Chapter 18
When Tina walked Sophianne to the annex entrance, her sister stopped as though she had steeled herself and turned around.
“Hm?”
“If you ever have any worries, you can always come to me.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Sophianne spoke, her voice arriving half a beat late.
“I… want you to be happy.”
Tina closed the door quietly and returned to her room. Everything looked the same, but something inside her had been gently shaken.
[Marquess Gillion is getting on in years, so his recovery is taking longer than expected.]
The words Sophianne had let slip on her way out kept circling through Tina’s mind.
But why had she said such a thing? Why had she come so suddenly in the first place? Tina could not figure it out.
Truly, there were far too many things Tina did not know.
Several more days passed after that.
Every night, Tina was plagued by that rising heat, and the sensation of yearning for something she could never quite reach grew more relentless in its torment.
‘Could it really be a side effect of the medicine, like Sophianne said?’
She turned the thought over every morning as she opened her eyes on sheets damp with sweat and fluids she could not name. But certainty eluded her, and above all, there was nothing she could do about it right now.
The apothecary visited the estate once every fortnight, and his next visit was still days away. To make matters worse, a blizzard was raging outside. In weather like this, the next visit would likely be delayed even further.
As the snowfall intensified and her worries deepened, her gaze drifted inward. She had felt a warmth in her lap, different from the cold beyond the window.
She turned her head and found that Rus had crept close, resting his chin on her knee. His soft fur curled gently into the gap where her dress had ridden slightly up. The sensation of it brushing her bare skin tickled.
With the familiar comfort, Tina quietly reached out and stroked the scruff of Rus’s neck. Outside, the blizzard raged, but this moment with Rus was quiet, warm, and peaceful.
‘Hm?’
Tina’s hand stopped. Something felt wrong, a sensation that seized her for just an instant.
Rus, who had been basking in her touch, was looking up at her. Slowly. As though he had been watching for a very long time. Their eyes met squarely.
Those eyes, which always had a warm, gentle gold like winter sunlight, now held a completely different light. A strange, reddish glow.
The hands that tormented her every night. The one shape she had been permitted to make out through the blindfold that covered her sight.
That color. Red. Vivid and blazing, like the last sun dropping over a snow-covered plain.
“Rus… why are your eyes—”
Tina’s mouth fell open, the question half-formed.
“Lady Yustina! The madam has summoned you to the main house!”
Just then, a voice beyond the door severed the thread of her thoughts. Maids filed in after it and roughly set about fixing her appearance, so the uneasy trail of Tina’s contemplation could stretch no further.
“Young Master Danian has returned, and by madam’s order, you are to receive him with proper courtesy.”
One of the maids delivered the message brusquely as they reached the main house.
“I hope you’ve been we…ll.”[1]
Dragged there without warning, Tina stood before the family and forced her mouth open. As far as she knew, Danian had been accepted to a prestigious military academy half a year ago and had departed to everyone’s congratulations. She had no idea why he had suddenly returned.
“Yes, welcome, Yustina. We’ve been waiting.”
Danian Petrov. Her half-brother curled his lips into a faint smile.
“If I’d known you were coming down, I would have sent word to your father beforehand.”
The Countess spoke without taking her eyes off her son’s uniform. The lift of her cheekbones showed just how proud she was.
“No need. Father must be busy with affairs in the capital.”
Danian raised a steaming cup as he spoke.
“Still, I didn’t expect you to ask for Yustina the moment you arrived, Brother.”
Sophianne spoke up from the end of the sofa where she sat quietly. A hint of wistfulness and a curious undertone colored her words.
“That’s right. You show up without a word of notice, and the moment you step off the carriage, you go looking for that—I mean, for Yustina[1] first. You have no idea how slighted this mother felt.”
The Countess, genuinely wounded, even made a show of pulling a handkerchief from her bodice and dabbing at her eyes.
“Please don’t be too upset, Mother. This time, I truly came in a hurry because I have something to tell my dear sister Yustina.”
“Something to tell her?”
“Yes. The truth is, I recently met with a certain person.”
Danian set his cup down slowly. The scrape of porcelain against the saucer trailed his last word with a sharp edge.
“Marquess Gillion—”
Danian fixed his gaze on Tina and enunciated each word with deliberate care.
“—said there is something he would very much like me to pass along to Yustina.”
The instant the words left his mouth, goosebumps raced along Yustina’s shoulders.
The greasy laughter. The stench that had pressed down on her in a darkened room. The weight that had crushed her as she lay frozen. All of it slithered up her body again, like snakes.
Translation Notes
[1] ↩
[2] ↩
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