‘I will not be able to turn away.’

‘Walked on four legs.’

Johannes heard Kretzman sneering behind his back. That incomprehensible laughter tightens Johannes’ collar.

***

So it was perhaps natural that Johannes, upon returning to Gustavus, frequented Inette’s chambers as if it were a daily routine.

The wedding procession that had departed treading on early autumn leaves like a military expedition returned like defeated soldiers pushed back by the frost-bound bitter cold. Even the flags fluttering in the biting wind were desolate. The mood in the domain was ominous due to the war that could break out at any time. The condition of the duke’s daughter, who had become completely silent, was not good. As those who had left for the capital gradually returned to their places and resumed their original duties, strange rumors began to spread among the freemen and low-ranking officials. Only the knight sirs sitting in Fort Gustavus were unaware of it.

They say the duke’s daughter has gone mad, possessed by a demon. It was an unfounded rumor that could not be stopped even with swords and spears since it could not be heard.

“Now I’ll remove your headdress.”

Griselda, who had pulled a low chair up to the mirror and seated Inette, bent deeply at the waist and carefully spoke. Inette still gave no reply.

It was a chamber where the low crackling of burning embers could be heard. As soon as it was freed from constraint, Griselda gently gathered the duchess’s hair, which fell in a deep golden color eating up the firelight, and brought it down in front of her chest. She also loosened the belt cinching the duchess’s waist and changed her into nightclothes. Amidst the continuing silence, she finally let out a faint sigh. The duchess’s pale cheeks reflected in the mirror were pitiful.

“Ah… Please don’t skip meals. If only for this wet nurse’s sake.”

She almost called her ‘young lady’ and hurriedly mumbled her lips once. No matter how sharp the widow before her eyes was with blue eyes exactly like the duke’s and precociously composed behavior, her appearance was still too young to be addressed as madam or mistress. The girl’s baby fat was still noticeable. Moreover, the gaze fixed on empty space as if in a daze no longer held that previous blue energy. Compassion preceded the etiquette of a vassal.

What on earth happened in that brief moment to make her like this?

Griselda bit her lip, her complexion slightly crumbling. She should not have left her post. She should have stayed by the young lady’s side to care for her, even if it meant pushing Gaader aside. Surely she wasn’t going to follow in her mother’s footsteps like this? Such a tender body, small life, not yet lived even a few years. What sin did she commit to be so ill-fated… It was all that woman…

The duchess’s sin…

Griselda finished brushing out all of Inette’s hair. She was carefully examining the reflection in the mirror as if tending to her own child, meticulously grooming even the hair by the girl’s ears, when…

Thud.

The chamber door resonated softly. Just once.

It didn’t sound like someone looking for a person inside. Rather than knocking on the door, it sounded as if a fist had struck the wall once and then lost strength, remaining raised. For that reason, Griselda just stared blankly at the entrance for a while without thinking to check outside. Only after that strange sound resonated once more did she suddenly come to her senses. She got up hurriedly. Who could it be at this late hour?

“You… What brings you here?”

Opening the door partway, Griselda asked downward. Johannes stood facing forward, pushed back by the door. Backlit by the torches illuminating the corridor, his face below was entirely in shadow except for unfocused eyes just like his sister’s. Seeing his pale forehead glistening with sweat, his physical condition did not seem good at all. Indeed, this monster had been restless the entire journey home.

Johannes’ expressionless head dropped slightly. He rubbed his eye sockets as if covering his forehead with one hand, while ragged breaths leaked from his tightly closed lips. Blocking the doorway, Griselda habitually looked left and right down the corridor for guards.

Although the duchess had already passed away and there were no longer soldiers stationed for a widow who had gone through marriage once, habits were truly frightening things. In the meantime, Johannes squeezed past Griselda’s side and finally set foot inside the inner chamber. Griselda subtly furrowed her brow.

“I understand your concern, but it’s late tonight, so you’d better return.”

“……”

“Come again after dawn.”

Johannes paid no heed. He simply walked toward Inette with difficult steps that seemed about to stop at any moment. It appeared he not only wasn’t listening to her voice, but couldn’t hear it at all. The aura clinging to the boy’s back was so pale and distraught. Perhaps he had lost his mind from worrying about his sister to the point where he was no longer aware of others’ presence. Having reached that conclusion, Griselda started to follow after Johannes to grab him but stopped.

Johannes finally reached behind Inette and stood frozen like a wooden statue. He remained motionless for quite some time before barely taking one last step. A beast alone in despair kneels in the girl’s shadow. Bowing his head deeply as if collapsing one word at a time:

“When… will you look at me again?”

“……”

“Until what day must I beg… for you to meet my eyes again?”

“……”

“I feel like I’m shattering into pieces. I can’t… see ahead. Truly, I…”

“……”

“If I go on like this, I’ll… Inette.”

“……”

The rest was muffled in Inette’s lap and difficult to hear. Johannes had grasped his sister’s calves and was pressing his forehead against her knees. He kept whispering with painfully shallow breaths. That voice was low, so low it seemed to scrape the floor. You know me now. You’ve seen… all of me. This hideously vile and ugly form… You’ve seen it all…

“I won’t even breathe without your permission.”

“……”

“You can… never forgive me for my entire life.”

“……”

“I won’t even hope for it.”

“……”

Just don’t turn away.

Johannes seemed to make a sound like holding back tears. It wasn’t clearly audible. As he said, his voice was fragile and choked, shattered to pieces. Griselda remained standing at the distant doorway, constantly watching the siblings’ behavior. The concern gradually faded from her brown eyes, and her dry face cooled indifferently. So, that. Even if he himself was unaware…

In the end, it was nothing more than a monstrous phantom carved in the image of the young lady.

Griselda turned her head into the darkness. Though reason may not know the truth, the soul cannot be unaware of it. While one may deceive outward eyes with a well-crafted facade, the inner eye cannot be fooled. So it must be despairing. The girl like a mother and sister has completely lost her mind, so there’s no proper way to regain one’s senses, like a child who has lost their roots… Thus Griselda silently built a wall over her shoulder. In one corner, secretly, just a little… It was a miserable state of mind.

Look at me. Please… Look at me. I beg you…

A child reaches out from the dirt, grasping at the hem of a skirt with a mud-choked voice pleading.

***

“What’s the use of taking care of a mad girl?”

Winfrid closed the book he was reading with a thud and grumbled. Griselda, who had been attending to Inette’s meal in the chamber with windows wide open on a rare clear noon, only then looked at the second son. Winfrid was sprawled like a sheet of paper in the window armchair, basking in the sunlight all over his head. That pitiful boy was a victim, yet not a victim, of the recent ‘incident.’

“Because of her crying and making a fuss at an insignificant luncheon, my brother has been in seclusion for nearly a week now. Shouldn’t you be by my brother’s bedside? Our brother will starve to death.”

Though his tone was prickly, his true feelings were obvious. This child is miserable with worry for his only playmate, his brother. Faint concern creased Griselda’s eyes.

“Please refrain from such harsh words. The young lady must have been so shocked to act that way. And he… will be fine.”

“You speak as if you know so well without even checking on him.”

“There are ways of knowing.”

Griselda wiped Inette’s lips as she stared blankly ahead and smiled bitterly. How could it be demonic to starve to death after abstaining from food and drink for about 7 days? Of course, the butler and elders who didn’t know the situation were beside themselves with worry. On the third day, they pounded on Johannes’ bedroom door that gave no sign of life, stomping their feet. As evening approached with no results, they made a commotion saying to bring an axe, bring a hammer, they would break down the door. Griselda saw this too. According to what she heard from a close page, Johannes finally showed his face briefly with a murderous aura after enduring the uproar all day and uttered one word, and only then did the butler and elders close their mouths.

‘Do not disturb.’

Truly that was all he said, the page in charge of Johannes’ meals added with a pale face.

It was barely audible, he said.

But it was a voice that made his eardrums ache, his vision go dark, and all his limbs freeze, he said. He only came to his senses after the door quietly closed, he said.

Even battle-hardened veterans more accustomed to the battlefield than the cozy fortress couldn’t move at that voice, so it was indeed a power to command evil things from birth. Four more days passed from then, making today the 7th day.

“What’s the big deal about deer blood that she was so frightened?”

Winfrid kicked the silk ball that got caught on his foot. It rolled and stopped at his sister’s feet.

“It was her first hunting banquet, wasn’t it? She had never witnessed an execution before, and with her mind unsettled from recent events, how terrifying and shocking it must have been to see her brother, who is like one body with her, cut open a deer’s belly and pull out its entrails right before her eyes. She shouldn’t have attended from the start.”

“Ah, ah… To think my only sister is an idiot who doesn’t know how to enjoy a single entertainment. How unlucky a fellow I am.”

“Lord Winfrid.”

“I’m so annoyed I could die.”

Winfrid rested his elbow on the armrest and propped his forehead. His golden hair, which stood up messily again despite being neatly combed, hung over his pale ears. His wide sleeves flowed down, fully revealing his skinny wrists. He had an appearance innately like the shade. Griselda smiled with a sorrowful heart and comforted him.

“Soon you’ll catch a magnificent stag. Like your brother.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“…Could I?”

“Of course.”

Winfrid’s head turned sideways. Still resting his chin on his hand, he burrowed deeper into the shadows. In contrast, he stretched out both legs as if to show them off. With his face hidden in a gloomy place, he asked as if snorting:

“…What will you do if I can’t catch one?”

“Pardon?”

“There’s always that slim chance, you know. Then… what will you do to me?”