Even as Catherine stared blankly, words poured through the narrow gap like a downpour. Prophecy, Catherine, what was right and wrong. Catherine blinked, unable to even move her lips. Her silence was appropriate since she couldn’t say anything.

The repeated mentions and references to her without explanation only confused her more. She still didn’t understand what all these visions shown by the evil thing meant.

Perhaps it was difficult to understand what it wanted to convey because the nature of the evil thing itself was hard to comprehend.

Yet Catherine suddenly questioned herself: Had she really asked something so difficult? She had clearly requested the evil thing to prove it was Saul.

And the evil thing had answered: Go and see “everything” about Saul.

“I merely told you what I heard.”

Could the strange scene she had just witnessed, and what she was seeing now, be related to Saul? Something she absolutely needed to see…

Suddenly, ignoring the voice coming through the narrow gap, Catherine’s gaze slowly drifted.

She watched young Saul, who stood leaning against the wall a step away from the door with his back turned to her, take one step backward.

Very faintly, she thought she heard the thick carpet being pressed under his feet. The glimpse of his profile disappeared into shadow, then tilted slightly.

Young Saul stood with his shoulder against the wall. His eyelids lowered. Looking down at his rounded shoe tips with their faint gleam, his expression unreadable, he seemed to be listening to the conversation coming through the door crack.

Or perhaps he was lost in thought. Catherine kept her eyes on young Saul while listening to the voices through the gap.

“I swear I told you everything without omission.”

Beyond the door, a conversation Catherine couldn’t understand continued.

“It was an undeniable calling. The name the Count called was ‘Catherine,’ and this is clearly a destined connection.”

Destined? Catherine thought of the Countess who shared her name. Simultaneously, the question that arose in Catherine’s mind flowed from the seemingly exhausted Count’s lips: What exactly was this destiny for?

As the question was asked, Saul’s downcast gaze slowly rose.

“Isn’t it for salvation?”

As Catherine had the strange sensation of their gazes meeting, an unclear answer followed.

…Salvation? For whom? But no answer to that question came.

Suddenly Catherine lowered her gaze to her skirt. She noticed her hands trembling. Recalling the Countess’s final appearance when she had lunged at her, Catherine repeatedly clenched and unclenched her cold hands.

She remembered those blue eyes of the Countess that seemed to look at her. Then belatedly realized with certainty: that tearing cry hadn’t been directed at Catherine. Though she couldn’t hear it clearly, that much was certain.

Therefore, young Saul, with whom she seemed to have exchanged glances, must be the same.

Calming herself, Catherine turned her head toward where young Saul was looking. Through the edge of a window at the far end of the corridor, a faint glimpse of the chapel rising in the distance was visible.

Young Saul was staring at it. Like someone who had discovered something frightening, he gazed at it with pursed lips before turning away.

“Then I’ll take my leave now.”

The conversation seemed to have ended while she was observing Saul. Farewell words signaling the end of the discussion were heard. That was the last of the voice from inside the room.

The Count’s voice was no longer audible. Only the sense of a stranger slowly approaching the door could be felt.

Catherine suddenly realized that young Saul had been waiting for this moment. The reason became clear when she saw him straighten up from the wall as the stranger’s shadow slowly covered the narrow door crack.

Seeing young Saul with his back to her, Catherine slowly rose from where she had been sitting. Briefly, an expression of anxiety seemed to cross young Saul’s face as he turned.

Footsteps from beyond the door were drawing closer. The approaching sound became clearer, then seemed to stop. Almost simultaneously, a shadow appeared in the form of a hand placed on the door.

Then slowly the door began to open.

Through the widening gap, the figure of a man with his back to the light gradually emerged.

The first thing visible was a pitch-black priest’s robe made of fabric so stiff that not a single wrinkle showed. It briefly extended toward the darkness, then turned.

Since the priest had his back to Catherine while facing into the room, his face wasn’t visible. Only his short brown hair and round ear were illuminated by the light leaking from inside. A slender profile tilted briefly into view before disappearing behind the door again.

After giving a slight bow, the man’s feet angled sideways, and he soon stepped out of the doorway. As he turned to close the door, he suddenly froze.

He had discovered young Saul standing by the wall.

At the same time, Catherine’s steps toward young Saul also halted. The brief moment of eye contact between the man and young Saul revealed an unsettling atmosphere between them. Catherine observed the man.

She slowly shifted her gaze to his pale brown hair that seemed faded, the tense corners of his eyes that appeared to be deliberately hiding his bewilderment, and the brown eyes set between them.

Perhaps due to the light spilling from the room, those eyes seemed to have a faint golden tint. With those eyes, the man remained frozen, unable to tear his gaze away from young Saul.

For a moment, an awkward silence enveloped them.

Light flowing from the room bathed the man’s profile.

Catherine studied him. Though she hoped he might be someone familiar, his face, with shadows sharply cast across it, was strange to her. Perhaps this was natural.

The man, dressed in pitch-black clothing that reached his ankles, was clearly a priest to anyone who saw him.

While she couldn’t speak for the time of the previous Count, when Catherine arrived at Cavendish, there had been no resident priest within the castle. For reasons unknown, Saul hadn’t allowed even the minimal priestly presence needed to maintain the chapel.

Because of this, Catherine had to bring a priest from the temple outside the castle to conduct Saul’s funeral.

Even Samuel was like this. Whether Saul knew his true identity remained unclear… But setting aside that question, Samuel had been present in the castle as Saul’s personal physician, not as a priest.

 Catherine blinked while keeping her gaze fixed on the priest’s face. So it was natural that the man before her was unfamiliar.

Tap. Suddenly a sound broke the silence. Following the man’s movement as he pulled the door handle, the light shining through the narrow gap completely disappeared. The surroundings were covered in pitch darkness.

The only illumination in the corridor was the pale light cast from the distant windowed area.

“Eli…”

From where the faint light didn’t reach, young Saul’s voice calling the priest could be heard, his lips barely moving. The vague sensation of lips sticking together then parting was faintly perceptible.

Seemingly afraid that the Count inside the room might hear the call, young Saul’s head tilted slightly toward the closed door then back again. In the pitch darkness, his fine hair swaying was barely visible.

The priest remained silent for a moment. Though this silence lasted only seconds, Catherine, who was close to young Saul, noticed his shoulders trembling during this brief interval.

Though she couldn’t be certain due to the darkness, there was something difficult to understand about Saul’s reaction. Catherine had the impression that Saul was either suppressing something or afraid.

Why would Saul fear this priest?

Just as Catherine pondered this, she heard the man standing before Saul exhale a long breath. It was such a faint breath that she wouldn’t have noticed had the surroundings not been so quiet. Catherine raised her head to look at the priest immersed in darkness.

Though his expression wasn’t clearly visible, Catherine thought the man must look extremely tired. The breath he exhaled was different from one expressing frustration or wanting to reproach someone.

The breath that briefly brushed past her ears was more like that of someone bearing a burden. It was closer to acknowledging that a certain time had come, or recognizing that one finally faced something long awaited.

But Saul, standing before the priest, was still too young to sense this subtle difference. That’s why his shoulders visibly flinched.

Saul appeared somewhat frightened. Because his breathing was somewhat uneven, the priest seemed to notice this fact as well.

“Young master.”

The priest lowered himself before young Saul. Kneeling, he placed his hands on young Saul’s arms as though about to embrace him affectionately, holding him gently.

Then, calling him quietly in a hushed voice, he asked:

“May I hold you?”

At that careful, soft question, young Saul looked at the man for a moment. After quietly observing the dignified face tinged with a hint of tenderness, he silently stepped forward and wrapped his arms around the man’s neck…