181.

It was that wrist that the Duchess herself had once stroked long ago. The moment the dry skin touched him, Johannes’ heart sank. He reflexively brushed away the Duchess’s hand as if it were on fire. But in that instant when he glimpsed between the fluttering curtains, following the arm that fell limply in the air.

…Ah.

Johannes’ eyes widened. The Duchess’s arm crumpled and hid inside the curtain. Did he see wrong? He couldn’t believe it. His lips parted involuntarily, but he couldn’t even let out a sigh. He merely tried to casually peek through the gap in the curtain that had just closed. But not daring to reach out his hand, his posture only lowered defensively. He could now suddenly understand Griselda’s admonition not to show too much shock at the Duchess’s condition.

That appearance.

“Um, mother…?”

He narrowed his eyes as if trying to scoop up what was under the fabric with his gaze, staring at the curtain. From behind the curtain that firmly blocked his view came the sound of rustling blankets along with labored breathing that seemed about to stop at any moment. In the deathly quiet chamber, there was only the eerily low noise and Johannes.

“All my struggles were in vain… I know that now.”

The Duchess, who had suddenly spoken, groaned for a moment.

“No… Actually, I knew from the beginning. I just couldn’t admit it….”

Soon the curtain that had swallowed the terrible sight alone in broad daylight slowly, slowly parted. The Duchess’s remaining hand was using all its strength to pull open the fabric. Half of the bed was revealed. She who had barely been able to stretch out an arm at first was now sitting up fully. The Duchess’s collarbone came into Johannes’ view between the parted curtains. Her face was not yet visible. Crawling, crawling. The woman with her thin neck wrapped tightly in blood-stained fabric began to climb down from the bed, dragging the blanket.

“My daughter will never be able to escape. Her every gesture, step, and voice is entangled in the spider’s web….”

And the long white hair covering her back.

White hair.

Johannes was finally certain he was not seeing things. The Duchess clearly had white hair. Silver threads that seemed to have traversed the years overnight during the days she had been bedridden flowed down to the floor along with the blanket. The whiteness made the young mother, not even in her thirties, look like a completely broken old woman. As if her very life force was draining away with the waterfall of white hair pouring down, her strength seemed to be waning moment by moment. Right now, she is dying.

At this moment, she is certainly dying. A woman in the midst of death.

“Even if you flee not to the central royal capital… Ugh… but to… the edge of… this continent, you will surely be bound to your sarcophagus…. The more you struggle, the more you try to break free, the more tightly you will be entangled. Just as I was. I too… I too, know…. Now I know too…. Ah, this spider’s web…!”

The Duchess, who had collapsed on the bed with only her upper body touching the floor, crawled on her hands and whispered breathlessly.

What a pitiful sight. Johannes was aghast. He swallowed hard. His eyes were filled with deep bewilderment and an indescribable sorrow. In all his memories, he had seen lives cut short in an instant, but he had never witnessed such a withering sight right before his eyes.

Could this be what it looks like when you die? The mother and daughter resembled each other so closely that he almost felt as if he were witnessing his sister’s death in advance. Ah. His entire heart became wretched all at once. It was only natural that Johannes, who had not been able to take his eyes off the Duchess’s every move, finally came to his senses. He stepped forward as if bouncing, approaching the Duchess. He hurriedly supported her under her arms.

“Mother. Pardon me for a moment….”

“Her end will not be beautiful…. Will it?”

“How would I know such a thing…! I don’t want to know either. For now, please refrain from moving….”

“Johannes.”

“….”

In his urgency, his words, which had been sharp without his realizing it, were suddenly cut off. His entire body stiffened at the same time. He realized only after hearing it. Johannes. That he had never been called by that name by the Duchess before.

The Duchess, who had climbed up from his knees as soon as she received his support, tightly wrapped her whole chest around his two legs. Because of this, Johannes, who had tried to help her, ended up being embraced instead. The Duchess, who looked like a mere husk, had somehow gathered strength from somewhere in that withered body and seemed determined not to let go of Johannes’ legs. What is this….

“Johannes.”

The moment he realized it, his head spun. Not only the situation of being called by his full name, but also the sensation of his mother clinging to his legs – he could not easily understand it. They were supposed to be mother and son, were they not? This kind of contact was disconcerting. He was overwhelmed by a terribly bewildered feeling, as if watching a swarm of ants climbing up from his toes. He instinctively raised his hand, feeling he should shake her off.

But the Duchess’s plea came first.

“My son.”

As if sensing his resistance, the Duchess whispered against his thigh without preamble.

“Please. My… son.”

“Stop.”

It was then that Johannes truly held his breath. Slowly, and surely. A flush spread across the boy’s face. His hand that had been raised in the air came down as a fist, and his parted lips closed silently. Gradually, his jaw tensed and his ears trembled. The heated look rushed to the top of his head in an instant. To call him son.

Now of all times.

The words were already on the tip of his tongue, but he dared not utter them.

“Forgive me. Forgive us. The only way for us mother and daughter to live was to beg before you from the start… I didn’t realize it…. So please forgive us.”

“….”

“Forgive this foolish mother. Please…. Please….”

Her dry cheek rubbed against his thigh. Her neck was deeply bent as she bowed her head down to the knees of her ‘son’, her lifeline. Johannes could not bring himself to give any answer. If he opened his lips now, it felt like he would spew out curses. No, curses would not be the end of it. He almost wanted to shout at her to shut up and strangle her. He had been under the illusion that he did not harbor ill will towards the mother who treated him like a monster. Because mother was right. He was in no position to discern cause and effect or weigh gains and losses. Why are you now giving your monstrosity the luxury to feel emotions? His silence, swallowing back his anger, was thick with the thought that she should stop.

“Johan….”

The Duchess’s gaze rose intermittently towards him. It was as if she was trying to gauge Johannes’ reaction, who remained motionless.

And when their eyes met.

“You….”

“….”

“You…?”

Terrible shock was reflected in the Duchess’s pale blue eyes. Her lips parted slightly.

“Why…? Why is your neck…? How?”

The Duchess’s mouth gaped. It was an expression of utter disbelief in her own eyes, just like Johannes’ earlier. Her cheeks, turned pale blue, even twitched finely. Johannes felt his knees, gripped by the Duchess’s hands, tighten sharply. That strength. He could hardly believe it belonged to a woman on the brink of death.

“…It’s not you.”

“This is….”

“It wasn’t you.”

“Let go.”

The Duchess’s words, as if possessed, did not even reach Johannes’ ears. He tried to step back at some point, away from the Duchess who had climbed up to his collarbone. The Duchess’s fingertips grazed his neck several times as if scratching it. When his movements were hindered by the persistently clinging Duchess, Johannes finally roughly pushed away her hand. Her withered body collapsed, losing all strength. The obsessive superhuman strength was gone, but her gaze remained fixed on Johannes’ nape. Her strangely twisted gaze was like a scream.

The Duchess asked.

“You too… were just a lowly creature ensnared by the curse. Weren’t you?”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“The spider web on your neck!”

The Duchess’s voice, which had been crumbling until then, suddenly bristled again. A short, low groan escaped from between Johannes’ lips. It was the suppressed internal conflict leaking out. His brow furrowed deeply as he raised one hand to grip his own neck, as if denying the Duchess’s assertion anew. The inside of his throat burned with the fire he had been holding back.

“What a… novel observation. From the way you speak, mother, one would think I had been the subject of the curse at some point. Did my appearance all this time look so perfectly joyful to you? Is that how you’ve seen me all along? If a person… has eyes….”

“Who are you?”

“I don’t know.”

Johannes cut off her question, which had interrupted him mid-sentence, with a sharp attitude. The Duchess asked without pause:

“You’re not the one who cursed our Ducommeigne family?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you know?”

“Because I have no memory.”

“You have no memory?”

“How could I?”

“What memory don’t you have?”

“You ask the obvious. The memory of the beginning, of course.”

“Why… why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know.”

“How frustrating! If you don’t know what’s inside you, who would!”

The Duchess burst out in anger. Even Johannes, who had been maintaining his composure in defiance of the Duchess’s passion, crumbled again then.

“Who in the world fully understands themselves? Is that even possible? Even if it were possible, it would all be arrogance and conceit, and deception…!”

“Wh-what….”

“Do you remember? When you condemned me as a demon, I was only six years old. Your gaze towards me was already as hardened as it could be, and at that time, I…! I was so busy just trying to accept the situation that I couldn’t understand anything.”

“….”

“Even now… it’s the same. I’m saying it’s the same.”

“….”

“Is that truly the sin of me alone?”

“….”

“….”

“That’s right…!”

“Ah…. Mother.”

“That’s right! It’s your sin alone! Not taking your own life in the end is clearly your sin alone! How could that be my sin? Before whom, with what safety do you blame others…!”

“….”

“You, why didn’t you die? Hm?”

Tears welled up in the Duchess’s reddened eyes. That moisture, stubbornly refusing to flow down, reflected Johannes’ face, which seemed dumbfounded by the Duchess’s attitude. His entire face was flushed with unbearable sorrow and anger. He felt suffocated. Unable to bear it any longer, he spat out through gritted teeth:

“I didn’t realize that the desire to live needed such a grand reason. Aren’t we humans the kind of creatures who blink their eyelids trying to live until the very last moment, even when beheaded and our heads are rolling on the execution ground? Yet I don’t understand why you ask only me for a reason.”

“What nonsense! You, who ought to die…!”

“No. Don’t say it. I decline. I don’t want to know.”

“So… you just didn’t die because you wanted to live so badly…? Or was it that you desired my daughter so much?”

“Don’t insult me so carelessly. I couldn’t die.”