Previously
Just as Cordelia contemplates throwing herself into the sea to escape assault, the famous socialite Shasha Ander intervenes and promises her father, Duke Morpheus of Arsène, will pay ransom for everyone.
Flushing red, Shasha muttered,
“I think my courses have started.”
“Oh.”
Seeing Cordelia taken aback, she forced a wry smile and murmured,
“It isn't quite time yet…. But I suffer from terrible cramps.”
“Please wait here. I will bring thick cloths and warm damp towels.”
After tucking the blanket snugly around Shasha, who murmured her gratitude, Cordelia slipped outside, muffling her footsteps. Late into the night, most people were asleep, and unfamiliar with the layout of first class, she wandered for a long while. By the time she managed to ask a scullery maid where thick cloths were kept and carried an armful back, considerable time had passed. With nothing left now but the sea breeze and the sound of breaking waves, the surroundings were dead silent, making Cordelia shiver and rub her own arms against the chill.
The night sea was like the silent eyes of a goddess.
Mysterious, tranquil, deep, and dark.
It struck Cordelia afresh that the sea was beautiful in every guise.
Though she had lived on a peninsula her entire life, she was not intimately familiar with the waters, yet the ocean felt immensely dear. Was it because she had constantly heard of it and imagined it through her mother’s stories and songs? Like a homeland she had never set foot upon, she even felt a strange yearning.
“Child. Come here.”
She froze in her tracks.
“Come here. Come to us.”
The auditory hallucinations had begun again. Rubbing her ears hard, she hurried her steps. Since the very first seizure, she had felt little physical pain, but occasionally these hallucinations returned alongside mild aches, and just like this…. Skillfully wiping away the blood dripping from her nose, she quickened her pace into a trot. She had to accept that she and this illness were one body now.
“Cordelia.”
Her shoulders twitched with a shudder. While she had often heard voices, she had never seen a vision before.
From beneath the sea, a pale face was gazing up at her.
Meeting her eyes, the entity split its lips in a tearing grin. A sly, grinning leer.
Distracted, she caught her foot on something and nearly tumbled. Panting, she looked down at her feet. A liquor bottle was rolling across the floorboards. What in the….
“Hehe, well if it isn't the little wench?”
Before she could grasp the situation, her wrist was seized violently, yanking her forward. It was the very pirate who had fondled her. Soused in drink, he reeked of a sickening stench of alcohol. A grimace twisted her face of its own accord. Because of her father and aunt, who would run amok whenever they drank, Cordelia could never bring herself to tolerate that smell.
“What're you doing out this late? Huh? Looking for a man? Want me to keep you company?”
“Let… let go of me!”
As he drew her flailing body into his arms, flicking his tongue over his lips, she burned with the urge to claw his face. She struggled with all her might, but she could not overcome his brute strength. She screamed for help, but at this late hour of the night, no one answered. No one was there. Or perhaps people were there, simply choosing not to respond….
“Look at this pale, soft skin. Ha, you really are a looker. I was so disappointed earlier I thought about sneaking in to drag you out, but you clung so tight to that high-priced cunt. Fuck, if you get right down to it, she's just a bastard wench playing at nobility…”
“Let go! Get away from me!”
Her front buttons tore away. Screaming in fury, Cordelia struck the pirate across the cheek with every ounce of her strength. Her palm flared as though torn, but in that instant, she felt a thrilling heat rush through her veins. It was not a sensation unfamiliar to her.
It was the residual warmth that had lingered after she battered her wicked cousins, Maurice and Dorea.
The ecstasy and cruelty of violence.
The fury and aggression toward the things that oppressed and tormented her, the craving to tear them limb from limb. The urge to repay every single bit…. Cordelia moved purely on instinct.
Panting through dizzying vision, she lunged at the pirate as he stumbled drunkenly and cursed, driving her fingers into both his eyes. Aaargh! As his shriek tore through the air, a cheer echoed deep inside her. Not enough. Not nearly enough. Her trembling hands hoisted the liquor bottle rolling across the deck.
Beneath the pale moonlight, her split lips curled upward.
I'm going to kill him.
Just as whatever writhed inside her was about to burst forth, Cordelia saw a hallucination.
It was her mother. Her dead mother was watching her in silence as she prepared to kill a man.
“Cordelia.”
Ah.
“My child.”
What am I doing?
The instant she hesitated, a kick struck her ankle, tearing a groan from her lips as the bottle slipped from her grasp. Raging with fury, the man raised his hand against the groaning girl without a second thought. Her small face snapped sideways, and her vision went dark.
“Y-you crazy bitch!”
In that split second, she thought of her father.
Ah, just as she thought. Drunken men were terrifying. Hateful. Horrifying.
Alcohol was a strange poison. Why did everyone turn so grotesque and strong once they touched it? They were already the absolute worst sober. Why, why on earth?
Gazing at the dark hand reaching toward her through blurred sight, she laughed. The nosebleed that had stopped began to drip once more. And then she thought:
Fuck it, in my next life, I'm going to be born a man.
“Aaargh!”
Huh? Did I scream?
As she murmured foolishly to herself while blood trickled from her nose, the man’s severed fingers scattered into the air before her eyes. Chopped apart like sausages, the sight was so detached from reality that her eyes rounded in shock, and behind the pirate writhing on the deck while clutching his ruined hand stood another figure.
A pair of eyes flashed against the backdrop of the stark white full moon, sending a cold shiver down her spine.
Perhaps it was a premonition.
A whisper that her life would be turned upside down from this very moment.
With his head tilted slightly, he looked down at Cordelia. The hem of his coat fluttered in the biting night breeze. With measured strides, his navy boots kicked the groveling man’s head and crushed his throat. Then, drawing a long blade from his hip, he drove it straight into the man's vitals. A wet, tearing thud of parting flesh rang out explicitly. The ragged gasps cut off dead, and the metallic tang of blood filled the air.
It all transpired in the span of a breath. And throughout that brief yet seemingly endless moment, the man never took his eyes off Cordelia.
The clouds veiling the moon drifted away, unveiling the man’s expression. He was smiling. In a way, yes. Quite like a gentleman.
He asked mildly,
“Am I interrupting?”
Though Cordelia had weathered all manner of trials in her life, she had no idea how to answer such a question. So, sniffling back the continuous drip of blood from her nose, she merely echoed,
“Pardon?”
“It isn't a particularly good spot to bury a body.”
Murmuring softly, the man flicked the blood from his sword. As the sharp movement sent a strong wave of iron scent into the air, reality crashed down upon her. A man had died. Right in front of her. That man had killed him. As the stupor faded and trembling began to overtake her body, the man’s elegant frame moved to block the corpse from her view. Her eyes naturally met his, and she caught the slight lift of his neat brows. The moment his cold, strikingly handsome face filled her vision, her tongue froze stiff.
Though his tone and manner were gentle, she felt instinctively that she must not ignore his words. Belatedly, she blurted whatever came to mind.
“Is that so.”
“Wouldn't you agree? You have peculiar tastes.”
In more ways than one. His crimson eyes cast a fleeting sidelong glance at the corpse sprawled at his feet.
This time, she knew for certain he was teasing her. The man watched her battered, pale face with genuine amusement. Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs. Was this the aftershock of the tragedy she had narrowly escaped, the shock of witnessing a murder, or….
“Well? No answer?”
Was it because of his gaze?
Though shivering uncontrollably, Cordelia snapped in frustration,
“What is it you wish to know?”
“Who knows. It is just the first time I have seen a noble lady lunging with such venom.”
Especially in a predicament like this, where they usually just weep helplessly and wait for someone to save them.
Murmuring under his breath, the man slowly sheathed his blade. His gaze skimmed over Cordelia's shuddering shoulders. It was as if he knew she was trembling not from the cold, but from dread of him. Yet seeing him slip off his coat and drape it over her shoulders made her wonder if she had imagined it.
A strange person.
Pulling the coat tightly around herself, she muttered silently.
“Miss Marguerite is lacking in manners.”
“Pardon?”
“Do you not even offer your greetings to your savior?”
Baffled by the sudden rebuke, she swallowed hard, took hold of her skirt, and curtsied.
“Thank you. I owe you my life.”
“I doubt your life is the only thing you owe me.”
His smooth tone, tinged with a low chuckle, carried a polite edge of sarcasm. Each time he spoke, each time those red eyes lingered over her swollen, battered face with a peculiar gleam, an anxious palpitation gnawed at her heart, like cold fingers tracing down her spine. It was an inexplicable shame.
Then, all at once, she realized the most bizarre thing of all.
With her guard snapping back up, she demanded,
“How do you know my family name?”