Chapter 23

A long, carved cut scar running across her entire face from her left temple to the right corner of her mouth, and a small burn scar left near the right side of her jaw.

Just as Marel said, she wasn’t injured. Those scars had been there long before. And the burn had been caused because of Lachesis.

Letting out a small breath of relief, Lachesis still gently traced the scars that made her heart ache every time she saw them.

“You’re applying ointment, right? Even this ointment isn’t very effective……. Huh? M-Marel. There’s blood! Where is it coming from? Are you hurt somewhere?”

Wherever Lachesis’s hands touched, dark red blood smeared onto Marel’s cheek. Lachesis panicked, not knowing what to do.

“It’s not my blood.”

Marel swallowed a sigh and pulled Lachesis’s hand down.

“Look. It got on me from your hand, Miss. What happened to your lovely hand?”

“Ah.”

Come to think of it, she had completely forgotten she was bleeding. Only now, as her worry and anxiety lifted, did she register the stinging pain from the wound. But she couldn’t show it in front of Marel.

With an awkward smile, Lachesis roughly wiped the blood on her dress and hid her hand behind her back.

“Don’t mind this. It’s just a shallow cut. More importantly, what on earth happened? Why would there be any reason to confine you, Marel?”

Still seeming uneasy, Marel couldn’t take her eyes off Lachesis’s hand that had disappeared behind her back.

“Marel. Hurry. Do you want to watch me collapse?”

“I don’t know how to answer. Well, so…… because of me, the Earl…….”

Marel looked confused. It wasn’t like the always calm, dependable Marel. Rather, the one maintaining composure now was Lachesis.

Seeing with her own eyes that nothing was wrong with Marel’s body meant they had avoided the worst-case scenario she had imagined. That alone was enough to settle her roiling heart.

Lachesis held Marel’s trembling hand tightly and sat her down on the nearby bed.

“Catch your breath and tell  me slowly. Why on earth did Father confine you?”

“No. No. The one who confined me wasn’t the Earl. It was the heir.”

“Sister?”

For a moment, horror flickered across Lachesis’s face.

‘Did Katrin take Marel hostage because I said I wouldn’t marry Kadenic?’

But the knights at the door clearly said it was the Earl’s order. Even if his position was only nominal, there was no way the knights would confuse the orders of the lord they served.

And Katrin was a proud person. She wouldn’t use such vile, petty tactics. Using Marel was an act far worse than sending no carriage to the Marutia ducal residence.

‘But if it’s not that, then what other reason…….’

Her head was too muddled.

What pulled Lachesis out of her flooding thoughts was Marel’s shaking voice.

“Miss, please listen carefully to what I’m about to say. You mustn’t misunderstand. Nothing happened to me, truly.”

“Marel? What are you about to say that you’re starting like this, so frighteningly?”

“There isn’t a single lie in what I’m about to say. I swear it.”

“Why are you acting so anxious. What happened, hm?”

“Really, nothing happened……. I think the Heir misunderstood something.”

“Misunderstood? What?”

“Well, so…….”

Marel let her words trail off, then whispered in a very small voice that would be easy to miss.

“……She thinks the Earl molested me.”

“What?”

Lachesis’s complexion drained white with shock.

‘Molested? Father?’

It would have been better if all of this had been a plot Katrin devised to rein her in. This was the worst situation—one she couldn’t even imagine.

Seeing Lachesis’s face that looked like it might collapse, Marel hurriedly poured out her words.

“No, Miss! No! It’s all a misunderstanding. We just ran into each other in the garden. The Earl fell over because of the drink, so I helped him up. That isn’t molestation!”

It was well-known that Marel enjoyed walking in the garden. Besides tending herbs in the space set aside in one part of the garden, Marel often strolled there.

Her father, Alfred, also—very rarely—took walks in the garden. Of course, always very drunk.

So on the surface, Marel’s claim sounded plausible. But…….

“Marel. Is it true? I mean…… you’re not lying for my sake?”

“Miss!”

“You once ran into a fire to save me. So maybe this time too, for my sake…….”

“I’m innocent. You don’t believe me?”

Marel’s pitch-black eyes looked straight at Lachesis. The gaze was firm, like pebbles in a stream.

Of course, the person who wanted to believe Marel more than anyone was Lachesis.

Even if he was someone who devoted himself only to longing for his departed wife and threw away house and family, her father was still her father. Even if they weren’t bound by blood, she couldn’t ignore the affection that had thickened as time piled up.

The idea that such a father committed something as vile as that was truly something she didn’t even want to imagine.

But Marel was just as precious.

“I believe you. And no matter what happens, I’ll be on your side. So, Marel. Please tell me the truth.”

Lachesis whispered as if begging. Marel, with a pained expression, gave the same answer consistently.

“I grabbed the Earl’s arm and helped him up when he fell in the garden. Right after that, the Heir appeared with knights. That’s all.”

“……All right. Then where is Father right now?”

“I don’t know that either. After that, I was immediately shut in this room…….”

If Marel’s words were true, it was a strange situation.

By Katrin’s claim, Marel was the victim. So why would the victim be confined?

Under the Empire’s customs, the difference in status between nobles and commoners was strict, but in the case of the Deate Earldom, the treatment of servants wasn’t that bad. At the very least, never to the point of confining an innocent servant.

“It seems I need to see my sister.”

With a hardened face, Lachesis rose.

***

There was no need to go to Katrin’s office to see her.

Leaving the worried Marel behind, Lachesis ran into Katrin the moment she stepped out of the room. It looked like she had been waiting for Lachesis. The knights who had been guarding the door were nowhere to be seen.

“You finished your conversation earlier than I expected. It seems Marel didn’t cling to you and cry, pleading her innocence.”

“Marel would never……. Sister?”

Lachesis started to defend Marel, then stopped short. Her gaze had caught the ring on Katrin’s hand as she brushed back her red hair.

It was a ring she couldn’t possibly mistake. It was the Deate family’s signet ring.

Which meant…… the sole property of the head of house was on Katrin’s hand.

Lachesis went rigid in blank shock, yet at the same time, the stifling feeling of mismatched puzzle pieces snapping into place finally eased.

The ‘Earl’s order’ the knights spoke of had been Katrin’s order, not her father’s.

“What did you do to Father?”

“Don’t look at me like that, Chessie. Do you really think I committed something unfilial?”

“Of course not, but…….”

“It’s the opposite. I simply followed Father’s will faithfully.”

With a shrug, Katrin began to walk slowly. Lachesis followed at her side.

“Father’s will? Where is Father right now?”

“Who knows. By now, he’s probably finished unpacking at the temple.”

“The temple……?”

“Yes. The place where nobles who acknowledge their sins stay.”

Katrin’s words were more than enough to plunge Lachesis into shock.

To acknowledge his sin meant her father had confessed to molesting Marel. The contradiction with Marel’s account only deepened the confusion.