I… I am your sinner, you say.

A slick, heavy sensation slowly surged in and out of me. His hips swayed so gently. Even in the midst of showing not a trace of reason, as if trying to soothe me with just that motion.

It became too burdensome to even deceive myself anymore. In the end, I wrapped both my legs around his waist. Moaning incessantly in his embrace, I asked over and over again. Ah, you, you will continue to be mine, right? You’ll keep loving me, won’t you? Answer me… answer me, Johannes.

And so that day, I heard Johannes’s true feelings with these ears.

“I…”

“…”

“I love you. Isolde. I love… you…”

“…”

“Ah, I love you. It was you from the start. I couldn’t see anyone but you. You were everything to me…”

“…”

“To think I’d… fall in love with you of all people… It drove me… nearly mad…”

I love you. That one phrase no one had ever whispered to me before.

08. Curse

There was a devil who had been sealed in a dying state generations ago.

He did not remember the moment when his flesh was cut and patched like rags. It wasn’t particularly a deliberate forgetting. It was simply because he, whose head had been essentially severed, had no consciousness to speak of.

In other words, until Duke Gustavus’s consort burst into the underground palace, pale-faced, after countless years had passed, he was nothing more than a dismembered puppet, an unfeeling block of wood. He was a dead body.

Following the duchess consort’s second wish, he was given a fake “head” modeled after the appearance of a false sister, allowing him to at least outwardly play the role of a human son.

“Answer me, Kretzman.”

“Will my… inherit the Duke Gustavus title?”

Oh my.

To think that the desperate wish concocted after failing to gain a son would turn out like this. Curses are inherently demonic distortions. One man’s resentment twisted the ravings of the mentally worn duchess consort, bestowing a terrible fate upon the puppet he controlled. Thanks to this, the walking corpse gained something resembling consciousness.

Johannes.

He was resurrected on the night the siblings had just turned two years old. He opened his eyes with his newly received head. It was the very night the duchess consort made her third wish.

***

“Why would a young lady like yourself learn games suitable for boys? You’d be better off playing dice with your companions. And look, new toy kitchenware has arrived as well.”

Griselda tried hard to dissuade Giovinetta. However, the quiet nurse’s polite interference was not enough to break the sister’s stubbornness.

“Boys’ games? What does it matter? Those boys can’t seem to beat Johannes at all. It’s so frustrating I can’t stand to watch anymore.”

After briefly grumbling, the sister finally pushed away the child who had been facing Johannes until then and plopped herself down in that spot. The way she cast her blue gaze at her brother across the table was just like the tip of a spear adorned with luxurious wine. Johannes accepted his sister’s challenge with a grin. He didn’t say another word.

“Ah, come at me then.”

His attitude as he diligently moved his hands to set up the board even seemed quite enjoyable.

Johannes briefly explained the basic rules to his sister who was holding chess pieces for the first time. The expensive pieces, meticulously crafted from ivory and black onyx, advanced one step or retreated three steps at the touch of his dignified fingertips.

His sister pressed both hands between the folds of her skirt and stared intently at the mock battle on the splendid marble. Her legs, not yet fully grown, occasionally swayed in the air, dangling without quite reaching the floor. It seemed the slight movement was a distraction to her concentration. Soon enough, she pulled both legs up onto the chair and sat cross-legged.

“Young lady.”

“Yes, yes. Later.”

Witnessing the noble lady’s lax posture, Griselda let out a small sigh, and soon a handful of Duke Valdemar’s illegitimate sons and daughters gathered around the table with bright eyes. Could this be the first match between the siblings, known for their unusually close bond? For the children who had long observed this peculiar pair, it was a confrontation they couldn’t help but be interested in.

March.

It was a day when the Valdemar siblings had turned six and a half years old, in early spring after celebrating their birthday banquet in October of the previous year. On that day, the sister, instructed by her brother, lost five games in a row. Given that it was a match between a beginner and an expert, it was an expected result, if anything.

“Do you want to continue?”

Tok. Tok. Tok.

Johannes tapped the table with his finger, hooked around his sister’s sage piece he had captured. It was an almost boastful, regular, and neat hand play. His posture was straight as if measured with a ruler, but the arm languidly stretched to one side and the barely noticeable gentle curves around his eyes and mouth were visibly relaxed at a glance. The composure of a prepared winner. He had never lost to a peer before.

In contrast, his sister frowned deeply. She had worn an uncomfortable expression throughout all five games, and now she didn’t even bother to retort, as if nursing a headache. Her white hand remained still on the gleaming chessboard.

Johannes, who had been pointedly observing that hand, slightly raised his head. His sister’s left side, all her attention focused on considering the next move, was covered in light no different from shadow. Only half-bright light.

Children’s inner rooms are never fully bright even in broad daylight. This was because, as is often the case with children’s rooms in fortresses, it was located in a corner of the tower. The shadowy stone walls, despite the meticulous care of dozens of maids, would occasionally develop mold in patches as if infested with insects. Today was no different from any other day.

The light, half-saturated with dusky shadows, soaked the windowsill thrown wide open for ventilation and the chessboard like mud. It also dripped thickly over his sister’s platinum blonde hair. Johannes’s focus blurred slightly as he watched this. Even though there was no direct sunlight falling at right angles, he couldn’t understand why it was dazzling. It was a strange thing even to himself.

Suddenly feeling lonely, he gazed blankly at the scene of his sister’s long eyelashes casting an un-childlike shadow, deepening her delicate eye area even further. Each tip, appearing momentarily forlorn, seemed to contain dark shining mud particles.

A breeze like a thin spider’s web blew by, brushing his sister’s hair. A few strands of platinum blonde hair caught between her plump, healthy lips. Inwardly admiring the dark and enchanting sight like an abandoned castle ruin that he never tired of looking at all day, he cautioned,

“You’re eating your hair.”

But as always, his hand was faster than his mouth. Johannes, unknowingly putting down the piece he was holding, pressed his fingernail against the corner of his sister’s mouth to remove the hair. However, his sister didn’t even lift her gaze from the chessboard.

She merely made a show of blowing out a few puffs of air, as if spitting out hair that had long since fallen away. Watching this, Johannes’s eyes curved into long crescents. Though he had no shortage of amusements or companions, he enjoyed watching his sister the most.

In any case, his sister was now absorbed in the game. As her first opponent, he should play earnestly.

He lowered his head again and roughly read the state of the board. Black was overwhelmingly chasing White. However, White wasn’t without a chance of victory. If his sister just moved her left knight once, his defense would be broken within two moves. It was a glaring weakness, obvious to the eye.

But it wasn’t a weakness his sister would likely notice. He also had no intention of giving even a single move. This was partly due to a ruthless desire to win, but also because his sister would likely take offense if he offered even a hint of advice from where he sat. Yes, it was clear as day. She would either get angry at unnecessary advice or completely ignore it. And probably…

“No.”

Johannes’s demeanor suddenly changed from his solitary calm the moment his thoughts turned to his sister’s formidable temperament. He abruptly raised both hands to shade the black king’s head. This was because his sister had, quite unexpectedly, picked up the white king that had been blocked with nowhere to go.

He immediately realized. She intends to overturn this game. Johannes’s clean brow furrowed anxiously. His sister’s forceful whims accompanied by violence were not an unfamiliar history between the two. But this time, he couldn’t let it slide.

“Why are you covering it?”

His sister, now kneeling on the chair with her upper body stretched tall, asked with wide eyes.

“And why are you standing up?”

Johannes countered without lowering his guard. The exchange was futile. His sister reached out exactly as he had predicted. Her ambition to capture her brother’s king regardless of rules was evident in that hand. Her small hand grabbed his. The chess pieces lined up fell over with a clatter due to their scuffle.

“Give it here, Johannes.”

“No.”

“I said give it!”

“You! You tyrant.”

“Ty-rant?”

His sister, having forcefully seized Johannes’s king, stepped down from the chair with a triumphant attitude.

“I merely took what I could take, yet you call me a tyrant. If not a sage ruler, at least call me a hero for capturing it.”

“Dream on.”

Johannes countered, half lamenting. His sister pretended not to hear and snorted. Her gestures, showing off regardless of her brother’s reproach, were exactly those of a tyrant. Good grief. Johannes stepped down swiftly following his sister. Then he cast his gaze towards the acorn-sized audience.

“What do you think?”

“…”

“Is a ruler who achieves victory by any means necessary a tyrant or a hero?”

“…”

“Answer me.”

The companions, huddled together observing the twins’ moods, merely twitched their lips. Meanwhile, a tall boy who noticed his sister watching him with bright, expectant eyes mumbled, ‘Hero.’ That answer incited the rest. Hero, hero! A few words burst forth as if a dam had broken.

“That’s right, that’s right!”

His sister nodded her head, her eyes curving into long crescents. Her light-filled blue eyes spun around excitedly before fixing on her brother. Their gazes connected in a straight line without the slightest inclination. With heights seemingly split exactly in half between them, their eye levels matched perfectly, neither sibling needing to raise or lower their head.

“Did you hear that? Anyway, this round is my victory.”

“Wow…”

Johannes, who had his mouth agape at the betrayal of the companions he had trusted, now sighed wearily towards the audience that now seemed as fickle as reeds. He couldn’t hide his disappointment.

“You’re all like this…”

He couldn’t help but mutter one last word. The children’s laughter rolled in like pebbles, apparently finding great amusement in the precious young lord’s pathetic appearance. Johannes was about to retort at their joy, oblivious to others’ feelings, but stopped himself. How can I have no allies like this? He sighed deeply. His sister, who had been laughing along and even stamping her feet in glee regardless of her brother’s dejection, finally checked his expression after thoroughly savoring her first victory.

“Johan.”

“What.”

“Are you perhaps angry?”