Chapter 7
A Harsh Winter Night
While Count Pellieresse rubbed his goosebump-covered arms and sighed, Priscilla took up the sigh.
"Hoo. It's a bit of a waste to lose a hand, but—."
Priscilla smacked her lips, regretting losing Yuan, who had done more than just simple labor, but she couldn't bring herself to tell her husband that she had entrusted all the accounting to Yuan, so she kept her words to herself.
"Anyway, I've been worrying about where to marry that girl off to—but at least that's one less thing to worry about. Just thinking about giving dowries to those two useless girls, pretending to be nobles, made my stomach churn."
"Mom is too nice. You even thought about that? They haven't even debuted in society yet, so why bother with that? Just treat them like they don't exist!"
"Wouldn't it be nice to get land as a dowry? If we put it in your father's or Frederick's name, we might actually become nobles with land! It just so happened that the third son of Count Trelawney liked Yuan, so it was perfect! You know that family only has land. If we played it right, we could have gotten rid of her and taken the land!"
"What? The Trelawney family? Where did he see Yuan? Why are you telling me this now!"
"Where else would he see her? He probably saw her when he came as a guest and asked a maid."
"Ah, everyone be quiet!"
Count Pellieresse snapped at Priscilla and Regina's conversation. Marry her off? To whom? Why would he give away the goose that lays the golden eggs? What a waste!
"Father, what's wrong with you? Are you still looking after her because she's your niece?"
Frederick asked, looking at Count Geret Pellieresse, whose face was turning red and purple.
His pronunciation was slurred with alcohol, but his voice was loud enough to draw attention.
Priscilla and Regina's gazes focused on Count Pellieresse's mouth.
"It's not that...!"
Without her, how would he take reservations right away? Who would manufacture the medicine he was currently supplying? Who would write a speech worthy of presenting at the upcoming academy conference?!
Count Pellieresse looked at each of his family members with squinted eyes and suppressed the words rising in his throat.
Compared to his younger days when he left Pellieresse and married Priscilla, the daughter of a merchant, and had to be mindful of everyone without a penny to his name, he was now much more the head of the family.
There was no way he could say that Pellieresse's abilities belonged not to him, the head of the family, but to Yuan Pellieresse, his niece.
"It's because she has something important for my research! It's just that she left the house in such a bad way and went to a remote place without any contact, so I'm in a lot of trouble!"
"You thieving X!"
Frederick, who had been draining the remaining alcohol, stood up angrily.
As his large frame moved, a ripple briefly ran through the sofa.
"I knew she would eventually covet and steal something from our house! Remember when we said the family heirloom necklace disappeared from the warehouse last time, Mother? She must have taken that too!"
Regina flinched and lowered her eyes, picking up the teacup in front of her and sipping it.
Frederick, his face flushed red, shouted with rising momentum.
"You can't reason with her nicely! Everyone is too soft! If that X comes back this time, leave it to this eldest son. These problems arise because you try to treat something that isn't human like a human."
"Now, now, Frederick. Calm down and sit down. There's no need to get so angry over just Yuan. Where else would she go? If she doesn't have the support of her family, she'll realize how hard it is to be married off and ask for help, won't she?"
"Family support? Don't be ridiculous! Unless she becomes a decent lifeline for my success, no way!"
Frederick threw the bottle on the floor and staggered back to his room.
Priscilla fretted, worried that her sturdy son would fall, and chased after him.
"That girl needs to be punished. How dare she bring such rude people into this house and side with them. Besides, she stole something important from Father. If she comes back crying this time, don't forgive her! Let's make sure she goes to a concubine position for an old noble in the backwoods with gratitude! The Trelawney family, the Deposed Empress? Ha, please."
Regina also pouted and stormed off.
In Regina's mind, as she ran down the hallway, she began to imagine herself meeting the third son of the Trelawney family instead of Yuan.
She could vividly picture herself marrying into a family with a large estate, living as a high-society lady, and dominating the capital's social scene.
Count Pellieresse narrowed his eyes, watching the backs of his family members who were misunderstanding so completely.
The monstrous Deposed Emperor would never accept Yuan.
It was always a place where the bride was turned away or ran away on her own.
Louise, who lasted a year before returning as a corpse, was a rare case.
'Even if there were people who died quickly for no reason.'
Unless that monster knew about Yuan's abilities, there was no reason to accept her.
If Geret Pellieresse sent Yuan back as she was, he was going to give her such despair that she wouldn't even think about running away this time.
'And this time, I'll hide her in a place where no one knows.'
Before the third son of the Trelawney family sent another marriage proposal or First Prince Bolonico inquired about Yuan.
Count Geret Pellieresse's dark eyes were reflected in the flickering fireplace light, gleaming coldly.
After Marquis Lev of Mosan left, the horses and coachman standing behind Yuan, and the guards who had been whispering among themselves, securely locked the iron gates and left to change shifts.
The bitter cold pierced through the fur earmuffs and dug into her ears.
Despite the bone-chilling cold, Yuan stubbornly stood her ground. The sensation in her toes had become dull. A bleak wind made sounds as it scoured through the gaps in the Black Manor.
Whooooosh-.
It was an eerie and cold sound.
'Louise.'
Looking at the firmly closed iron gates, Yuan called out to Louise in her heart.
'Since you brought me here, I will think of this place as my home.'
Even if the Deposed Emperor is a very scary person, as the rumors say.
Even if he tries to take my life.
She had abandoned the house she had protected her whole life, and the people who were closest to her family were gone.
Had Louise also waited endlessly for her husband here?
Or, as the rumors said, did her body rot, her hands and feet stiffen, and her illness worsen as soon as she looked directly into that man's eyes?
Hazy clouds brought in a dark purple darkness. It would soon be upon them as the waves of night, driven from the end of the winter forest far away, crashed over the white snowfield.
Long after it had grown dark.
The door was never opened.
Pulling her thin cloak tightly around herself, Yuan stopped watching the second-floor window where light leaked out through a very small gap.
She was clearly standing on flat ground. Yet, she felt like she was standing alone on the edge of a bottomless cliff.
Yuan stood there for a long time before dragging her half-frozen body into the carriage, which had neither horses nor a coachman. As she curled up, her frozen body delivered a pain that felt like it would shatter.
A chilling sensation, whether from the cold or something else, tore apart the surface of her body.
'This is nothing.'
Compared to being submerged in a sea of pain for the past 10 years.
'This is really nothing.'
Yuan repeated those words like a desperate prayer and closed her eyes.
The bleak wind from the manor followed her into the carriage, scratching at her ears. Yuan, huddled with her stiff body, quickly fell asleep, using the sound as a lullaby. In her dream, Yuan was lying dead next to Louise.
It was a cold winter night.
A white forest where no one would find them.
The winter night was harsh for everyone.
Only a few servants remained in the manor.
A thick groan, suppressing the pain, leaked out of the bedroom.
Mixed with the sound of the fierce blizzard raging outside, the groan was no different from the moans of a beast.
A chilling voice that sounded like it belonged to one person and yet not.
A series of voices that sounded like demons wailing erupted.
"Your Highness, Your Highness, please open the door."
Outside Klaud's bedroom stood Hille, the chief physician who had arrived from the capital, Cielo, not long ago, holding a medical bag.
From inside the door, she could hear the sound of him banging his head against the bedpost to endure the pain.
Hille wrung her hands. But she couldn't bring herself to open the door and just fidgeted.
"Your Highness—."
"XX, get out!"
A voice at the height of sensitivity leaked out. It was clearly a desperate cry, as the sound had penetrated the thick door.
"Please tell me your symptoms in detail! Please let me in!"
Bang-!
In front of the anxious Hille, the door, which seemed like it would never open, swung open.
As soon as the door opened, the smell of rotting animal carcasses paralyzed Hille's nose.
As she hesitated at the terrible stench, a huge shadow pooled on the floor.
Hille flinched and slowly raised her head. She couldn't even open her mouth and screamed.
"I told you to XX get out."
The one in the room shrouded in darkness was not a human but closer to a beast.
Not to mention the hair that had turned like trampled autumn leaves, there was nothing of human color beneath it.
Pupils so red that it was hard to see the whites of his eyes, with all the blood vessels burst.
The red-stained mouth, a trace of biting his tongue to endure the pain, was reflected in Hille's eyes in turn.
In fact, it was difficult to even call it a mouth.
Would this be what it would look like if you burned a doll made by carving a tree into a human shape and turned it into charcoal?
Or would this be what it would look like if you dug up a rotten corpse from a pit?
The Deposed Emperor, who had lost even the half that had been intact, was living death itself.
