Chapter 6
Instead of heading out the door, Daniel, clutching the key Dominic had handed him, walked toward the bookshelf against the study wall. His body's memory, quicker than his mind, guided him fluidly to the secret passage connected to the study, as if no time had passed. Pushing the right corner of the large bookshelf that occupied more than half of one wall led to the bedroom, while the left corner revealed a hidden staircase leading outside the inner castle. The bookshelf looked exactly as it had before, unchanged even after the three years its master had slept—right down to the books he often read, still in their last placed spots. Yet he noticed a subtle difference. Daniel reached for the right end of the shelf but paused midway. As he halted, Dominic approached his lord and asked,
“What's wrong, my lord? Feeling dizzy?”
Daniel's calm gaze fixed briefly on the shelf's edge. The ornate red-bound histories of the Svergen Empire at both ends of the wide shelf conveyed a single meaning.
'This passage is safe.'
It was a code known only to Daniel and the Molly father and son. The unnecessarily thick, exorbitantly expensive imperial histories were in their proper places. But one thing differed from his memory, catching his eye.
“No dust.”
Hearing Daniel's murmur, Dominic let out a short 'Ah!' of realization and swiped his fingertip across the top of the history book.
“The Duchess cleans and polishes it every day.”
At Dominic's response, Daniel raised an eyebrow and asked back.
“Personally?”
“Yes. She manages the study and bedroom herself, with just one maid.”
Dominic, hands clasped behind his back, tilted his shoulder toward Daniel and whispered.
“She's excessively diligent. And far bolder than she looks.”
Dominic's lips curved into a soft grin, as if finding it all amusing.
“You hate others touching your things—remember when you broke the arm of that servant who barged in without permission? So just leave her be. No matter how much we told her, she wasn't scared at all, saying it's fine as long as things are put back in place.”
He shook his head as if marveling at her stubbornness, yet the smile never left Dominic's face. Suddenly sensing a chill, he whipped his head toward Daniel. Sure enough, the reddish-brown eyes, now deepened with red, glared at him as he spoke.
“When did I?”
“Pardon?”
“When did I break a servant's arm? She was the Empress Dowager's spy in disguise.”
Same difference, whatever. Baffled, Dominic subtly stepped back a pace and slowly nodded.
“R-Right. Precisely speaking.”
Dominic had grown up with Daniel like brothers, on intimate terms. Thanks to that, he knew one more way than most to dodge this beast's sharp claws. If he valued his life, he had to avoid Daniel Rihardt when his eyes turned red.
“Dominic.”
A voice as chilling as the depths of Altas forest in midwinter called his name. Dominic realized he had unwittingly retreated more than three steps.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Watch your tongue before I rip it out.”
With a sharp rebuke, Daniel pushed the right corner of the bookshelf. Creak. The shelf, sealed shut for three years, opened with a fairly loud groan. Watching Daniel ascend the stairs behind it, Dominic blinked silently, lips pressed tight. Even with all the wall lamps unlit, Daniel stepped into the pitch darkness without hesitation. Only after he had vanished completely did Dominic's sealed lips part.
“What did I even do? Anyway, that guy's foul temper.”
People feared Duke Rihardt not for the ferocity of his words.
'Daniel Johannes Rihardt doesn't mince words.'
This single phrase, passed from those who knew the real Daniel, might say it all. Dominic let out a chuckle at his own brief tension, finding it ridiculous.
“Daniel, you bastard. Your mind really is back, it is.”
*** The three years apparently hadn't erased the senses etched deep into his bones. No light was needed to climb the darkened stairs or traverse the passage. Daniel walked slowly but surely toward his bedroom, fiddling with the key in his hand without losing direction. His steady gait showed no falter. What had returned wasn't just sensation. Thoughts mingled with memories poured down like a midwinter blizzard, without time to brace.
“Dear, Frida is the only child to survive out of our three daughters. Just let us keep living with her. Please?”
'The only child to survive.'
On their wedding day, Countess Harkbon had referred to her youngest daughter, soon to be Duchess Rihardt, that way.
“It's obvious she'll be scorned for not fulfilling a wife's duties.”
The desperate voice brimmed with parental affection, just as Daniel's mother Laura had spoken to him and Dominic. If he hadn't been a mess from rushing straight from battle, he might have stepped out from the shadows where he hid and said something. That he had no intention of scorning their daughter. That he'd never cared about wifely duties to begin with. He also recalled Ricardo's nagging, holding him back: Clean up and change first since he looked like hell.
“Since it's come to this, you have to go through with the wedding, but hold off on consummation. She's not long for this world—if you don't want a wedding turning into a funeral, best not lay a finger on her. With your build crushing her, she'd die that day. Sigh.”
Who was crushing whom? Did they think raising him wild made him an actual beast? Daniel paused en route to the bedroom, irritably sweeping back his bangs and steadying himself against the wall with one hand. Warmth seeped into his palm.
“The doctor said to keep your body warm for now, so I'll light the fireplace today.”
His excessively diligent wife was surely warming the bedroom. Before Daniel could stop her, a gruff mutter burst out.
“Really driving me insane.”
A wife, of all things. When tending to his own body was ordeal enough, where did a wife fit in? Especially one so frail she'd blow away in a stiff breeze. No matter what the Empress Dowager said, he should have refused. Too-late regret stabbed at his dizzying head. The marriage between a daughter of the notoriously short-lived Harkbon family and Duke Rihardt, the Emperor's infamous hunting dog known across the empire. When it was announced, it had set the social circles of Chellino, the Svergen Empire's capital, abuzz—even more than when the Emperor granted him the Rihardt dukedom among the Twelve Dukes. It had even sparked whispers calling the Empress Dowager Margret stingy, that sly old fox who outwardly showed only benevolent kindness regardless of rank.
“Hoo.”
Daniel let out a long sigh and rested his forehead against the wall leading to the bedroom. Unlike the study shelf, it opened silently without a creak. A thin line of clear light seeped through the gap, splitting the pitch-black passage into light and shadow.
“Lotte unnie, Hestia unnie. Frida's been having so much fun here, really really.”
The voice carried along the wall was as slender as the beam of light slipping beside him.
“And I... I'm twenty now.”
An inexplicable pride emanated from the frail voice devoid of strength. Unknowingly, Daniel held his breath. It was quite some time before a faint whisper followed, so soft it might vanish any moment.
“Am I... not impressive...?”
No further sounds came after those words. How long had it been since only the crackle of burning logs echoed? Only after a good while did Daniel cautiously push the wall. Brilliant firelight flooded his view, banishing the darkness. To adjust to the light filling his eyes, Daniel gently closed and opened them. An unfamiliar warmth greeted him first—strange to Daniel. Next came snow-white hair, like the drifts piled on Altas's winding mountain paths. Hands behind his back, Daniel approached Frida silently and stopped, gazing down at her sleeping face pressed against the table. At her white eyelashes trembling faintly with each breath. From his languidly parted lips flowed a calm, serene voice, low and steady.
“When I first saw you...”
Daniel's right hand cast a shadow over Frida's crown. Staring impassively at the dark silhouette his large hand made against her snowy hair, he soon withdrew it.
“...you were just a whiny little thing.”
A quiet word of praise softly settled where the shadow had been.
“Impressive, Frida.”
Gazing a moment longer at the deeply sleeping Frida, Daniel folded and unfolded his arms repeatedly. In the past, lifting a woman would have been easier than breathing, but out of caution, he repeated the motion until confident. Needless to say, his worries were unfounded—she was light as a feather. Once placed on the bed, Frida shifted a couple times before settling skillfully at the edge and falling back asleep. He briefly considered Dominic's room, but recalled his rough sleeping habits.
“Damn it.”
Whatever. He'd sleep first. Worry tomorrow. It had been an excessively busy day for someone awakened after three years. Scrubbing his face vigorously, Daniel lay at the farthest edge from Frida. *** Had he known he'd face this morning, he swore he'd have gone to Dominic's room.
“I'll start by massaging your legs first.”
Daniel, sitting upright by the bed, shook his head firmly to signal no negotiation.
“I'm fine.”
Why on earth was she insisting on touching him right after he woke? He'd nearly lost consciousness again from the shock.
“But this is something I did every day even when you were unconscious. The doctor said you have to keep touching it so your body doesn't stiffen.”
What? So she'd been massaging him every day for the past three years? With those tiny hands? It was a talent to spout such absurdities with such innocent eyes, as if it were nothing.
“Don't tell me you... personally... touched me... I mean, cared for me every day?”
Relief washed over him absurdly at his carefully chosen, rather refined words.
“Yes. Of course. The doctor said to do it daily.”
Damn that doctor. He'd cut him down. Daniel let out a short 'Hoo' sigh.
“To recover quickly, we need to do it even more diligently from now on.”
Frida positioned herself to grab his calf at any moment, wriggling all ten fingers as she advanced. Daniel's shoulders, unmoved even before hundreds of cavalry, flinched back. Frida, now right in his face, fluttered her snow-white eyebrows like fresh-fallen powder and asked,
“Ah, if you're uncomfortable with me doing it, shall I call Dominic?”
Dominic massaging him? That was worse.
“No. No need.”
Having a wife was truly troublesome. Extremely so.
“I'm really fine, so you don't have to do this.”
Especially one whose eyes made him feel guilty just for refusing. Determined to escape somehow, Daniel drew up his now lighter legs. In that instant, Daniel was pinned down for the first time in his life.
“Ah, really. Freeze!”
