Clard pulled the blanket over his head, pressing down on the darkened shadows under his eyes.

It was because of the uninvited guest who had barged in since morning.

A cheerful voice poured over his turned back.

“The circles under your eyes are completely dark. Did you have a nightmare?”

Yes. I had one.

A damned nightmare.

Clard showed his back more deeply, running his fingers through his messy blonde hair.

“This won’t do. You knew I was visiting today.”

“Get lost.”

The blanket that would have allowed him even a short nap was snatched away at once.

Clard, who had been frowning with his eyes closed, suddenly opened them wide.

“……Lancelot Lev.”

“What, Clard Yufris. What’s with calling someone over and then acting like this?”

Lancelot, the second son of Viscount Lev and Clard’s cousin, smirked with his characteristic sly expression.

Clard glared at Lancelot with irritated eyes.

He usually thought about punching that smooth face once, but seeing it now, sleep-deprived from nightmares all night, made him want to punch it two or three more times.

“I didn’t call you. Don’t come and go as you please without permission.”

“You should have known Eddie would send me if you got a new wife. I’m always cleaning up after you.”

Lancelot rolled up the blanket he had snatched from Clard, tossed it onto the chaise lounge, and half-lay down on it.

With his long arms folded behind his head, Lancelot explained, recalling his memory.

“Father’s reaction is not good at all. He says she looks weaker than your eighth wife. Not to mention Eddie.”

“What are you going to do if the reaction is not good?”

As always, a cold response.

Lancelot shrugged, as if used to Clard’s sensitive attitude.

“They suggested looking for the tenth ex-imperial consort from our Viscount Lev family, your mother’s side, instead of the imperial family. So I came to ask your opinion, but what’s this? Your ninth wife is still here in the mansion?”

“Nonsense about a wife.”

Clard murmured coldly as he got up and sat in the rocking chair.

His cousin, who had been watching his movements that showed no will to live, sparkled his eyes.

“Besides, I peeked through the door crack and saw she’s a stunning beauty? How should I interpret this?”

“I just didn’t want to see anyone die in my house. I only saved someone who was about to die and put her away in some corner. I’ll send her away soon.”

“What? That’s a waste. I should have tried to seduce her before she fell for you.”

Lancelot smiled deeply enough to form a dimple on one side, drawling as if gauging the reaction, and Clard, who had his eyes closed, smirked.

“What a waste. You can have her. A woman like a sick crow.”

“Really?”

Lancelot raised his eyebrows and then smiled brightly.

“Then shall I?”

“She’ll die before that.”

“……”

“She’ll die. Again. In my house.”

“But she’s still alive. Not running away either. The servants seem a bit excited to have real work to do after a long time. Though Eddie is worried sick.”

Lancelot shuddered, remembering how sensitive his elder brother became just by hearing the news that Clard had brought a woman into his house.

Clard snorted.

“Who is he to worry about others?”

“The woman there now, she’s the younger sister, right? The younger sister of your eighth wife. A living sacrifice offered to you after her dead sister. Can she be here with good intentions? Unlike her sister, it seems the Peliesse family didn’t want to send the younger one. They readily sent the elder sister, but this time they made a fuss about not sending her and even lied. Eddie has reason to worry.”

“Then tell them to take her away, please.”

“I hear her family is grinding their teeth, waiting for any chance to take her back. Aren’t they all out of sync? The imperial family is desperate to get a woman to stick with you. Their pawn, Gerret Peliesse, is making a fuss about not sending her… Well, truthfully, a family like the Peliesse counts could have made quite a good match in the capital. How much your wife must have hated marrying you. What could she expect from you, who treats even your b*tch friends like this?”

It was a blunt criticism of Clard, who was just rocking in the chair with his eyes closed.

“If I were a woman, I’d run away.”

Every word was true, but Clard’s lips twisted mercilessly.

He frowned, eyes still closed, recalling the day he brought the woman.

“Hates marrying me? She’s a woman who begged not to be sent back home, holding out. Don’t talk nonsense.”

“What−. Then that rumor about her not running away even after seeing you was true? Then, the rumor about you personally going out and bringing her into the house is also the unvarnished truth?”

“If you’re going to imagine weird things, get lost. Better yet, disappear from my house along with that woman. Since she’s a woman who insists on staying until she dies, it would be perfect if you took her away.”

“How cold!”

Lancelot chided Clard but surrendered with an appropriate smile on his face.

It was just out of spite that Lancelot said this, since Clard wouldn’t even open his eyes to look at him once while spitting out such words.

“Well anyway. Looking on the bright side, isn’t it better that a caregiver better than your current groaning new physician has come in? I’m thinking positively. Just because you went outside after so long. Eddie is anxious, thinking the imperial family brought in someone from Peliesse on the pretext that you need someone to take care of you.”

Clard had changed his attending physician every few months. Continuously for the past 10 years.

Since they were people sent by the imperial family, naturally Clard couldn’t trust them and didn’t want to trust them.

Because they would report to them how he writhed in pain every night, how miserable and wretched he looked.

And during that time, all the decent doctors in this area had been used up.

“How is that woman any different from the physicians sent by the imperial family?”

Just another person picked and sent by the imperial family.

Just one of the people who will report every miserable and disgusting aspect of him to the emperor without missing a single detail.

“I don’t know.”

“But it is different from before. Others ran away or died even though they were sent by the imperial family. That woman faced you from the first day and still stayed here. She hasn’t died yet either.”

Lancelot spoke in a fresh voice, as if to clear the sinking atmosphere.

“Eddie tends to worry unnecessarily, that’s the problem. I’ll do exactly what Eddie did this morning.”

The half-playful voice finally made Clard open his eyes.

Lancelot smiled brightly as he looked into the irritated purple eyes.

“‘The enemy who killed her sister, she might be thinking something like that and infiltrated for revenge, but what connection! Don’t be nice for nothing! She’ll just run away again if she gets a little scared anyway!'”

Lancelot imitated his elder brother Eddie, the future Viscount Lev, as he recalled him.

Clard gave no answer.

It wasn’t wrong.

Whether she committed suicide or was assassinated, his previous wife on paper would have died because she was his wife after all.

“Revenge?”

If it’s revenge, it seems like he’s already suffered it.

Clard curled his lips askew and laughed bitterly.

Because of that crow-like woman, Clard had been having the same nightmare for days.

Because of what that pale-faced crow said, clutching the hem of Clard’s clothes as if it were her lifeline.

‘Please don’t abandon me.’

Suddenly, a headache split his head in two.

Seeing his forehead wrinkle, Lancelot rushed to the console and found medicine to hand over, as if used to it.

Despite the hastily offered glass of water, Clard shoved several days’ worth of medicine into his mouth at once and chewed and swallowed it.

Because of that insignificant single sentence that made him recall terrible memories, he was being ravaged by pain and nightmares every night.

So if it was revenge from that crow stuck in the corner room, this much was enough.

Damned nightmare.

Clard forcibly closed his eyes while pressing his throbbing head.

Beyond Lancelot’s chattering voice, the voices of the servants, chattering with a somewhat different temperature than before, knocked on Clard’s ears.

Voices that sounded a bit excited.

Voices expecting a new wind to blow into the mansion.

‘How ridiculous.’

It was all useless.

Eddie Lev’s excessive worry.

Lancelot Lev’s excitement.

The servants’ expectations.

Clard covered his eyes with his arm and laughed bitterly.

What he needed was only peace.

Peace without any pain or expectation.

A comfortable night that others take for granted.

A night not allowed to him.

Hillay, the mansion’s physician, was quite skilled.

After just one night’s sleep in the mansion, Yuan was able to move without support, and after the second night, she only needed treatment for various bruises.

Although it would take some time for her strength to recover, Yuan was already enjoying a kind of peace after just a few nights spent without great pain.

Compared to the days when she had to conserve the scarce firewood every winter, lighting fires only for herself, and preparing meals with her tired body, this was nothing short of heaven.

Butler Gustav reported that Louise’s coffin had been temporarily entrusted to a small chapel beyond the white forest.

Burying Louise in a sunny place, not in the Peliesse mansion.

And herself, living somewhat peacefully with kind people in a corner room of the mansion as she was now…

They said Clard rarely left his bedroom or sought anyone out, so couldn’t they just stay in their respective rooms as if the other didn’t exist?

On the third day since entering this house.

Clard hadn’t shown even the tip of his nose, as if he didn’t exist at all.

‘If only I could keep living like this.’

Yuan rolled her eyes around, smelling the ointment that Hillay had carefully prepared.

Except for Henna, there were only two or three maids coming and going here.

Looking outside, there were only two or three attendants besides the butler.

In other words, there was a severe shortage of hands compared to the size of the huge mansion.

‘Let’s do something.’

In her childhood.

The words her elder sister Louise had firmly whispered to Yuan, who was shocked by the unreasonable attitude of their uncle’s family, flashed through her mind like lightning.