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Chapter: 19
Lennox suddenly lifted his head.
“Duke Carlisle?”
“……”
The banquet hall, decorated with rather childish ornamentation, was crowded with people, but what caught his attention was a strange kind of gaze.
Clink—
Somewhere nearby, someone seemed to have dropped a champagne glass, causing a small commotion.
The first thing that caught his eye was pale brown hair, loosely braided and draped over one shoulder.
“I’m fine, I’m sorry.”
At the center of the disturbance stood a woman wearing a soft pastel-blue dress.
Yet what truly captured Lennox’s attention was what she did next.
Just before their eyes could meet, she hastily turned her head away—and soon after, she hurriedly fled the banquet hall altogether.
As he was being dragged around for introductions by the Empress Dowager, Lennox merely nodded absently and chuckled to himself.
‘Avoiding someone this blatantly only draws more attention.’
He was long accustomed to all kinds of flirtation and seduction, but this sort of outright avoidance felt refreshingly new.
“Duke, this is my grandniece, Priscilla. You know her, yes?”
“Yes. You already introduced us.”
The woman who had fled would never know.
That thanks to her, the only thing that lingered in his mind throughout the dull banquet was the afterimage of her pale cheeks, slender white nape, and the silhouette of her exposed shoulders.
As soon as he had begrudgingly fulfilled his hour-long obligation, Lennox left the banquet hall and headed straight for his private lounge.
“Where is it?”
“This way.”
Annoyance and exhaustion were evident on the face of Duke Carlisle as he loosened his tie.
The Duke of Carlisle, the great lord of the North, came to the capital only once a year—aside from the New Year’s ball.
Yet today, he had attended the ball with his knights not for idle dancing.
His visit to the capital in the midst of the summer social season had been entirely impulsive. An informant planted in the imperial palace had reported that something resembling the item he was searching for had been found.
In the innermost lounge of the banquet hall, an informant dressed neatly as a court official waited for him with the item in hand.
That informant was Sir Roger, a palace chamberlain.
A minor noble serving under the Empress Dowager, Sir Roger was visibly flustered when Duke Carlisle appeared before him.
“…Duke Carlisle, Your Grace?”
Though he had worked as a paid spy for three years, this was the first time Roger learned that his employer was the great lord of the North.
After all, his assignments were simple—leaking news from within the palace or reporting if items matching certain conditions appeared on the capital’s black market.
“The item?”
“Ah… yes. This is it.”
Suppressing his panic, Sir Roger carefully opened the small box he was holding.
Inside was a jewel-adorned container for women’s jewelry—a tiara.
“The woman who brought this—she was young? What did she look like?”
Hardin, the duke’s knight, asked as if confirming.
“She was definitely a young woman with platinum-blond hair.”
It seemed that was the correct answer.
Watching Duke Carlisle examine the elaborate tiara, Sir Roger thought to himself,
‘So the rumor was true after all.’
There were countless rumors about House Carlisle,真假 indistinguishable—but one claimed that the duke was searching for a family treasure that had disappeared long ago.
‘Is that really their treasure? How does he even tell if it’s real?’
As Roger stared with curiosity, Duke Carlisle—who had been inspecting the piece intently—suddenly smiled.
Crack.
“…!!”
The delicate jewelry case split cleanly in two.
“No.”
“What a waste of time.”
Hardin and Duke Carlisle exchanged calm remarks.
Lennox tossed the broken case back to the stunned Sir Roger and left the lounge.
Searching for the lost item was like looking for a needle in a desert, so Lennox wasn’t particularly disappointed.
In fact, even Hardin—his most trusted aide—didn’t know exactly what the duke was looking for.
Only that it was a treasure that had vanished over a decade ago during the chaos after the head of the house disappeared, and that while it appeared ordinary, it possessed a dangerous power.
The only other clue was that a platinum-blond woman might have been seen near it.
“I’ll have them search the southern auction houses again.”
“Forget it. Once this farce is over, we’re going back north.”
“Yes.”
As Lennox mounted his horse, just before leaving the imperial palace, he briefly looked back toward the banquet hall.
“Are you looking for someone?”
“No.”
The woman who had fled from him an hour ago would surely have returned home by now.
Yet feeling an inexplicable sense of regret, Lennox tightened the reins.
It looked like rain would fall soon.
Crash.
After the violent collision of the carriage, Juliet lost consciousness.
“Milady!”
“Out of the way! Who sent these bastards?!”
As her awareness faded, she could only piece together the situation through fragments of sound.
“Damn it—don’t move!”
“Lily!”
“No, Cassius!”
Shrill screams overlapped.
“Juliet!”
Someone’s desperate cry seemed to pull her back to consciousness.
At some point, Juliet barely opened her eyes.
The first thing that came into her blurred vision was a red spider tattoo etched onto a soot-blackened hand.
‘A tattoo?’
Thud.
Thrown onto the cold stone floor, Juliet finally grasped her situation.
The vivid red spider was tattooed on the back of the hand of a mysterious man who had carried her like baggage and roughly dumped her on the ground.
Only then did she realize she was lying haphazardly on stone pavement, exposed to the cold rain pouring down.
“Now you want more money? What nonsense is this!”
“You never said the count would use a sword! Of course we deserve more!”
Some of the arguing men spoke with foreign accents.
Foreign mercenaries, perhaps. At least they were too busy fighting among themselves to notice that Juliet had regained consciousness.
‘Where am I…?’
Where were her parents?
As her mind struggled, an angry voice rang out.
“W-Who told you to kill anyone?! I said just steal the necklace!”
…Kill?
At the familiar voice, Juliet’s mind snapped awake. Even without lifting her head, she knew. That terrified voice belonged to Baron Gaspard.
“No one said we couldn’t kill them.”
“Th-That’s not how it works!”
No.
Juliet felt as if her heart dropped.
That couldn’t be true. Her father, Count Monad, had served in the military when he was young—a skilled knight. There was no way he could be dead.
Leaving the despairing Juliet on the ground, Baron Gaspard and the men resumed their argument.
“Who said everyone’s dead? The daughter’s still breathing.”
“…She’s alive?”
Gaspard flinched.
He was clearly weighing whether it was better for Juliet to live—or to kill her too and eliminate future trouble.
“Listen, Baron.”
“Your so-called brother pulled a sword, and we lost men because of it!”
“You think subduing a former knight without killing him is easy?”
“You said he was old and harmless—do you know how many died holding him back?!”
Crunch.
Juliet bit her lip to stay conscious, but she had already lost too much blood. She couldn’t move—couldn’t even lift her head.
“Th-Then where is the necklace?!”
“I told you. It wasn’t where you said it’d be.”
‘…The necklace. So that’s it.’
Despite her heavy eyelids, Juliet pieced everything together.
The sudden attack on the estate. Baron Gaspard’s visit the day before. Even through fading consciousness, Juliet clenched her teeth.
‘I should’ve killed that bastard sooner.’
Suddenly, she noticed something glinting between her collar.
It was the key-shaped pendant her father had given her the day before.
‘…Ah.’
So Gaspard had hired thugs to raid the estate—for this necklace alone.
‘What could this old antique possibly be?’
What they didn’t know was that Count Monad had already given Juliet the key.
And the very item they were searching for was hanging around her neck.
“Either way, I’m leaving! Listen well—you don’t know me! If you talk, it won’t end well!”
Still shouting threats, Baron Gaspard hurriedly fled.
“So… does that mean we can deal with this girl however we want?”
The remaining men turned their gazes to Juliet’s fallen body.
“What should we do?”
“Just kill her.”
“Shame to waste her. How about selling her to a privateer? She looks decent—might fetch a good price.”
“They say noblewomen have blue blood. Want to check?”
Lewd jokes flew back and forth, but Juliet had no strength to care.
Her vision blurred. Her hearing dulled. Strangely, only the small silver key shining before her eyes remained clear.
<…Shall we?>
‘What?’
A hallucination? Something was speaking to her.
<We will.> <We will kill them.>
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
The voice seemed audible only to Juliet. Otherwise, there was no way they wouldn’t have noticed it.
Once she became aware of it, the voices poured in like a flood.
There were many—some gentle, some ferocious.
But all were desperately vying to speak to her.
<I can kill them!>
<We are big, and strong.>
<You insignificant creatures are nothing.>
<We’ll tear them apart…>
<It’s simple.>
<You don’t have to do anything.>
<Just… take me. Us. Out of here.>
“……”
Take you out?
It felt like lightning struck.
Juliet understood everything.
The voice was coming from the key.
The key.
Guardian Monad.
And the door that could never be found, no matter how much the estate was searched.
‘Ah… I see.’
She finally realized.
‘It was a door meant to imprison.’
Of course she could never find a door that matched the key.
‘Dangerous things must be hidden.’
The entrance itself had been concealed.
A guardian protects.
Which means—to keep what was sealed inside from ever coming out.
<Our name is…>
Her eyes kept closing.
As her consciousness faded, Juliet reached out and grasped the key.
At that moment, in the pitch-black center of her vision, a massive door appeared.
Click.
An oddly cheerful sound.
Even with her eyes closed, Juliet saw and heard it clearly.
The sound of a door—closed for hundreds of years—opening.
And the beast that door had imprisoned being released back into the world.
