Learning the Ways of the Night from the Wolf - Chapter 11 - The Name of Pure White

“What? How is some filthy beast in my house?”

The Count furrowed his brow at the elderly servant’s words.

“My lord, it’s no ordinary beast. It’s the monster of the winter mountain. I saw them clearly with my own eyes, those enormous red eyes of that creature, right there in the annex!”

Despite the rebuke, the commotion continued. The servant’s mouth, rigid with terror, hung open gracelessly as he heaved labored breaths, and more than anything, the beads of sweat running down his cheeks, entirely unseasonable, lent credibility to his report.

By that point, even the Count had grasped the gravity of the situation. His expression hardening, he ordered the butler standing behind him to bring a gun, then strode directly toward the annex. It all happened in an instant.

‘No.’

It wasn’t until Tina heard the sound of the gun being loaded at the end of the corridor that she could finally will her feet to move.

If there was a living creature in the annex, there was only one. And that little one wasn’t a monster, it was nothing more than a small animal. The servant must have been mistaken.

She was the only one who could tell her father. She was the only one who could explain what had happened in the annex.

‘But even if I tell him the servant was wrong, would it change anything?’

Even as she ran breathlessly, the thought refused to leave her mind. Her father despised animals. So even if the little one wasn’t the monster of the winter mountain but just a small creature, his gun would not turn away.

Anxious thoughts began to consume Tina’s mind, and as her anxiety sharpened into clarity, her pace finally caught up with the frantic hammering of her heart.

What Tina saw last, just before she hurled herself through the doorway of her room, was the direction her father’s gun was pointing. The cold, black muzzle was aimed squarely at her blanket, at that tiny, squirming shape beneath it.

“No!”

The instant she saw it, Tina threw her body forward on pure instinct. She couldn’t think, not about the fact that her father was about to fire, not about what consequences this act might bring crashing down on her.

All she could feel, as time crept slowly past, was the small, warm presence radiating from the blanket she’d gathered into her arms.

“……”

Silence hung in the air for a long while. The Count did not lower the gun. Tina trembled violently on the bed, clutching the blanket to her chest. Those who had followed in craned their necks back and forth, trying to make sense of the situation.

All of that chaos was cut short by a small whimper. Then came the rustle of fabric, and from the folds of the bundled blanket, a tiny creature revealed itself.

“The monster of the winter mountain, you said?”

The Count’s voice sliced through the tense air. Though he wasn’t looking directly at the servant who had caused the uproar, his fury carried through unmistakably.

“N-no, my lord. I’m c-certain — when I saw it just moments ago, it was enormous—”

The ashen-faced servant stammered incoherently. He even pointed toward the window, desperate to prove his innocence, but outside there was nothing but a pristine blanket of untouched snow, without a single footprint.

“Tch. Get rid of that wretched beast at once.”

The Count glared at the servant, spat a quiet curse under his breath, and gave his order.

“N-no. Please, Father.”

When another servant stepped toward her bed to carry it out, Tina reflexively clutched the blanket tight and cried out.

“What?”

The Count’s voice was sharp with fury. But even trembling, Tina couldn’t stop the words from coming.

“If you send it outside like this, it’ll freeze to death. Please. I’ll be quiet. I won’t cause any trouble.”

Her words had gone past desperation into something that sounded utterly abject. The way she prostrated herself, pressing her palms together and wringing her hands as though she might crawl along the floor, was hardly befitting a nobleman’s daughter.

“……”

A long silence stretched on. It lasted so long that the sound of Tina’s shuddering breaths filled the entire room, and no one inside dared to break it.

“You sound exactly like your mother.”

What shattered the quiet was the unexpectedly subdued voice of the Count.

“‘Please don’t throw it away’? That’s the kind of thing only someone who already knows their own sin would say.”

But his calm did not bring stability to the situation. The moment the Count finished speaking, the metallic clatter unique to a firearm followed. It was a warning that things were about to take a terrible turn.

Tina raised her head in that instant and saw an expression on her father’s face she had never once seen before. The realization that something in her words had struck a nerve, touched her father’s deepest wound, flashed across her mind.

“Instead of sinning and begging forgiveness, you should never have sinned in the first place.”

The Count muttered those cryptic words and raised the gun.

Tina still couldn’t read her father’s expression, and the confusion left her reeling. By now, even the small creature in her arms had begun to growl, but with her ears ringing so loudly they seemed to hum, Tina didn’t hear the threatening sound.

Another eternity compressed into a single instant. The muzzle aimed squarely at her forehead, the servants in the room gasping and clapping hands over their mouths, and above all else, the small creature’s eyes had begun to turn red.

“Father!”

From behind the door came a breathless, gasping voice, and with it appeared the Count’s beloved second daughter, Sophianne.

The Count’s actions snapped off at that single voice, like a snow-laden branch breaking clean.

“S-Sister only picked up an abandoned animal out of sympathy. There was no particular reason for it. And I’m sure she’s already reflecting on it enough. If you could just forgive her this once—”

But the Count’s gun was still aimed at Tina. Staring into that black muzzle, Tina felt as though every last breath in her body were being sucked into its dark void.

“Father! Do you intend to leave marks on her before you’ve even presented her to the Marquess Gillion?”

At last, Sophianne added in a voice that was nearly a shout.

“…I’ll tolerate your eccentricities only until the wedding.”

Whether that outcry had brought him to his senses, the Count’s gun slowly sank. While Sophianne swallowed a breath of relief, the Count let out a sharp ‘tsk’ and walked straight out of the room.

The servants exchanged uncertain glances before following the Count out. The last to leave was Sophianne. She lingered before Tina for a long while. There was something unspoken behind her eyes, but in the end she left the room before the sound of the others’ footsteps grew too distant.

The commotion that had raged since morning subsided with the thud of the old, heavy wooden door closing shut.