Chapter 7
“Mother, this is…”
Gerart reached out his small, white hand toward my leg, as if he weren’t seeing things.
Smack.
“Don’t touch it.”
“Ow.”
When he tried to touch the ominous mark, I slapped his hand away. The child winced and drew his hand back.
“Ha, ha…”
The head maid had burned to death—blackened—after that cursed symbol appeared on her.
‘…What is this?’
Why is it on me…?
“I’m sorry, are you okay?”
“Hu, ha…”
Gerart looked at me with worried eyes, but I couldn’t raise my head. My breathing, once fast, showed no signs of slowing.
“…Should I call someone? I’ll go get help.”
He began moving away again, like he was going to leave the room. I clutched my skirt and shouted at him.
“Haa—just stay still, please!”
Startled by my outburst, Gerart froze in the middle of the room.
“I told you to stay in the room! Why did you come out?!”
Whether it was fake kindness or born of sympathy—
Everything I had done was for Gerart.
I’d caught the servants for him, I’d caught the head maid for him.
I even climbed the stairs over the corpse of the head maid for his sake.
And yet—
“Please, just listen…”
The consequences of a small, well-meant act had become too heavy for me to bear.
“Huuk, please…”
…I wanted to go home.
I wanted to get out of this mansion already.
It was already hard enough just to look after myself.
I should’ve followed my original decision: do nothing and just run away.
“…Stupid. Really.”
Guilt? Moral obligation?
It wasn’t like I expected anything in return, but it’s not like I’d wanted to sacrifice myself either.
“Huuk, really…”
“Mother, please don’t cry. It’s my fault. I’ll stay still, so please don’t cry. Okay?”
Gerart started crying along with me.
“Huup.”
His face flushed bright red with anxiety, and although he hadn’t yet learned how to cry properly, he clamped his mouth shut and held it in.
“I’m sorry.”
Tears I couldn’t hold back kept falling, one after another.
“Huuk.”
Only after making Gerart cry did I begin to understand what I had done.
…This wasn’t Gerart’s fault.
Even though I knew that, I selfishly wanted to blame someone.
And so, the helpless and fragile child cried, terrified by his mother’s inexplicable anger.
I pushed myself off the floor with legs that barely had strength.
“Hup. Stay here.”
Was it because I became aware of the mark on my leg?
Somehow, it felt like my leg was growing hotter, and the pain was intensifying.
I was scared that I might end up like the head maid. That the mark would spread across my body and kill me like it had killed her. I rushed out.
“Until I say it’s okay to come out—”
I felt like I had to get away from Gerart.
Click.
I shut his door behind me and ran down the long corridor with all my strength.
Tap tap tap tap.
But my trembling legs gave out not long after, and I collapsed.
The stairs were just ahead.
Where had all the servants gone—those who were always hanging around here?
There was no one in the corridor to help me.
“Huup. Help me. Someone, help me…”
As I struggled to rise, I saw black shoes in front of me.
Following the shoes up with my gaze—
It was Edvon.
Our eyes met, and Edvon’s expression twisted with a scowl.
His shifting gaze moved from my tear-soaked face down to my leg, where the red mark had appeared.
“…Help me.”
Edvon Martines.
An annoying, infuriating man.
But the truth was, none of this was Gerart’s fault.
The true cause of all this—was that man.
If only he hadn’t believed the head maid’s lies.
If only he had listened to me, just a little, none of this would have happened!
And yet, all that left my mouth wasn’t blame or irritation—but a plea.
“…Huup, help me.”
All the time I’d spent facing him—
I had realized just how much Edvon Martines disliked Anditne.
“…I’m scared.”
Was it because he had protected me just a moment ago?
As soon as I saw his face, the tears I had been desperately holding back came flooding out.
“I don’t want to die!”
Edvon stood frozen, watching me cry my eyes out from a distance, unsure of what to do. Eventually, looking both troubled and awkward, he stepped closer.
“I really don’t want to die.”
I grabbed his sleeve and collapsed to the floor.
“Huuk, hic. Suddenly, why is this happening to me…”
Edvon seemed more flustered by my sobbing than by the mark on my leg.
He looked down and checked my right leg.
“…Just a moment.”
Because I had collapsed while holding on to him, Edvon kneeled on one knee and gently pulled my ankle toward him.
He stared at the strange characters starting at my ankle. His gaze moved slowly, as though reading them.
“Hup, what is it? Huuk, can you read it?”
My tearful, fearful voice prompted him to glance sideways at me.
“Huuk, I’m serious. I really, hic, don’t want to die…”
“It appears to be a curse. I don’t know exactly what it says, but…”
“A curse? Then it’s dangerous?”
Edvon carefully withdrew his hand.
“You won’t die immediately.”
“Ahhh!”
‘You won’t die immediately’—that meant I would die eventually.
As he calmly delivered what felt like a death sentence, I burst into tears again.
But Edvon backed away awkwardly, as if he hadn’t expected me to cry again.
“…I’ll call for someone. Someone capable. They should be able to undo it.”
“Hic, undo it?”
“The curse.”
He looked down at my leg as he spoke.
“You can undo it?”
“…I’ll try.”
He’ll try.
The dry, indifferent answer made me speak quickly.
“Promise me you’ll do everything you can. Hic, don’t let me die.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
But there was still no emotion or urgency in his voice.
As if it were just another task to complete.
I clenched his shirt tightly.
“You really—truly—will save me, right? You’ll do your best?”
He wore that uncomfortable look again but eventually opened his mouth.
“Yes. I’ll do everything I can to ensure nothing happens to you.”
Even as he nodded sincerely, Edvon gently removed my hand from his shirt.
His cold, firm demeanor made me shut my mouth and swallow the sobs rising in my throat.
“Shall we return to your room?”
Nod.
When I nodded, Edvon hesitated briefly before helping me to my feet.
“Come with me. Please.”
“…Alright.”
He didn’t seem particularly willing, but he agreed again.
My room was positioned near the staircase.
I couldn’t see the landing where it had happened, but—
I didn’t want to see the head maid’s gruesome end again, and yet I couldn’t stop myself from glancing that way.
Click.
“Please go in.”
“…But why did that happen to the head maid? What’s this curse? Why did it come to me?”
I quickly shot off questions to Edvon, afraid he’d leave me alone again.
I was terrified the curse might activate the moment he left—like it had with the head maid.
I didn’t want to be left alone. That fear kept gnawing at me.
Edvon looked down at me quietly before answering.
“…It appears the head maid made a life oath.”
“A life oath?”
As I tried to recall Anditne’s memories—
“It’s a vow that costs you your life if broken. I believe it was related to forbidden words.”
He explained before I could remember.
“And I believe the curse on you came from contact with her corpse.”
“…What?”
“It’s a curse that activates upon touching the body of someone who died while carrying it.”
Goosebumps spread across my skin.
When I stepped over her corpse on the stairs…
“Ah…”
That must’ve been when I touched a part of her.
Edvon looked like he had more to say, but after seeing my pale face, he held his tongue.
“Then rest for now. I’ll go bring someone.”
“…What happened to the head maid? And the servants?”
“The servants are being treated. As for the head maid’s body—we’ve moved it to the dungeon for examination.”
“So, is it safe now?”
Edvon gave a slow nod.
“Gerart is in the room. I told him not to come out because it’s dangerous. So…”
“Go on.”
“If it’s safe, please tell him he can come out now.”
Edvon blinked slowly, then opened his mouth.
“I’ll relay the message. Then…”
Click.
Edvon gave a small bow, then shut the door without hesitation.
Faced with his firm demeanor, I couldn’t ask any more questions and just let him go.
Left alone in the room—
I collapsed to the floor and stretched out my legs.
“Ugh…”
It was a useless motion, as if I could push that thing on my leg away.
“Haa…”
But even with all my desperate effort, the fear and anxiety didn’t fade.
The head maid’s sudden death. The curse that might kill me.
All of it was terrifying and confusing.
…Sudden.
“…Wait a minute.”
Sudden death?
The head maid, who should’ve died in Gerart’s explosion, was now truly dead.
Her death, this curse—they never happened in the life I remembered…
“…Things can change.”
What I had thought was fate—
What I believed was unchangeable—had changed in the most unexpected moment.
…Fate had changed.
