Chapter 1: Consummation on the Night of the New Moon (6)

At the Grand Duchess’s stern words, cold sweat formed on Larie’s skin. The pain, which had slightly subsided, surged again.

“…I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t say that to hear an apology.”

Though she barely managed to move her tingling lips to speak, the Grand Duchess’s voice held a tangle of emotions.

It was natural for her to find Larie’s demeanor suspicious. Given that Larie had recently leaked information about her family multiple times, it could easily be interpreted that she was being unusually cooperative with the Grand Duchy.

However, it was also Larie’s fault that the specific information about the Bordi region had made its way back to the Tromperie family.

A few weeks ago, the Tromperies had abruptly taken Larie on a trip.

She had assumed it was a routine visit and had gone down to the drawing room, only to be blindsided.

The official reason was to spend time with family at a Tromperie-owned villa. The looks on the servants’ faces, watching Larie leave after such short notice, had not been kind.

Dragged away to a beautiful villa by the riverside, Larie found herself feeling as though she had returned to hell.

Since her marriage, her family had stopped physically hitting her. But she had forgotten that they didn’t need violence to torment her.

For several days, Larie had been forced to remain standing in nothing but a thin chemise. She wasn’t allowed to sit or sleep. Whenever she was about to faint, her family would force-feed her potions from the temple.

When even that didn’t work, they placed a bucket of cold water beside her. Each time she started to doze off, they made her dump it over her own head. After days of this, her hands and feet turned a chilling shade of blue.

Moreover, with no eyes watching, her brother’s behavior quickly reverted to the violent way it had once been.

“Ha. Look at this b*tch? She clearly knows, but she’s not saying?”

It seemed to be a response to the lack of information she’d provided for a while. Unable to endure the pain, Larie had been forced to name a few people she’d seen through the window—all of them officials who had visited the Grand Duchy.

If Terian hadn’t finally sent a carriage after multiple ignored warnings, those hellish days would have lasted even longer.

After that, the information her father demanded became oddly specific, as if he had deduced something from the names she’d given.

It was an absolute mess. The despair from that day brought the pain back to her body.

She had once saved money desperately, hoping to run away and leave it all behind. But that too was no longer an option.

Crushed under the weight of mounting hopelessness, Larie’s expression grew darker. Was it even meaningful anymore to keep sabotaging her family’s plans so desperately?

What exactly could she do now?

Just as Larie was being buried under familiar despair, the Grand Duchess said something like a bolt from the blue.

“Terian will be joining us later.”

“…H-His Grace…?”

It wasn’t rare for her to be invited here, but never once had Terian joined them.

“Yes. Let’s have tea together.”

The Grand Duchess spoke with a gaze more complex than before. Her voice sounded oddly drained of strength, but Larie was too panicked to notice.

Before she realized it, her palm was soaked in sweat where it gripped her skirt. Her heart, thundering in her ears, sounded ominous.

She glanced down at the dress she was wearing. She thought she had handled it well yesterday, but in the bright light, she could see faint grass stains.

Terian would surely find it suspicious that she wore the same dress twice. If he found out she had been sending even the Grand Duchess’s allowance to her family…

If she were to face that cold gaze again…

“Larie?”

Suddenly, an intense pain pierced through her head.

A wave of agony greater than anything she’d ever felt before crashed into her all at once, and her back gave out. The sound of tableware crashing to the floor echoed faintly, far away.

“…Ah.”

The last thing she saw was the red light from the stained glass spilling across the marble floor before everything went dark.

❖ ❖ ❖

On the seventh day of being confined at the villa, a carriage from the Grand Duchy finally came to fetch her.

With annoyed expressions, the Baron and Baroness had no choice but to let Larie go. During the entire ride back to the estate, Larie broke out in a cold sweat.

Even with the potion she’d taken, the fear and pain carved into her bones didn’t fade. Holy potions had always done little for her, anyway.

As she trembled her way back to the estate entrance, to her surprise, Terian was standing there. His eyes cold as he stared at Larie, who had disappeared without a word.

“Fix that habit of vanishing at will. You should be aware that you hold the title of Grand Duchess of Avnir.”

What had she said in response to that?

“……”

It had only been a few weeks ago, yet she couldn’t quite recall. Lately, her memory seemed to be faltering more and more.

Forcing her dry eyelids open, she saw a heavy canopy above—a style unfamiliar to her, but similar in tone to the annex.

Next to her, the Grand Duchess sat gazing at Larie. The moment she felt her gaze, a wave of disorientation swept over her.

Collapsing at a meal, of all things. What if Terian had come in afterward and seen her like that?

What if he misunderstood again?

“…Where is His Grace?”

Her mind was still hazy. Not fully conscious, Larie asked the question, driven by anxious urgency.

“Terian has gone out for a state council meeting.”

The Grand Duchess’s voice, replying to her, was somewhat subdued. But Larie didn’t pick up on that nuance, only feeling a wave of weak relief wash over her.

To think that he would naturally come just because she had collapsed…

It was foolish of her. Today was not the day of the state council meeting. Most likely, he had been on his way to the annex and turned back upon hearing of Larie’s collapse.

Inside the estate, there would be no reason to care about anyone’s gaze. Which meant—there was no real reason for him to come just because she had fainted.

“You’ll recover gradually now that you’re conscious. But you still need to rest for the time being.”

Just then, an unfamiliar voice came from the foot of the bed. Larie turned her head without thinking and flinched upon seeing the white coat of a physician.

She should have immediately thought of medical care. How had she been so out of it?

“I ordered him to examine you,”

the Grand Duchess said as she rose from her seat, responding to Larie’s reaction. It was only then that Larie realized her tone was rather firm.

“You may go. And not a word of this.”

“Yes, Madam.”

The doctor bowed deeply and headed for the door. As he passed Larie, a flash of reproach seemed to linger in his gaze.

Only after the door closed did the Grand Duchess turn her body to face Larie.

Those same bright blue eyes as Terian’s stared into her. The faint warmth from their earlier conversation about the Grand Duchess’s duties had vanished without a trace.

“To think you’d drink poison—what were you thinking?”

The words that followed were utterly unexpected.

The physician must have examined her while she was unconscious and realized something about the pills her mother gave her weekly. But instead of a contraceptive… poison?

“…What?”

“There was nothing wrong with the food. Even the meals you took alone.”

Perhaps she’d been asleep for quite a while—because the Grand Duchess explained things one by one, meticulously. Her expression was firm, as though not even a needle could pierce through it.

“We couldn’t identify the exact type with such urgency, but one of the components is definitely a toxic substance.”

“…”

 Through those words, Larie realized that the exact effect of the medicine she had taken hadn’t been discovered.

Perhaps it really was poison.

The sudden thought made it hard to breathe. Larie tried to shove aside the unsettling possibility. No matter how things were, her family had no reason to poison her—did they?

“Why would you swallow poison yourself, Larie?”

The relentless questioning sent her mind spinning and her stomach churning. The dull pain still lingered faintly in her lower abdomen.

What if her parents found out she’d seen a doctor? What if Tromperie came again—to disgrace the Grand Duchy?

As she met the Grand Duchess’s piercing blue eyes, a wave of fear washed over her. Terian’s contemptuous gaze seemed to overlap atop hers.

Clasping her ghostly pale hands together with effort, Larie finally forced herself to speak. It was a reflexive plea, made without careful thought, driven purely by fear.

“This… this time… please keep it a secret. From… my parents…”

“Terian already knows. If you’re asking that it be kept from others, of course I intended to. It wouldn’t do either of us any good, would it?”

But the Grand Duchess’s sharp, cutting reply snapped her back to reality.

“Was this another ploy to gain Terian’s attention? Like that strange tea you drank last year?”

Larie had meant to ask the doctor’s examination be kept from her family, but the Grand Duchess had interpreted it differently.

That she had staged a suicide attempt with poison.

Her lips trembled, parting slightly. She wanted to deny it, to say it wasn’t like that. She wanted to say she had simply been in pain.

But then she’d have to explain why she took the medicine in the first place.

“If your only worth is bearing an heir, do you think you’ll survive if they find out you’re taking that kind of medicine?”

Would that really get her out of this?

She had no idea. In the end, Larie couldn’t say a word. Her head fell low, and the weight of her injustice sank like a lump of blood into her chest.

“…I’ve called the maids. You should return to your room now.”

The Grand Duchess coldly dismissed her with a sigh-laced voice.

Only then did Larie realize that the room she had been lying in wasn’t just any guest room. The furnishings were far too luxurious.

She was a kind enough person to offer her own bedroom for Larie, who had collapsed.

“Don’t ever do something like this again. I’d like not to be disappointed in you any further.”

And yet, she was also someone who had ultimately lost all hope in Larie.

“…I’m sorry.”

Staggering to her feet, she slipped out of the room, unable to overcome her shame. The Grand Duchess’s gaze, which she could still feel sharply behind her, hurt terribly.

Larie’s small world grew just a bit colder.