Chapter 123

Nerys didn’t have to wait long. Ellen arrived before she could even catch her breath twice in front of the former Grand Duchess’s bedroom.

“My lady.”

Ellen, still dressed neatly as if she was in the middle of work, appeared. Dora followed, carrying a large, sharp axe. Normally, she would have started chopping right away, but Ellen’s pale face made her hesitate.

Nerys didn’t answer Ellen but gestured to Dora at the door.

“Break it.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Wait a moment, my lady.”

Dora was about to swing the axe when Ellen stopped her with a hand. Ellen spoke to Nerys.

“My lady, His Grace the former Grand Duke ordered this place never to be opened again.”

“He’s gone now.”

“But it was the command of successive Grand Dukes.”

“Dora, give me the axe.”

Nerys’s voice turned cold. The force in her words was as fierce as a shadow division instructor during training, and Dora handed over the axe as if hypnotized.

She raised the axe high. Ellen asked in a hurried voice.

“My lady, are you sure you want to do this?”

“It’s too late for that.”

Nerys lowered the axe for a moment—not out of fear, but to face Ellen and, if possible, confirm something.

“Why are you even asking? If you didn’t want me to see this place, you could have told me not to come here from the beginning. If you didn’t want me interested, you could have removed the chains and hidden the toys in the greenhouse. If nothing was amiss, I would have had no reason to come here. But you didn’t do that. You always made me think there was more.”

The former Grand Duchess, whose real name was no longer even remembered—Nerys’s interest in her stemmed mostly from Ellen’s descriptions.

Her curiosity, too, was sparked by Ellen’s stories.

‘And lately, it was because of her actions.’

For Ellen, a woman with the same eye color as the deceased Grand Duchess could never be more important than Cledwyn’s welfare. If anything, she should feel disgust, seeing someone imitating the former Grand Duchess.

Yet Ellen had been conspicuously kind to Catherine Haricote.

“You wanted me to know, didn’t you? That Catherine isn’t just some naive girl pretending to win people over, but someone deliberately mimicking the former Grand Duchess?”

Ellen’s eyes trembled.

Nerys asked coldly.

“It’s time to ask, Ellen. What do you know about the former Grand Duchess?”

Ellen was always composed and clever. If Nerys needed to know something, she would speak plainly. But this time was different.

And Nerys could guess why.

‘If the former Grand Duchess was a bastard, then Cledwyn’s succession is invalid.’

No matter how much the Grand Duke and Duchess loved each other, no matter if the ceremony was held under a priest’s blessing in the chapel, a child could only inherit if born within a lawful marriage; a child born to a commoner and a noble could not inherit a title.

If the marquis revealed what he’d done, northern rule would shatter. With Cledwyn gone, there’d be no one left to inherit Maindulante.

The lands of a great noble with no heir would be torn apart by the hungriest wolves.

So, naturally, this was the greatest secret of the north. Something no one dared speak of.

Ellen sighed and closed her eyes.

“…I wanted you to be able to choose, my lady. If you knew everything, it would surely be a heavy burden.”

A cold, dangerous edge settled on her face.

“…Did you know? I was never meant to serve a great noble up close. I was just the fifth cousin of the head maid at the marquisate, someone who’d never even visited until they decided to send me with Lady Edith’s dowry. I didn’t know the real Lady Edith at all, and even if I died, it wouldn’t have mattered to anyone.”

It was the first time Nerys had heard Ellen speak so harshly.

“In Maindulante, my lady and I barely survived death many times, and I was proud to devote my life to her. One day, she told me everything. That she wasn’t a young lady raised in the marquisate, but a bastard born in the little village of Holcastle. She told me that whatever happened to her, the marquis would never care for Young Master Cledwyn, so I should look after him.”

Not just “didn’t care”—by now, everyone knew what kind of person the marquis was. Ellen gave Nerys a gentle look.

“I was foolish and couldn’t protect our young master well enough, but at least you were there for him, my lady.”

Nerys could sense the obvious affection in her words.

Six years ago.

“I vowed to keep this secret until death. But I can’t force you to make that promise, too.”

“But you wanted me to know, didn’t you?”

“Both yes and no… My lady, are you really all right? His Grace never wants to hide anything from you. But I feel differently. I wanted you to know, but if you truly don’t want to…”

Ellen sighed.

“It would be better for you not to carry a burden you don’t want. If you leave without opening the door, I’ll treat you just the same as always. I wouldn’t blame you for knowing nothing about my lady.”

There was good reason for Ellen’s concern. Knowing a secret that could unseat one of the most powerful nobles in Bistor Empire would be much more than a simple burden.

Even though it was clear to everyone present that Nerys knew, Ellen’s insistence on confirming it was a real kindness. There was no point in worrying about another person knowing the secret now…

‘She’s telling me to run if it’s too much.’

She was promising to trust Nerys with the secret, but if she didn’t want it, to stay out of it. It was both a kindness and a line drawn between Nerys and the people of this castle.

‘So, am I really all right?’

…It was almost funny. Even if he’d been born to the devil in hell, it didn’t matter to her.

Nerys simply looked at the door, not answering. The door that had slept for so long, along with Ellen, the greenhouse, and the former Grand Duchess’s memory.

‘He called it mere regret.’

Nerys closed her eyes, recalling Cledwyn’s voice once. Then she lifted the axe high.

Bang, clatter, crack! She missed often, but sometimes struck the chain true. The handle and door were damaged in the process, but Nerys didn’t care.

His stolen childhood was asleep here.

The wounds of a youth he had decided to forget, but never truly had.

If Cledwyn had really forgotten, he wouldn’t have left the west palace garden as it was, or left the west palace empty, or remembered the toys there.

He had only been repressing it all this time, calling it habit, pretending that the dull ache in his heart was nothing.

He was not all right.

And if he was not all right, then neither was she.

“I’m going to break it open. I’m sick of covering things up.”

Clang, clang, bang!

The axe smashed the chain around the doorknob. Dora felt as if her own chest was being split open, though not in a bad way—rather, as if…

It felt as if time had finally begun to move in this place.

As if a tightly closed box had finally cracked open, letting in a sliver of light. Even though she didn’t understand, Dora felt it instinctively.

The rusted lock finally fell to the ground with a heavy sound.

“Open it.”

Nerys commanded coldly. Dora looked uncertain, but quickly moved her hands. The battered chain fell away from the door with a metallic clang.

Nerys threw the door wide open and stepped inside.

Every piece of furniture in the former Grand Duchess’s room was covered in white linen, just like that old drawing room. And the smell of dust was strong.

“Open the window and take off all the covers.”

Dora and Ellen moved quickly at Nerys’s command. Under candlelight, the furniture was revealed.

Nerys recognized that everything in the room was styled after trends from when the former Grand Duchess was alive. Everything was blue—a mix of green and blue.

The color of the former Grand Duchess’s eyes.

It was such an obsessive form of admiration that Nerys sensed it instinctively.

‘No wonder.’

No wonder no one wanted to enter after the former Grand Duchess died.

When she drew back the curtain above the gilded fireplace, a hidden portrait of the Grand Duke and Duchess was revealed. Though long gone, the couple in the painting looked lively and happy.

The flickering candlelight illuminated those long-vanished figures. Ellen, staring blankly at the portrait, spoke weakly.

“No matter where I searched, I couldn’t find any proof that my lady died from anything but illness. I told myself I must have been wrong, that I just missed her so much I wanted someone to blame.”

Ellen knew the former Grand Duchess’s fate. Nerys glanced at her.

“I was suspicious, yes. But I couldn’t let His Grace reject his only family over a misunderstanding. After what happened to him six years ago, he cut ties with that man, but I never had enough proof to say the marquis was behind my lady’s death. There were too many who benefited from harming her.”

Ellen’s face was fierce, as if she would tear the culprit apart if she could.

“Do you know how I finally became certain, after more than ten years? It was a ring. The same ring that man wears now—just like the one the envoy wore when he visited my lady that morning! What kind of great noble entrusts his ring to a servant unless absolutely necessary? He must have sent the shadow division on a special mission!”

Among jewelry, rings traditionally symbolized a seal—proof of identity and command. Nobles never lent such obvious, expensive rings to just anyone.

And Nerys thought she knew which ring Ellen meant. Among the many rings the Marquis of Tipion wore, there was one with an especially large, thick emerald.

Perfect for hiding something inside.

‘The former Grand Duke surely had a shadow division.’

Ellen seemed to believe the envoy had brought the shadow division to deceive the Grand Duke and Duchess and assassinate the Grand Duchess, and that the ring was the proof.

But Nerys thought differently.

If the marquis had given such a ring to an envoy and then taken it back—and was still wearing it now—then most likely, the envoy had acted himself. That ring, cleverly made, must have contained a poison used only by the Tipion family.

If it weren’t a secret family method, the Grand Duke’s physician would have found the cause.

So what Nerys needed to find in this room was now clear.

She searched the posts of the canopied bed, the candleholders on the walls, and the drawers. There were all kinds of luxurious items, but what caught her eye most was a ring she found in the dressing table drawer.

“Was this the former Grand Duchess’s?”

A baroque pearl ring, large enough to cover the first joint of a thumb. Ellen nodded.

“Yes. My lady brought it when she married. She always wore it early in her marriage.”

“And at some point, she stopped.”

“Yes. His Grace gave her far more valuable things.”

Indeed, a baroque pearl isn’t a jewel someone of the Grand Duchess’s rank would usually favor.

“Who left the ring here?”

“My lady, I suppose. She never liked the maids touching her room. Especially the drawers—no one but her ever opened them.”

“-Ah.”

Nerys grinned fiercely.

This was it. The thing she had to find tonight.