his hand to her face, tucking stray strands of blonde hair behind her ear. "What’s bothering you?" he asked.
Belle pursed her lips and leaned in to tell him, "Rav is going to be a father, and I want to stop his death from happening." It was the decision she’d made on her way here.
Rohan’s eyes narrowed immediately. "You don’t plan on risking your life, do you?" His displeasure was clear in his voice. No matter how much he cared about Rav or think him as a family, Belle came first in everything, over everyone.
"No," Belle said, moving away from his lap and standing. She opened her palm, and a transparent scroll appeared in her hand. "Are you done with these documents? I need your desk," she said. Rohan simply swept the documents onto the floor with his hand, clearing the desk for her without missing a beat.
Belle was startled by his action but shook her head and laid the scroll on the desk, opening it. It was so big it covered all the space.
"Kuhn and I went through this yesterday. It carries the laws of death and the rules," Belle explained, pointing at the words written in the language of death. Since Rohan had been given life after death by her before, he understood it, though not as clear as any dead person as he hadn’t crossed the river before she returned him back to life many years ago.
The scroll spoke of how life and death were intertwined, and how every person was given the date of their death the moment they were born. Each individual’s time and date were recorded in a book kept in the elders’ top chamber. Without that record, tracking a living person became as difficult as searching for a needle lost amid a haystack, for there were far too many people in the world to trace one by one.
Although Rohan read those words carefully, he still didn’t fully understand how Belle planned to save Rav, so he waited for her to explain.
"As much as death cannot be cheated, it can be manipulated by a reaper," Belle said. "I might not have my old form anymore, but I still possess the ability to move between the land of the dead and the world of the living."
Rohan’s frown deepened as he glanced from the scroll to her. "How are you going to stop his death?"
"It won’t be easy," she admitted. "To save his soul, I’ll have to enter the land of the dead on the day I’m meant to take it. Rav will have to die for a few hours. His death will be recorded the moment his soul leaves his body, but once I enter the land of the dead, I can cancel his name from the record and return his soul to him. That way, neither the elders nor the other reapers will be able to find or track him. I did it once before, as Astral, to save a boy, but I never truly believed it worked, until now. That boy was never listed again among the souls I was meant to take now because I spared him."
Rohan listened carefully, but the more he heard, the more he disliked the idea. It was dangerous. It could go wrong and she could get trapped there once caught trying to cancel Rav’s name from the record.
"If I’d known it worked this way, I would have done it for you years ago," Belle finished quietly. "I only realized now, after reading the scroll, that the record is the only way they track dying souls."
Rohan’s jaw tightened. "Is there a chance you could get stuck there again?" he asked, and his question made her pause.
Belle’s hand went instinctively to her stomach as she slowly sat on the chair she had dragged forward beside his.
"Our baby..." she murmured. "I can’t go while I’m pregnant, because while my presence might blend in with every dead soul, the baby’s would make it impossible." She had almost forgotten for a moment that she was pregnant until Rohan’s question brought it back.
Still, she did not let her determination to save Rav waver. "There is another way. I can postpone his death until after I give birth to this baby."
Rohan frowned. "How are you going to do that?"
Belle explained the method she would use to delay Rav’s time. "I will have to take back ten souls from my list earlier than their appointed time each time I turn the hands of his clock forward. But I must make sure the list never runs out before I give birth, or I won’t be able to postpone his time any further."
Rohan reached out, clasped her hand in his warm ones, then tugged her back onto his lap, wrapping his arm around her waist. His palm rested over her little bump. "As long as it’s what you want to do and it won’t hurt you, I will be there to support and help," he said tenderly. "When shall we leave to take the souls and turn his time forward?"
"We have to do it tonight, so he can feel well enough by tomorrow. I don’t want him to miss the good news about his child. His support will help Evenly in this moment."