Click.
A faint tremor traveled through her hand gripping the handle.
Thud!
As the door shook violently, a shout erupted from beyond it.
“The door is locked!!”
“This door is locked too!!”
“Break it down!!”
No sooner were the sounds of people rushing heard than the door shook violently.
Bam, bam!
Jesse bit down hard on her lips.
Bam, bam!
The seam of the door splintered, and sharp red light cracked through. One more blow and the door would give way. Jesse hid herself between the curtain and the wall, drawing a knife.
If I die, I die, but I will never hold Grace back.
It was the moment veins bulged on the back of Jesse’s hand clutching the knife.
“You wretches.”
A voice cold as azure permafrost seized everything in the annex.
An eerie wind blew. In the unusually dry and frigid wind, everyone’s movements ceased. Knights who had been restless with inexplicable anxiety forgot even to breathe. They wished to pretend otherwise, but an undeniable presence seized and turned their heads.
“!”
Someone stood on the landing like an apparition. A figure with her back to the moonlight streaming through a large arched window looked down upon the knights. She spoke again.
“You wretches.”
It was a voice frozen solid, countless emotions layered and compressed like eternal snow accumulated since the beginning of time.
“Duchess!”
Lady Isaac, who had been standing blankly in a daze, pushed through the knights and ran forward.
Eliza’s eyes narrowed as she stared at the maid—the only thing moving in the frozen tableau. It was not a sight she was accustomed to. Her hair, always neatly pinned up, was disheveled, and her face, once as lovely as a flower, had withered and lost its vitality.
Only now did Eliza truly face the maid who had remained by her side until the very end.
Her heart pounded as if sinking. As blood that had stagnated and begun to rot slowly started to circulate again, the hazy film covering her eyes cleared away.
Broken doors gaped wide, and from the main gate flung open, a constant cold wind seeped in. Rough torches spat black soot, staining the ceiling, and in the hands of those filling the corridor were gleaming blades and blunt weapons.
A hollow laugh burst from her.
At Eliza’s laughter, those who had trespassed into her annex felt their bones turn to ice. After laughing eerily for a long moment, Eliza asked languidly,
“Did the Duke order this?”
Count Leuven, swallowing dryly, quickly came to his senses and spoke.
“Duchess! Now is not the time for this—”
“I asked whether the Duke ordered this.”
Eliza cut off Count Leuven’s excuse in a single stroke. Then she gathered her unfocused gaze and fixed her eyes directly on him.
“Duchess, currently in the ducal estate—”
“Can you not answer the question?!”
Her languid voice transformed into a keen blade, cutting Count Leuven short. Eliza descended the stairs step by step, driving the Count as if spewing up stagnant blood.
“Without my permission, disregarding my maid’s pleas, who is it that ordered you to tear apart and search this space of Eliza Richmond’s?!”
At Eliza’s thunderous rebuke, the knights filling the corridor lowered their heads and retreated. The knights who had held massive iron bars to tear down the door also hurriedly lowered them.
Eliza crossed the path the knights had cleared and approached Count Leuven. The Count’s palms were already drenched with sweat.
There had been much talk that Eliza had lost her mind, that death was imminent. She had said nothing when beloved maids were thrown outside the castle, nor reacted when her lavish rooms were taken from her. Her treasures had fallen into the possession of Marchioness Lynko, and the historic Richmond Ducal Castle seemed no longer hers.
Yet, the presence of the noblewoman who had been thought dead choked the stalwart knight commander.
Stopping one step before Count Leuven, Eliza opened her mouth.
“Was this your own initiative, Count Leuven?”
“……”
Glaring at Count Leuven, who chose silence, Eliza commanded,
“Leave.”
Count Leuven’s face paled. He could not retreat. Having entered this place, he had already crossed a line. The Count clenched his fist tightly.
“I cannot leave until I have checked that room, Duchess.”
“What?”
“The ‘Unseen’ who assassinated the late Duke appear to have entered the castle. That door must be opened and checked, Duchess!!”
As the Count shouted with bulging eyes, flames ignited in Eliza’s eyes.
“Is that so?”
“……”
“The ones who killed my children—those who deserve to be torn limb from limb—have entered my castle?”
Eliza whipped around and approached the door on the verge of breaking. Then she commanded the knights holding iron bars.
“Open it. I shall verify it myself.”
As the knights exchanged glances, Eliza exploded in anger.
“Can you not open it at once!”
Eventually, when one knight was pushed forward to open the door, Eliza extended her hand to the one holding the torch.
“Duchess, I shall—”
“Silence!”
Eliza snatched the torch from the劝阻 knight. Lady Isaac quickly tried to take and hold it for her, but Eliza refused even that and searched every corner of the room herself. The knights, and indeed even Count Leuven, could only stare blankly at the sight. From the noblewoman, even madness could be felt.
Having searched everywhere frantically, Eliza finally flung open the thickly drawn curtains and stopped dead. Beyond the window lay a scene of utter chaos. Standing still for a moment, Eliza handed the torch she was holding to Lady Isaac, then slowly turned her body.
With crimson light at her back, Eliza looked like the Grim Reaper crawling out of hell. As several knights unknowingly stepped back, Eliza calmly asked,
“Shall we search more?”
Count Leuven could not bear to say they should search further. Eliza glared at him.
“Arwen, are those savages in my space?”
Lady Isaac shook her head slightly and said,
“They are not.”
“Well, then. Now only my bedchamber remains. Who will search my bedchamber?”
“……”
None among the knights dared step forward. An order to search her bedchamber was something not even the Emperor of Deccan could easily give.
In piercing silence, Eliza slowly moved her steps. The knights stepped back and bowed their heads in unison. Stopping briefly before Count Leuven, she spoke.
“If you find the ones who killed my children, bring them to me. For I shall burn even a single strand of their hair to ash.”
“……”
“Withdraw, Leuven.”
From the depths of her pupils directed at the Count, hot flames surged.
＊ ＊ ＊
After Grace and Walter had left, Eliza could hardly fall asleep. She was vexed by her sleeplessness. Then, just as drowsiness was about to set in.
A maid’s scream rang out.
‘Stop!! This is where the Duchess resides!’
She descended the stairs in a haze. Knights bearing the crest of House Richmond filled the corridor. She came to her senses as if doused in cold water. And at the sight of the aged maid, more than a decade’s time flashed by like a kaleidoscope.
Eliza stood blankly by the bedroom window, watching the knights recede into the distance. As the torches carried by the knights grew distant, her face was reflected in the blackened window.
There was an old woman, haggardly aged. The sight of the old woman with her silver-white hair unbound and disheveled was truly unfamiliar. Spacing out as she looked at her own reflection, she recalled a past that felt like yesterday.
The glossy black hair tended by her maids had been her pride. When her father was alive, she had monopolized his love and dominated the imperial palace, and even after becoming the Duchess of Richmond, she had controlled not only the northwestern social circles but the capital’s as well. The seat of honor was always hers; trailing clouds of maids behind her, she had commanded the world.
Eliza stared blankly down at her hand. Though the neat hand adorned with a large gemstone ring was familiar, there was instead a solitary hand, shriveled like the branch of a dead tree.
How had the Queen of Richmond, who had maintained a poised and impeccably groomed appearance even before her husband and children, come to such a state?
‘In this wretched place, with a countenance like a grave. Barely breathing, likely not even knowing if your limbs have been cut off—is this truly living, Grandmother?’
Recalling Walter’s sharp rebuke, Eliza let out a hollow laugh.
“He is just as ill-mannered now as he was as a child.”