141.

Quietly opened the chamber door and came out. Now what…. In the moment when Johannes, pushed back by the sudden approaching gesture, took a bewildered step backward. Through the gap in the door, the other side of the chamber entered his field of vision. Johannes doubted his own eyes. In the center of that darkness where various objects, including the spinning wheel, lay shattered and strewn about. His elder sister stood silently, revealing her side profile while turning away from the entrance.

“…Nette?”

Johannes saw his elder sister’s disheveled golden hair and her left cheek, visibly flushed even at a glance. He also saw the silk ribbon binding her right ankle. The silk ribbon, stretched out on the floor like a snake, had its tail tied to the bedpost. That easy knot, which his elder sister could untie at will if she chose, pierced Johannes’s heart like a thorn.

“Ne….”

…Ah.

Before he could finish calling her name, thud. The door closed. She must have heard it clearly. Yet his elder sister merely shuddered once at his call, showing no sign of turning around. By then, the duchess was already walking down the corridor, but Johannes couldn’t even think to chase after his mother. He felt his throat constricting again with something like a lump of sorrow welling up. He stared intensely at the scene of the left guard re-bolting the chamber door, as if he would shatter it with his terrible feelings.

However, he knew it was impossible. For him, still only the heir in name, the chamber entrance was not a door. It was an impregnable iron wall.

…Wait.

Wait.

With a long exhale of the breath he had been holding, he took a step back. Bowing his head deeply then lifting it, he soon followed after the duchess disappearing into the darkness at the far end of the corridor. As he advanced, the chamber remaining as a tiny dot weighed heavily on his shoulders.

“I trust you are not unaware of what lies in the stone coffin in our underground palace. It is none other than the ancient… shame of my maiden family.”

The duchess whispered as she walked down the corridor without even an attendant.

“Of the nine severed pieces, only one wing remains now….”

Judging by the direction, it seemed the ducal couple’s bedchamber was the destination. Johannes simply followed silently behind.

“Having grown up hearing about its dangers until it was hammered into my ears, I didn’t want to touch even the edge of the stone coffin. But that ‘cripple’ of your father… that cruel tyrant… wouldn’t leave me alone.”

Johannes’s pupils, which had been dull from concentration, suddenly jumped at the unexpected outburst. His gaze instantly shot up to the back of her head. Cripple? It was too dangerous a statement to dare utter, relying solely on the fact that there were no listening ears.

Johannes unconsciously looked around. In the corridor, unusually devoid of people and eerie that day, only the crackling sound of torches flickering at regular intervals, the footsteps of the mother and son, and the duchess’s low voice echoed. Indeed, there was no one else.

Johannes glanced again at the duchess’s back with a subtly worried look, but quickly averted his gaze. He judged that she was not one to stop even if he tried to intervene.

“…He who had never once in his life sown his own seed, pressured and pressured me until I bore an heir. Though he seemed conscious of divine punishment even then, he didn’t directly order me, but his intention was as clear as day. Open the stone coffin. Open the stone coffin….”

“……”

“He… treated me terribly. Though I have no means to prove it, I can assert that it was his plan from our very first meeting. That even the deaths of my close relatives were all his machinations…. And I, more wretched than that cripple… unable to withstand his threats, finally gave in…. I cut my hand to summon your guardian….”

By now at the entrance to the bedchamber, the duchess’s words pooled at the tip of her trembling chin.

“How foolish…. I should have bitten my tongue and died…. What was I afraid of, what did I find precious, that I couldn’t make up my mind….”

The duchess, who seemed about to continue her self-deprecating curses, paused as she placed her hand on the doorknob. The tension in her shoulders and back was evident. As if trying to swallow any further self-reproach. Soon, the duchess exerted strength in her fingers, white as bare branches, and pulled the door. The entrance to the bedchamber, the deepest and highest-ceilinged room within the main tower, opened its maw with difficulty.

Johannes stepped into the inner chamber with a somewhat tense expression. It seemed the old woman in charge of lighting the fortress had already visited the ducal couple’s bedchamber. There was no need to laboriously light candles; a string of beeswax candles already encircled the black inner walls with yellow light.

Johannes stopped right near the entrance. It was already such an intimate place, wasn’t it? Moreover, recalling the bestial act of his parents he had witnessed not long ago, he felt somehow that he should not intrude further. He inadvertently glanced at the bed but quickly averted his gaze. His cheeks inevitably flushed red. It was hard to hide his discomfort. Though he maintained a neat posture with utmost restraint, his unconsciously clenched fists betrayed his tension.

“…I am afraid, Johannes.”

The duchess paid no heed to this. Johannes couldn’t tell if she had noticed his state and chose to ignore it, or if it stemmed from insensitivity.

“That the girl child born into this world without her own will might suffer even worse than her mother. That her unhappy future is so clear before my eyes….”

The duchess, who had crossed the darkly flickering light to reach the central bed, began to slowly rummage through a jewelry box placed on the dressing table beside the bed. She seemed utterly drained of energy, as if every fingertip she touched would melt away like pus. She looked as if she might dissolve into the darkness.

“And judging by your current appearance….”

“……”

“I suspect I will die well before you come of age.”

“Why… such ominous words….”

“Enough.”

“……”

“You just keep quiet and listen.”

The duchess’s voice cutting off Johannes’s question was firm yet somewhat weak. However, Johannes readily complied with the order. It was merely a polite inquiry to begin with. In truth, he didn’t want to hear the detailed reasons. Wasn’t she the one who had been treating him as a monstrosity incessantly since that day? He needn’t confirm that it was related contempt. What words would she use to shake him this time?

Johannes suppressed a shallow sigh. From the start, it was an awkward relationship between the lady of the fortress and the heir. As is common among nobles, they were separated from birth, devoid of any parental affection. If anything, his relationship with the ever-aloof nursemaid Griselda might be closer. For a son who repeatedly faced threats from such a barren mother-son relationship, it almost felt it would be easier to face a mortal enemy.

In the end, he repeated the same choice. He half-closed his ears without showing it. He had no ability to endure when every nerve was thoroughly exhausted by his mother’s trivial words and actions. It was unbearably uncomfortable and stifling. Only the inside of his closed mouth felt rough.

“Whether I’ll die from illness or by your hand or my husband’s, I can’t even guess…. Anyway, I already realized it that day when I witnessed you two. The direction of the curse you hide in your belly behind that innocent face. At that moment, that day, I changed my mind.”

Unfortunately, the duchess’s monologue-like words continued. Only the word ‘curse’ stuck in his eardrum like a thorn. Curse…? Johannes faintly pondered.

“This wretched life I’ve endured. Isn’t it right to stake the few years that remain on my daughter’s safety? To keep her in my arms to protect her, and then spend it all on sending her far away from this place as soon as possible, so that I might close my eyes in some peace…?”

“……”

“Do you still not understand my intention?”

The duchess’s hand, turning around without a sound, glinted metallically near her bodice. Is that a dagger? The silver object she lightly cradled in both hands as if holding a precious sacred item was easily visible even from afar. Johannes stared at the unfamiliar object without answering. It was slightly more interesting than the duchess’s vague question.

“Look.”

The duchess approached with an almost reverent posture and held out the object. A dagger. It was a dagger about the length of a few finger joints short of Johannes’s outstretched hand. The joint between the sheath and handle seemed solid. The outer surface appeared to have rose vines engraved and the grooves filled with silver for finishing.

Though the pattern was somewhat crude, it couldn’t entirely mask the eerie dignity that seemed to hold some untold story. It was clearly a dagger made with care. The duchess, who seemed to be observing Johannes’s expression for a moment, began to recite the dagger’s background in an unusually calm tone.

“…This is the dagger inherited by the eldest son of Ducomeng. Now that they’re all dead, it has come into my hands.”

“……”

“Don’t expect anything grand. There are no special functions to this. It’s just a kind of ritual implement…. They say our Ducomeng ancestor used this to draw blood and make a contract with the devil. The eldest sons who followed did the same. I too… did so. How strange. Even though I never intended it, I always found myself holding this at some point….”

There was a faint self-mockery in her trailing words that sounded like talking to herself. The duchess, who had been examining the edge of the sheath, suddenly glanced at Johannes. For the first time in this bedchamber, mother and son’s gazes met directly.

“Johannes.”

“…Yes, Mother.”

“Johannes.”

“Yes.”

She calls his name repeatedly as if to confirm his attention, even with her son right before her. No, perhaps it was a warning to confess even now. What does she want from me? Unable to gauge exactly, his spine subtly chilled. Johannes struggled to endure the feeling of all the hair on his forearms standing on end.

He saw the corners of the duchess’s lips twist strangely. The duchess slowly removed the sheath. The razor-sharp dagger wailed palely.

“The ancients, skilled in controlling devils, always prepared stone coffins before devil hunts and gathered ten pure priests to consecrate them. Then they would capture the devil alive, dismember its body, and seal each part in a coffin.”

He should run away. It was strange. Creeping up from his toes, a strange premonition was sharply honing his nerves.

“You, do you perhaps know the reason?”

He should run away. Why? Johannes suppressed that rude and unpleasant premonition and shook his head. However, the sensation of his back skin trying to cling to the exit on its own made his breathing slightly labored.

“First… it was to shatter its consciousness so that we mortals could easily handle the devil’s power…. Second….”

“……”

“It was to prevent the reassembly of the immortal flesh.”

Suddenly.

The approaching duchess pinned Johannes’s wrist to the table. Losing balance from the force, Johannes was pulled towards the table. He fell to his knees as if collapsing, but the duchess did not release his wrist. What… is happening…. Johannes was startled as he felt the edge of the table rush against his neck like a blade.

“M-Mother?”

The duchess did not answer. She simply laid the boy’s forearm across the table as if placing a condemned man’s neck on the execution block.

“Mother.”

Surely not. Johannes’s eyes widened.

“Mother.”

Surely not. He saw the duchess’s hand holding the dagger slice through the air. Before he could flee, the dagger struck down. Precisely on Johannes’s wrist. Johannes’s vision flashed like lightning. Ah.

Ah.

Ah….

“Ah…!”

A long, delayed scream burst forth uncontrollably.