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~Chapter 18~
Noxian answered calmly.
“There’s someone I want to take with me.”
“If it’s a knight, didn’t you already take a suitable one?”
Noxian shook his head.
“I want to take a maid.”
The Duke raised an eyebrow.
It was the kind of look that said, Did this brat eat something wrong?
“You came all the way here yourself just to take a maid?”
“She’s important.”
“Who is she?”
He pictured a face in his mind.
“Her name is Mia. Seventeen years old. She has a scar on her cheek from being cut with a blade.”
Her name, age, and appearance weren’t the important part. The Duke silently urged him to continue.
“She was a maid I took in two years ago after dealing with the Marquisate of Argen.”
At the mention of the Marquisate of Argen, the Duke, sensing something, asked:
“This time, have you found some clue about that girl?”
“…I’m trying to see if it is a clue or not.” Noxian answered slowly.
The young maid was the only one who had known Shasha’s secret. She would sometimes keep watch or run errands for Shasha, following her loyally.
If it was her, she might recognize it—
Whether Shariette simply looked like Shasha…
Or if she was really—
“It’s already been two years. You still haven’t found one person.”
The Duke tapped his finger lightly on the desk.
Sensing his father’s mixed feelings, the son glared sharply.
“Don’t forget, Your Grace. Rubellot owes that woman a debt.”
There he goes again. Seeing his son’s serious face, the Duke rubbed his forehead. This brat, usually full of cynicism and detachment, would always get emotional when this subject came up.
It was true that the Rubellot family owed that woman for the heir’s life.
But even with the Rubellot family’s information network, they hadn’t found a single hair of her in two years. The Duke thought there were only two possibilities—
She was already dead.
Or she was deliberately hiding.
He leaned toward the first. The Argens would never have spared a traitor. And Noxian should know that too.
He’s better than before, though.
Two years ago, after declaring he would wipe out the Marquisate of Argen to avenge the humiliation, he had stormed Latium—
And come back half out of his mind, bringing with him the stench of blood and a curse from the Sanctuary that could never be erased.
It had taken a long time for him to return to something like his senses.
On the surface, Noxian seemed to be searching for both a cure for his insomnia and the traitor who had fled, but to the Duke’s eyes, those two goals were one and the same.
As if finding the woman would also solve the curse.
“…Speak to the head maid about the maid issue. I hope you really have found a clue worth repaying that debt.”
“There’s one more thing. I want to take one of Rubencher’s relics.”
What now… The Duke gripped his head, feeling a headache coming on.
“Just because you’re the heir, do you think the family treasures are yours?”
“I’m not getting rid of it, I’m keeping it as a duty. That makes it mine, doesn’t it?”
That was basically saying if they wouldn’t give it to him, he’d rather destroy it. He wasn’t a son—he was a curse.
“Let’s hear your reason.”
“Someone under my responsibility might get caught up in trouble because of me. But I can’t send them somewhere the trouble won’t reach.”
…Wasn’t that basically saying he’d give someone a shield and then bind them in a lifetime contract?
The Duke sighed.
“Before that, let me ask you something.”
Even though there was no one else around, the Duke drew the curtain once more and spoke quietly.
“If you’ve suppressed the curse, have you regained your power?”
Noxian clenched his fist tightly. A blade-like smile appeared reflexively on his lips.
The Duke didn’t even bother to sneer at that defensive gesture.
His own red eyes, the same as Noxian’s, looked down on him in the dim light.
“You must get it back before you’re tested. No matter what it takes.”
“….”
“The ducal title can be inherited with just a piece of paper. That means nothing. But Rubellot…”
The Duke swallowed the rest of his words. Saying it would only tire them both.
The heir to Rubellot wasn’t chosen simply because they were the eldest, or because they were the Duke’s son. Only the one who manifested the strongest power of that generation could be heir.
This was the first time in the family’s history that an heir had lost their power.
And it wasn’t because the heir was lacking.
If anything, it was my mistake.
He should never have trusted some scrap of paper called a peace treaty. That same regret, repeated countless times over the years, crept back into his mind.
…He was tired. The Duke pressed a hand over his eyes.
Could this new doctor Noxian had brought really fix that fatigue? The current physician, Heron, would probably just laugh and say a bad personality was incurable.
Either way, he wanted to go home quickly and see his wife. He decided to make use of the son standing in front of him.
“Come with me. We’ll move the return up. Even a half-baked heir is better than none. Depending on what you do, I’ll give you the chance to attempt the relic.”
Knock, knock.
The Duke of Rubellot’s estate. Early in the morning, a maid came to the apothecary’s room looking for Shariette.
“Apothecary, Lady Nixia is looking for you.”
Shariette poked her head out from behind a pile of books. The maid, who she’d seen around Nixia often, added:
“She says she has a bad headache.”
Shariette glanced at Eden’s empty seat. She was the young duke’s personal physician, not the whole ducal household’s. If the person involved heard, they’d probably explode in anger, calling it overstepping.
Even better if they get mad.
She gathered medicine for headaches along with the antidote for Phaynile poison she had just finished.
Nixia was in comfortable indoor clothes, reading a book.
“Ah, Shariette. Come sit here.”
Shariette’s eyes went to the thick book in her hands.
You have a headache bad enough to call for me, but you’re reading?
Whether it was this sibling or the other, neither seemed to know how to rest. Shariette noted this odd family trait as she sat on the sofa.
“I heard you have a bad headache, Lady Nixia.”
“That’s right. I could have told Eden, but didn’t you say the other day you’d be my customer?”
It was nice to hear, but Shariette noticed there was suspicion and a test hidden in her elegant smile.
If nothing else, she could never mistake the feeling of being tested—it was something she’d felt daily in the Argen household.
She rubbed her chest lightly. The person before her was not absinthe green, but rose red.
“Haven’t been sleeping lately?”
“If it were Noxian, maybe, but I don’t have insomnia.”
“Any stress or troublesome matters?”
“I do, but nothing unusual lately. I haven’t been in pain until now.”
“Pain that comes suddenly is like that—it’s fine until it hits.”
Shariette took the book from Nixia’s hand and set it aside. She checked her pulse and other points.
No scent of Phaynile poison today. Must be that her mind is elsewhere.
She felt satisfied. All that effort pestering Eden had been worth it.
She opened one of the bottles she had brought and poured two pills into her palm.
“Your neck and shoulders are stiff from stress and tension. It’s best to loosen them. I’ll give you a three-day dose for now. Take it with warm water. No tea or alcohol.”
“Oh my, you say it like you’ve seen it.”
“No wine before bed, either.”
“Have you been watching me secretly?”
Clear those wine glasses on the table before you talk. Shariette narrowed her eyes at the patient who was as uncooperative as her younger brother.
Seeing that expression, Nixia laughed brightly. In that moment, a maid brought a glass of water.
“Wait a second.”
Shariette stopped Nixia before she could take the pills and, deliberately in front of her, put one pill into her own mouth and swallowed it.
Nixia looked puzzled.
“Why are you taking it?”
Shariette looked just as puzzled.
“Then what will make you take it?”
“What do you…?”
Nixia, momentarily stunned, recalled how Shariette had been the first to drink the tea at their tea time the other day. Talking about whether she was ‘professional’ at tasting for poison…
Was she serious?
Nixia let out a short laugh. This woman, like Blanche Argen? She must have lost her mind for a moment to think that.
“Noxian really brought someone interesting.”
