Chapter 17
“Rus. It’s dangerous out there, so you can’t wander around on your own.”
After lingering in a daze, Tina approached the bed and stroked Rus’s back.
“Once it warms up a little more, let’s go outside together.”
Rus let out a thin whine, and Tina added the promise. A pang of guilt had struck her. She might have spent her whole life in this place, but for this little one, her room seemed far too small.
A short while later, freshly washed and clean, Tina opened the door to a knock, and blinked in surprise.
“Sophianne?”
Her half-sister stood in the doorway.
“Oh, um, th-that’s… hello, sister.”
Sophianne flinched the moment their eyes met, as though the door opening itself had startled her.
“I had some time before my next etiquette lesson, so…”
She dropped her gaze and spoke without properly meeting Tina’s eyes. The way she fidgeted with her hands betrayed a certain nervousness.
“Oh… I see. I’ll head out right away, then. Sorry.”
Tina answered reflexively, unable to divine the purpose of this visit. Whatever the reason, Sophianne seemed to want something, and complying immediately with whatever the family wanted was the rule as Tina knew it.
“Huh? No!”
Sophianne nearly shouted. Tina looked up in surprise to find her sister’s mouth hanging open, wide with alarm.
“I-I came to have tea and talk with you. Just to chat, that’s all…”
Sophianne added, her expression uneasy.
“Oh… I’m sorry. There’s no one in the annex I can ask to prepare tea. I did learn to brew it a long time ago, but there aren’t any tea leaves here, so…”
“That’s fine! I came to talk with you, I don’t need tea.”
With that exchange, the two of them stepped into the room and sat down amid an awkward silence. From the moment Sophianne entered, Rus had been glaring at her as though on guard, eventually crouching low at Tina’s feet.
Tina caught Sophianne’s furtive glances downward and realized her sister was uncomfortable around Rus. But there was no hiding the creature. Her room had no spare space attached to it.
“So… do you have any worries these days, Sister? Once you get married, you’ll be leaving this place, right?”
Sophianne broke the long-held silence.
“Hm? Worries…”
“Anything at all is fine.”
When Tina failed to answer, Sophianne pressed again.
“Well, actually…”
After a beat of quiet, Tina’s lips parted. Now that she thought about it, she did have something weighing on her mind lately.
She had been at a loss for someone to ask, so maybe her sister would do.
“Lately, I’ve been having strange dreams at night.”
Tina drew a breath and went on slowly. The bizarre, intoxicating dreams that came every night. The body soaked through upon waking. The ache of a body that longed to reach somewhere it never could. The things that filled her and then withdrew.
Pure as untouched snow, Tina continued without a trace of shame. If anything, it was precisely because she knew nothing that she could speak so freely.
She was genuinely, innocently curious about what was setting her body on fire. She wanted to identify it, cradle it close, and beg it to fill every gap inside her. Sophianne knew far more than she did, so she would certainly have the answer. And then, at last, she would get what she wanted, or so she thought.
“…Oh. I see.”
But Sophianne, on the receiving end of that lengthy confession, sat frozen in stunned silence.
She had come to the annex with a certain resolve to talk to her sister, but never in her wildest imagination had she expected to hear this.
“The reason that happens is…”
Sophianne trailed off and glanced at Tina. What she found was her sister gazing back with bright, expectant eyes, hoping for an answer. There was truly not a shred of the modest composure befitting a noblewoman to be found, no matter how hard one looked.
Of course, that was not the only problem. The other issue was that Sophianne could not give a proper answer either. Unlike Tina, she had received an education and possessed a certain amount of knowledge, but as far as she knew, having strange dreams and experiencing physical changes was something that happened to men, not to young ladies.
“Could it be a side effect of your medication?”
After racking her brain, Sophianne offered the best answer she could. Maybe the medicine Tina took for her treatment was affecting her body somehow.
“Oh, I see.”
Tina’s face brightened at once. She accepted the answer without a shred of doubt.
“If it’s really giving you a lot of trouble…”
Pricked by conscience at that guileless reaction, Sophianne added cautiously:
“Should I write a letter to older brother, to Danian about it? He’s studied so much, I’m sure he would know.”
Sophianne clasped her hands tight and looked up with earnest eyes.
“..…”
For a moment, Tina thought that their brother would never listen to anything she had to say. Even so, she did not want to dampen Sophianne’s spirits, so she simply turned up the corners of her mouth without a word.
Unlike herself—still so lacking as a family member—those two shared blood, so their bond must be far closer than anything she could claim.
Afterward, Sophianne glanced around the room with an air of discomfort. When her eyes met Rus’s narrowed, acid-yellow gaze, she hastily announced that she ought to be going.
“Um… Sister.”
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