“......!”
Coco woke with her face drenched in sweat. Her wide-open eyes glared fiercely into empty air. Her bloodshot purple eyes looked as though she had seen an evil spirit. The eyes glaring into the air, as if searching for something or confirming what she had seen, did not blink even once.
“My lady...... my lady...?”
The maid who had entered as usual with water for washing found Coco glaring into empty air and put on a puzzled expression. The maid looked once at the air Coco was glaring at, then once at those bloodshot purple eyes, and her face turned anxious. She set the washbasin down and hurried over to Coco in small steps. The maid gently took hold of her shoulder and asked softly.
“My lady, what are you looking at so...... kyaaa!”
The maid’s scream rang out.
Because Coco, whose head had whipped around at her voice, had seized both of the maid’s shoulders hard. That rough strength felt as though it would crush her muscles.
“My lady! My lady...... p-please calm down!”
The maid barely swallowed her fear and scream, and calmly tried to restrain Coco. Then, immediately after, the maid’s face went blank with shock. Because light seeped into Coco’s purple eyes and tears slowly welled up. Coco was trembling. Once she realized that, the maid was no longer afraid of the hands gripping her shoulders. Rather, they felt pitiful, as though Coco were clinging to her, so the maid patted Coco’s two hands, which had gone white from gripping her shoulders.
“My lady, did you have a bad dream? Look at me. You should forget bad dreams.”
“Is that really so?”
The maid flinched at the cracked voice.
“Was that really a dream?”
Coco muttered anxiously. What was reflected in her purple eyes was not the maid before her. She was seeing beyond her. To be exact, she was seeing her own memory.
‘Hug me in advance!’
In the dream, he had pestered Coco to hug him as if it were a memory not so far away. And as she was held in those arms, broader and warmer than she had expected, Coco had gotten embarrassed and snapped irritably, and Kirky had smiled gently.
She had thought it was a little strange, but Kirky was strange to begin with, so she had soon forgotten it. Leaving for a distant land—how could that be easy, even for a priest? Surely Kirky, too, must have needed to think many things over. So she had thought he had asked for a hug because of that troubled heart. She had thought the gaze deeper than usual, containing longing, was also because of that.
Her chest thudded and thudded as though someone were beating a drum. It felt as though her heart might leap out of her mouth. Coco glanced toward the window. It was early morning.
“What kind of dream was it?”
The maid asked carefully. She wanted to comfort Coco. Lady Coco had never once shown a weak side of herself like this. It made her heart ache with tenderness and pity. But despite the maid’s coaxing and effort, Coco stubbornly kept her mouth shut.
She had an ominous feeling that if she spoke any words aloud, they would become like a prophecy. Just as some words sounded like curses, Coco hoped her own words would not become that.
Yes, the dream Coco had dreamed, her anxiety, was like a curse.
If the sight of Kirky smiling while stained in blood was not a curse, then what was it?
She barely managed to loosen the strength from the hands gripping the maid’s shoulders.
“My lady, how about resting a little more today......”
Leaving the maid’s worry behind, Coco staggered to her feet. The maid hurried over and caught Coco as she nearly fell. Coco, whose knees had almost buckled, forced herself upright again and stood there blankly.
“My lady? What are you trying to do?”
The maid said several times that if Coco ordered her, she would do it, but Coco did not even pretend to listen.
Coco, who had been looking at the window and terrace tightly wrapped in curtains, and the short strip of light that had entered beneath them, covered the maid’s mouth with her hand.
Shh. At the small whisper, the maid held her breath and nodded.
What is my lady trying to do? The maid rolled only her eyes and looked at Coco’s face.
“The sound......”
“My lady, what sound?”
The maid lowered her voice as much as possible and wore an expression that said she had no idea. What sound on earth......? Huh? The maid blinked. She did hear a sound. That was, the sound of horse hooves...... the sound of horses neighing and carriage wheels rolling. And the murmur of people following after it.
The maid’s face also turned deathly pale.
There was no good news that would come to the ducal house early in the morning. The emotion in those people’s murmurs was absolutely not joy or welcome. The emotion contained in it was the same thing her mistress, the young lady, was wearing on her face right now.
It was grief.
Coco muttered softly. Draw the curtains.
The maid staggered toward the window. With trembling hands, the maid gripped the curtain tightly, then pulled the fabric aside in one go with hands that shook violently. Flash! The sunlight that burst in stabbed their eyes. Even in that moment when it was hard to properly open their eyes, the royal carriage emblem and the black coffin being transferred behind it were clearly visible.
There was no need to guess who the owner of that coffin was.
Because there was only one person who could have left the ducal house for the bloodstained land and returned in a coffin that size.
“Kirky......”
A hollow voice called his name.
***
The white carriage from the royal castle, which had come racing in while ignoring the ducal residence’s main gate, advanced while trampling the well-tended garden and flowers. The servants who had come out to work in the garden early in the morning wore anxious faces, but they could not dare block a carriage from the royal castle. This news was only quietly delivered to Seton, the knight commander and the one in overall charge of the mansion’s security.
As soon as Seton heard the news, he brought out his horse. Mounting, he sent a servant upstairs to inform the young lady, then pulled the reins without hesitation. The horse carried him forward powerfully. As he blocked the royal carriage, Seton felt a strange sensation.
Something that had barged in early in the morning without even a written notice could not be considered good news. It seemed that bad news Seton did not want to think about had come crashing into the ducal residence. The faces of the servants, including the gardener who had been out in the garden, were white as though they had faced an evil spirit. Following the place where all their gazes were gathered, Seton turned his eyes as though bewitched, and for an instant, he ended up wearing the same expression as them.
Because he intuitively realized what must be inside the long, sturdy-looking black coffin being carried behind the carriage.
The hot air, even in the morning, seemed to push that smell toward him.
The smell of someone slowly decomposing. The stench of blood that had dried and could not be erased no matter what one did. The aura of Media, the land where groaning souls were trapped.
Neeeeigh!
At the urgent restraint, the horse cried out and raised its front legs high. Grass and dirt gouged up by the horse’s hooves sprayed into the air. The carriage stopped slightly crooked, and the coffin shook from the recoil. Someone’s voice cried “No—!” like a scream.
Seton dismounted and the door of the royal carriage opened almost at the same time.
The one who revealed himself was an administrator from the royal castle. The man dressed in a purple official uniform wore a grave expression. However, his eyes held discomfort.
“This is the private property of the ducal house. No matter how much you are people of the royal castle, you do not have the right to enter carelessly. This is an insult not only to the late duke, but also to the young lady who will inherit the ducal title.”
The traces of their forcing their way in recklessly continued from far behind. Seton neither browbeat him nor raised his voice, but his voice was threatening, as though pressing a blade to the man’s throat. The royal administrator’s Adam’s apple twitched. He cleared his throat several times, then briefly closed his eyes, as if trying to avoid the dozens of pairs of eyes surrounding him. He seemed to regret being chosen to come here.
He is not someone suited to deliver news like this. He is merely a single administrator, someone who came to carry out what he was ordered to do.
Why had the royal castle sent someone like this? While enduring Seton’s sharpened gaze, the administrator cleared his throat again and again, then finally managed to open his mouth.
What came from that mouth was nothing special.
“We have brought Priest Kirky, who gave his body for the kingdom. Ahem. We name him as the first star, who has not appeared until now, who will forever protect the kingdom and shine at the very front......”
BOOM.
Dust rose from beneath Seton’s feet. Cracks appeared beneath his unmoving feet, and those cracks reached all the way to the royal administrator.
“Is what is inside Priest Kirky’s body?”
His eyes, as though wrapped in thin ice, shone coldly.
At the blunt question, the royal administrator smacked his lips. Really, what a difficult question...... As he stammered, he answered.
“That is so.”
Yes, before death, what did flowery words or medals matter? From the beginning, he had not wanted to come to the Gannion ducal residence. He could not understand what on earth they were thinking. Was barging in like this, without warning, not an insult?
However, he was only doing as those above ordered.
What could it matter if they became angry?
As long as they were subjects, they would have no choice but to accept it.
If they were proper subjects, that was.
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