Grace sat by the fireplace where firewood burned, watching the piled snow glow with a bluish hue. Yet her soul still wandered the black corridor where snow fluttered about.
A clumsy snowman, an uncharacteristic jest, … and black eyes quietly meeting hers.
‘There is no way I can protect you.’
How strange.
Had she ever wished for protection? Since choosing to walk this path, she had abandoned the illusion of a tranquil cradle and the weakness of wanting to be protected.
She ought to have said that he had no need to protect her, that she was not someone to be sheltered by him, yet strangely, her throat choked up. The sound of falling snow, which had felt like white noise, faded into the distance, and in that moment when all her senses stood on edge and poured helplessly toward the man before her—
‘Marry me.’
Cold sweat trickled down her back.
No.
Before she could even think what exactly was wrong, Ares’s next words reached her.
‘It won’t hinder you from retrieving Taylor. After all, it will be a marriage that becomes void.’
At those words, it felt as though cold blood flowed through her arteries, spreading throughout her body. It was somehow chilling, yet at the same time, she felt relief. As the coldness spread, her heart, which had been pounding strangely, subsided, for the noise of her surroundings returned to her ears.
Grace looked up at the black sky and deliberately pictured a vast golden plain. The fragrant scent of wheat, the wide wheat fields undulating with the blowing wind.
‘I suppose so.’
There was no answer to her calm words of assent.
He merely smiled splendidly, covering his eyes. But strangely, she herself could not even muster her habitual smile.
As a sharp and delicate laugh shook somewhere deep within her once more, Grace closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
‘Thoughts and emotions are like flowing waterways; if left alone, they flow away and disappear. What remains where the water has passed is only the formed result, like sediment, so do not try to trap any emotion or thought—let them flow.’
Recalling the words left by the wise that had hardened into proverbs, she let flow, and let flow again, the thoughts that stretched out chaotically and haphazardly. To do so, Grace had no choice but to gaze into the deepest places within herself.
Like a deep sea without even the flow of waves, her inner self stilled for a moment. In a place devoid of thought or emotion, feeling only existence, comfort finally found her after a long while. Within the tranquility of selflessness, Grace’s soul sank even deeper inside.
As if swimming through a boundless sea, she entered the lightless interior for a long while. She arrived before a certain door—a damp door that seemed to emit the unique underground smell of mold and stagnant water. It was the door to the underground solitary cell of Duke Richmond’s castle. Revulsion welled up, making her try to step back, but from beyond the door, a very low and tender voice flowed out.
‘I am here.’
Before tears could even gather, they overflowed a shallow bank. The moment a tear dropped from her chin, memories that had drifted away to the far side of unconsciousness floated to the surface.
The underground solitary cell of Duke Richmond’s castle was unbearably cold. As she huddled and trembled, someone large and warm wrapped his arms around her back. Burrowing instinctively into that embrace, the man—who had hesitated briefly—removed the coat he wore and wrapped it around her front.
‘Ares.’
Sometimes with a fading voice, sometimes with a voice thick with tears, she had called out to him hundreds of times. To those endless calls—
‘I am here.’
He answered endlessly.
‘I am by your side, Grace.’
It felt as though the sea had pooled in her chest.
I am here. I am by your side.
Those words made her want to collapse and weep endlessly.
She had lived with the feeling of making her way alone through a dark mountain path, without starlight or moonlight. Each time the fear of losing her way gripped her—the fear that a cliff might lurk behind this darkness—she had mercilessly driven herself onward.
Pull yourself together and get up.
As with all dreams, Grace woke at some point. Though she had merely closed her eyes for a moment, dawn was breaking. In the hazy light of dawn, the outlines of things were blurred. Then, as a few golden rays of sunlight blended in, the world found its colors and revealed itself clearly.
As Grace blankly watched dawn turn into morning, tears that had pooled in her eyes streamed down. She suddenly wiped her face and found it completely soaked.
As a half-dried sob tried to spill out again, Grace bit her molars hard and covered her mouth with her hand. She had the intuition that if this dam burst, something unbearable would come flooding out.
She widened her eyes, stared at the ceiling, and held her breath as if swallowing it. When the tears that had tried to flow could not breach the wall and seeped back in, the emotions that had been about to rush out of control subsided, as they always had.
As sunlight shone into green eyes that had been rubbed red and soaked through, her eyes hardened firmly, like a wound crusting into a scab.
After exhaling the aftershocks of her tears along with her breath, Grace whipped herself back into shape once more.
I mustn’t waver.
Pull yourself together.
Then, after cleanly erasing all traces of tears, she called Jessie and changed her clothes. She had just finished neatly putting on the green velvet dress brought by Elizabeth’s maids and was nearly done arranging her hair when Ares arrived as promised.
When she stepped outside, he was waiting in a neat suit. Grace smiled faintly and offered a light greeting.
“Good morning, Your Grace.”
“Did something happen?”
Startled, Ares—who had been leaning obliquely against the window frame—straightened and approached. Grace quickly put on an expression of incomprehension.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“You were crying.”
“…….”
Jessie glanced at her face in surprise, and Grace shook her head at her.
“No.”
“…….”
“Did you see me crying? I don’t cry.”
“…….”
Grace looked up at Ares and smiled brightly.
“It’s a misunderstanding. Me, cry?”
Ares still looked suspicious, but he seemed to have nothing more to say in front of someone who denied it. In the end, he gave up asking and silently bent his right arm to offer it. Grace lightly took his arm, and the two walked side by side down the corridor bathed in quiet morning sunlight.
“Have you heard from Lord Joseph?”
“Of course.”
“What a relief.”
“But when I was looking at the documents. Just how much had the bureaucrats been asking?”
“I wonder. Why do you ask?”
“They kept raising their heads like children eating candy; it was quite a sight. They looked like they were dying to ask me to call for you.”
Grace let out a small laugh at the scathing remark.
“Then you should have called for me.”
“If I indulge them, they’ll develop bad habits. They were straightened out within an hour. Now nobody asks.”
Grace glanced at his jaw, sharp enough to cut, and spoke in a knowing tone.
“Perhaps they are unable to ask?”
“They say you cannot cross a mountain by carrying it on your back.”
“Is asking not different from carrying?”
“It’s the same. What’s the difference? Besides, the bureaucrats aren’t asking because they truly don’t know.”
Ares glanced into her clear green eyes and whispered softly.
“They rise from their seats before even finding the answer.”
“……?”
“What is easier and more pleasant—digging through dull documents to find the answer, or chatting with you while asking and getting the answer too?”
Chatting while asking and getting the answer too.
There were surely some who placed more weight on the former than the latter. No, almost all of them must have been like that.
The sly beast, noticing that Grace seemed somewhat swayed, quickly asked the knight following behind.
“What do you think?”
What was the point of asking.
The knight quickly answered robustly.
“Your Grace’s words are most just!”
“Only answers obtained after sufficient thought are meaningful.”
“Hmm… you make a fair point, Your Grace.”
“Right? Just look at it this way. Those who came without bothering to think properly are bound to go back empty-handed.”
“You glared at them.”
“What are you talking about? Glared?”
When Ares glanced back, the quick-witted knight answered resoundingly once more.
“It is a benevolent gaze!”
Grace turned to look at the knight as if exasperated, but she only met the pious expression of one who had surrendered to the logic of power.