Chapter 45
It was obvious they had once shared a deeply intimate relationship.
For someone like Heraise Eckbert, of all people, to wear that kind of expression because of another person—
A strange feeling pressed down on me, heavy as if a stone sat on my chest.
I lifted my hand and pressed hard against the spot over my heart.
“Does it hurt?”
“…Mm. No, it just feels a little tight.”
Heraise’s eyes locked on me, reacting to even my smallest change. Without realizing it, I called his name.
“Heraise.”
“What is it?”
That person… were they someone precious to you?
The thought slipped out, and I snapped my mouth shut, startled. Instinct told me I should not ask about that.
Before I made a mistake, I quickly changed the subject.
“I’ll be able to heal illnesses too, like that person… right?”
“Of course.”
“Then I’ll live longer than them.”
“Yes. You will. You’ll live past twenty-four, past sixty… no, even longer than that.”
It was strange. I was the one who wanted so badly to live, yet somehow Heraise seemed more desperate than I was.
“You will. I’ll make sure of it.”
It sounded less like a promise to me, and more like a vow to himself.
“Heren?”
Something about his subdued voice made me reach out and grab his sleeve.
At that moment, one of the guards who had been standing at a distance approached and bowed.
“My lady.”
“What is it?”
“The young lord is nearby. Would you like to see him?”
“My brother? Where is he?”
“He’s at the trading company.”
Now that I thought about it, we were close to the Winter Trading Company.
“Yes, let’s go there.”
With thoughts of going home together with Noah afterward, I headed toward the company.
I stepped down from the carriage and froze at the sight of the crowd that had gathered.
“It’s not even a market day. Why are there so many people?”
“They’re all looking in the same direction.”
With his usual composure returned, Heraise pointed.
He was pointing straight at the Winter Duchy’s trading company building.
“Did something happen at the company?”
As I drew closer, the murmur of voices swelled louder.
With the knights shielding me and Heraise clearing a path, I pushed through the throng and finally laid eyes on the scene. I blinked in shock.
“What is this… what happened?”
Every window was shattered, glass riddled with holes or cracked like spiderwebs where someone had thrown stones or struck them.
Crying out Noah’s name, I ran into the building.
“Brother!”
“Siena? What are you doing here—no, it’s dangerous, stay put!”
Noah hurriedly reached out to stop me.
“What on earth…?”
Inside was worse. Shards of glass littered the marble floor, and even the walls bore cracks as if someone had taken a hammer to them.
Display cases were smashed, merchandise stolen.
Even the ornaments, clocks, and furnishings had been destroyed.
It was, in every sense, an act of terror.
“Young lord, my lady. Please, this way.”
At Chester’s summons—Noah’s secretary—we went deeper inside, where the only unbroken mirror remained standing.
Across its surface, red paint dripped like blood.
Fools and simpletons.
Do not ever touch us again.
There will not be a second warning. Break this, and your father’s wrath will burn even your soul.
I recognized the culprit immediately.
“Kwangmyeongdan.”
Those thugs should’ve gone after Daphne’s flower shop. Why had they wrecked our company instead?
Noah, narrowing his eyes, seemed to have an idea.
“It must be because of that incident.”
“What incident?”
“The day of the festival—you clashed with them.”
“Oh… because I smashed the Kwangmyeongdan leader’s skull?”
“Siena. Not ‘skull.’ Head.”
Correcting my language in a situation like this—so like Noah.
But he’d left a loophole!
“Brother, animals have skulls. That’s what the dictionary says. You don’t call a beast’s skull a ‘head’ like a human’s.”
“…Now that you say it, you’re right.”
“See?”
Why give the courtesy of human words to lowlifes who did nothing but rob and extort?
Chester, watching us nodding in unison with the exact same expression, shook his head.
“Moments like this make it clear you really are siblings.”
“Oh my! Chester, so the rest of the time we don’t look alike?”
“Indeed, Chester. That tone was suspicious.”
Noah and I ganged up to tease him, and he pushed up his glasses with a sigh as if expecting it.
“You’re alike even in your pranks. But since I’m used to them now, let’s drop it.”
“So boring.”
“I’ve learned my lesson after being tricked more than once. Enough joking. Young lord, this way please.”
With that, Chester and Noah left to inspect the rest of the damage.
I stayed behind, staring at the mirror.
“Heren… I’m kind of scared.”
“Why?”
I jerked my chin toward the message scrawled across the glass.
“What if my soul really does get thrown into hellfire for standing against them? I’d burn to ashes.”
I laughed as I teased, but Heraise’s expression twisted in fury.
“Those bastards. I’ll hunt every last one of them down and kill them.”
I chuckled at his scowl.
“Hellfire, really? That’s so ridiculous it’s funny.”
Turning my back on the mirror, I glanced in the direction of Daphne’s flower shop.
The warning had been meant for her, yet it had come to me instead—and that bothered me.
Is it because Heraise is at my side?
If this was only about me cracking someone’s skull, fine. But if it was because of Heraise?
If I kept getting dragged into this because of him—
…That would be troublesome.
After all, it was Daphne’s responsibility to take care of Kwangmyeongdan, not mine.
Getting tangled up once by chance doesn’t mean I should clean up the mess forever. No way.
I was already sick, nearly dying—what a hateful burden that would be.
“Of course this happens with the Duke away.”
“While those thugs rampage, where is His Grace?”
Whispers spread, blaming the Duke’s absence for the disaster.
I asked Noah, “Brother, when is Father coming back?”
“If nothing interferes with his plans, he’ll depart within the week.”
“Still, it’s taking longer than I thought…”
No matter the business, he had always dropped by home at least once to see me.
This was the first time he hadn’t, and it left me uneasy.
“Siena, we’re talking about Father. Do you think there’s anywhere he could actually lose?”
“Well… no.”
My father, the Duke, was a man who could be thrown into the desert barehanded and still survive.
He could be left stranded on a deserted island and find his own way back. He could fight a monster with his bare fists—and win.
“Your father must be formidable indeed, if even the young lord says so.”
Noah considered Heraise’s remark, searching for the simplest way to put it.
“Father tears monsters apart.”
That single sentence captured his essence. Noah nodded firmly.
“With his bare hands, too.”
“With his hands? A monster?” Heraise arched a brow, skeptical.
“Yes. He rips them apart. Just like that.”
“Like tearing paper,” Noah added.
We took turns insisting, ripping them apart, ripping them apart.
It might have sounded like an exaggeration, but it was the truth.
That was how strong the Duke was. People didn’t call him an “inhuman anomaly” for nothing.
Some even whispered how strange it was that such a man could have such a frail, sickly daughter.
But if it was Father, I had no reason to worry.
The real problem was the pack of jackals who would come swarming now that they knew the Winter Duke was absent.
The story of Kwangmyeongdan’s attack on the Winter Duchy’s trading company spread like wildfire.
They’d dared to provoke the Winters—were they out of their minds?
It was said the attack had been revenge against the Duke’s daughter.
But how could heretics touch the house of Winter at all?
Because the Duke wasn’t there, that was why.
At first the rumor was simply that he was away, but the tale grew more twisted as it spread.
“Have you heard? They say the Duke of Winter is missing.”
“I heard that too—been gone three months, they say.”
“Three months? That long?”
“Then isn’t that a serious matter?”
Rumors sprouted wings, spreading everywhere, until they reached the underground gambling den.
“They say the Duke of Winter disappeared.”
“You really believe that nonsense? Lies, all of it.”
“Then why don’t we ask him? He’d know if it’s true.”
One man jerked his chin toward a corner table, where a middle-aged fellow frowned down at his hand of cards.
“Who’s that?”
“The guy who swears the Duke of Winter is his brother-in-law.”
With a mocking gesture, twirling a finger beside his temple, the man stood and approached.
“Hey. Frank.”
“…Been a while.”
Frank didn’t look up, eyes fixed on his cards.
“You’ve heard the rumor, haven’t you?”
“Rumor? What rumor?”
Frank raised his glass and swallowed hard, wetting his throat.
“That the Duke’s gone missing.”
“Pfft—!”
“Argh, damn it, you bastard!”
His opponent swore as beer sprayed across the table, but Frank didn’t care.
He shot to his feet, seized the speaker by the collar, and snarled.
“Say that again. The Duke disappeared, you said?”
