Chapter 1: Consummation on the Night of the New Moon (1)

Where fate treads straight ahead, remnants of tragedy are always left behind.

❖ ❖ ❖

“Are you… by any chance, pregnant?”

In the duke’s drawing room, at her mother’s softly whispered question, Larie lowered her eyes.

It was the thing she did most in front of her parents. The more obedient she appeared, the sooner this encounter would end.

“No, Mother.”

“Thank goodness!”

Despite asking so urgently, Baroness Tromperie responded brightly, as if she had just received joyous news.

It was a dreary summer day with rain drizzling down outside. The thick, fresh scent of dampened trees couldn’t soothe Larie’s heavy heart. Once again, she had to endure an unexpected visit from her birth parents.

“Good. You did look into what I asked last time, didn’t you?”

“……”

At her father’s low, menacing question, Larie’s shoulders shrank inward. Her silvery hair, glimmering like melted moonlight, slid gently down her shoulders with the motion.

She swallowed dryly and lowered her gaze even further. After spending a whole week agonizing over how to phrase it, she finally forced out her carefully crafted excuse.

“……His Grace has been going out very often lately, so it’s been difficult for me to gather any information, Father.”

She tried to sound indifferent, but her lips trembled faintly. When she glanced at her father’s thick hands, her body recoiled from the pain it remembered too well. Thankfully, her tension didn’t seem to be noticed, as she had her face lowered slightly.

Instead, Baron Tromperie’s face lit up at the mention of outings.

“Outings? Where to?”

“……That, I’m not sure of either……”

“Foolish girl! Couldn’t you have asked the servants?!”

With a suppressed roar of frustration, Baron Tromperie slammed his palm against the table. Each time the sound echoed, Larie felt as if her body was crumbling away, piece by piece.

“…The servants don’t tell me anything about His Grace, Father.”

It was a stiff way to refer to her husband, but she was used to it.

There was no affection in this marriage that was more of an insult than a political arrangement. There was only her own lingering foolishness.

“Useless thing. You still can’t even manage the servants properly. Tsk.”

The reason she couldn’t adjust to the Grand Duchy of Avnir was entirely due to the finely honed cruelty of the Baron of Tromperie.

Even so, Larie lowered her head like a well-trained beast, without a single act of rebellion.

Her silver hair, fluttering like her fragile impression, had now grown so long it reached her knees, disheveled.

“…I’m sorry.”

It had already been two years since she became the Grand Duchess of Avnir.

Realizing that fact, Larie recalled the day of the wedding.

‘Terian Laxtreen.’

She only met her husband at the wedding ceremony, and he looked like a demigod out of myth—unreal.

Because he shared the same surname as the Emperor, Laxtreen, he was called the Grand Duke of Avnir after his territory.

He had black hair resembling the night sky, and his eyes shone a brilliant blue, said to resemble the most beautiful lake in the imperial palace.

Thanks to that, his eyes looked like lakes, or perhaps starlight in the night sky.

Despite his beautiful appearance, his expression was far from pleasant.

So from the first meeting, Larie had to painfully realize that her very presence made him uncomfortable.

‘…Larie Tromperie. Your Grace.’

Because she was, after all, a Tromperie.

Twenty years ago, the Laxtreen Empire went to war with the neighboring Shupetania Empire.

Her family, the House of Tromperie, had acted as spies for the enemy in that imperial war.

Thanks to the efforts of the ‘two great heroes,’ the war barely ended with a balanced ceasefire agreement—but the ending was far from good.

The Baron House of Tromperie had, of all things, secured the exclusive distribution rights to blue coal imported from Shupetania.

It was the price for diligently acting as a spy even during the war.

The fury of Shupetania, which had to end a nearly won war in peace, scarred the hearts of the people of the Laxtreen Empire in this way.

A peace treaty was barely concluded thanks to the sacrifices of the two heroes, but it was only a façade. Despite the treacherous acts of the Baron House of Tromperie against the empire, the Laxtreen Empire could not properly punish them due to the need to import blue coal, and merely demoted their title from Count to Baron.

Because of this, the current emperor ultimately earned the title of a foolish ruler.

Many people mourned the late Grand Duke of Avnir, who had died in the war. As the emperor’s younger brother, he led the war efforts in his stead and ultimately died an honorable death.

Thus, Larie’s husband, Terian, had lost his father to the war.

Due to the emperor’s jealousy, he had to marry the daughter of a family as good as an enemy’s.

This marriage was a tragedy created by the emperor’s envy and the twisted selfishness of the Tromperies, who sought to wash away their family’s dishonor.

It was no wonder, then, that he had treated her so coldly for the past two years.

“Larie. Take this.”

At that moment, her mother pulled a dark pill from her bosom and handed it to her.

It was the medicine she had given without fail every week since Larie had become the Grand Duchess.

A pill to prevent pregnancy.

Only, today was a little different. The color of the pill was unlike the one normally given.

“Is this… a different medicine?”

“I found something more effective. It’s all for your sake.”

“…”

Larie still couldn’t understand the claim that it was for her sake.

If anything, it would be better for her parents if she were to bear the Grand Duke’s heir as soon as possible.

Even Baron Tromperie, who had amassed immense wealth through the intermediary trade of blue coal, could not buy back the fallen honor of his family.

So the means they chose was Larie.

To slowly devour the noble House of Avnir.

Though she felt something was off, Larie swallowed a sigh and the question with it.

She was simply too exhausted.

She could only vaguely guess that her parents were already planning something else for her brother.

It was a form of discrimination she had grown used to throughout her life.

“Take it.”

It was truly a cruel thing to do to her hollow shell of a husband.

So perhaps, for his sake too, it would be best that no child was ever conceived.

A child bearing the blood of Tromperie.

“…Yes.”

Resigned, Larie obediently placed the pill in her mouth.

The bitter stench of the medicine lingered and tormented her for a long time.

❖ ❖ ❖

‘It hurts… so much…’

Larie awoke, drenched in cold sweat.

The rain seemed to have stopped, and the edge of the sunset hung outside the window.

Not long after her parents had left, she began experiencing strange, intense abdominal pain.

Though the medicine always brought unpleasant sensations, this time it was far worse.

Unable to endure the tearing pain, she skipped dinner and fell into an early sleep.

But the pain only worsened.

Even as it spread throughout her body, Larie hesitated to act.

Her parents had always been extremely sensitive about her receiving treatment from the Grand Duke’s physician.

“Ugh…”

Another wave of pain struck her lower back.

After a moment of agonizing struggle, Larie reached out with trembling hands and pulled the bell cord by the bedside.

It took quite a while before a maid arrived in her room.

“…What is it?”

Accompanied by a rough knock, the maid Susan entered, her gaze frigid.

Larie was already accustomed to the clear contempt in her eyes.

When she first got married, she had a small glimmer of hope.

That it was a chance to escape a home devoid of a single good memory.

She had confidence in living quietly, like a mouse.

Even if everyone ignored her, she believed she could endure it all.

But the wretched pain had followed Larie even here.

More intense now, thanks to the medicine her parents began giving her every week—medicine they had never mentioned before the marriage.

“Could you… bring me a painkiller?”

She was in pain, but Larie couldn’t freely see a physician.

Even setting aside the harsh scolding from her parents, there was also the threat from her brother—one that wasn’t entirely without basis.

‘The only value you have is in bearing an heir, and you think you’ll get away with taking that kind of medicine?’

She hadn’t taken the medicine by choice, but to the people of the Grand Duchy, the distinction didn’t matter.

To them, she was just Larie who lived in luxury on Tromperie’s dirty money.

If she had known about the medicine from the beginning, would she have resisted, even a little?

After nearly two years of continued pain and threats, after a lifetime of oppression, she had been flattened completely.

To the point where, even in this moment, she thought the best she could do was mask the situation with a painkiller.

Seeing her dripping with cold sweat, Susan spoke in a low voice.

“If you’re in pain, you should call a physician.”

“…Just one painkiller will do.”

To the maids, Larie’s behavior had long been a nuisance.

If she were to collapse, the ones who would be harshly scolded were the servants.

And about a year ago, when Larie couldn’t endure it anymore and called for a physician, it had caused a commotion.

Her parents had insisted on making an official visit to the Grand Duchy.

Larie, who had been half-unconscious at the time, never found out the full details.

She only realized afterward that the maids’ gazes had turned noticeably sharper.

“Master has ordered that we’re not to give Madam any medication without the physician’s prescription.”

In the end, her husband Terian had issued that command.

Larie had known this, but being denied once again still turned her vision dark.

“If that’s all you needed, I’ll take my leave now.”

Without waiting for permission, Susan turned her back coldly.

It was as if she couldn’t stand being in the same room as Larie.

Susan had originally been assigned as her personal maid. Larie had far too many things to feel sorry for.

Knowing this well, Larie didn’t rebuke the rudeness. She simply lowered her gaze.

Before she knew it, Susan had left the room, leaving her alone.

‘It hurts so much.’

Her consciousness was starting to fade.

The view outside the window she unconsciously turned to was just on the verge of being swallowed by darkness.

The lush forest behind the grand mansion swayed like waves in the wind.

“….”

As if possessed, Larie slowly got to her feet.

Then, without thought, she began walking toward the forest.

To the green forest—the only place that had ever embraced her since she was a child.