Chapter 138

Chapter 138

Part 12: The Sun

“How can you not know me? I am you right now!”

Sobbing like a faucet left running, she now nearly wailed. The words made no sense at all.

“Wah! No! Go away!”

Shion stomped her feet and shouted. Then she turned to us, flailing her arms.

“Let’s go home! Right now!”

The child seemed terrified of the old woman lunging at her. To be fair, even my heart pounded with fright. It was horrifying enough that this woman kept acting like she knew someone who insisted they didn’t know her — and unsettling that she was spouting incomprehensible words. Worse still, she wasn’t in her right mind. I worried she might suddenly do something erratic.

“Let’s just go…”

The duke immediately stepped between the white-haired old woman and me. Over his shoulder, I could still see her crying endlessly.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.”

A voice choked with tears pressed against my ear. It brought a sudden memory—an apology just as aimless, offered at the Crown Prince’s birthday banquet. Back then, too, she’d kept whispering I’m sorry in that raw, throat-grating tone. I couldn’t grasp her intent or purpose, but an old woman’s tears have a strange way of stirring the heart. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to comfort her. No—I didn’t even dare.

‘I’m scared.’

I swallowed hard, then gripped the Duke’s arm tight. Hurriedly, I started moving with the others toward the Imperial Castle’s gates. All I wanted was to escape this place. But the castle was impossibly vast, and the way out stretched endlessly distant. Still, I kept my eyes forward and quickened my steps.

Only after we finally reached the spot where the carriage was parked did I dare glance around. Thankfully, the white-haired old woman was nowhere in sight. She hadn’t followed us after all. Instead, a massive castle loomed before me, its white walls adorned with ornate carvings. The structure, cloaked in black darkness, stood silent and serene—so much so that I couldn’t imagine the countless souls gathered inside it.

‘Did we escape…?’

I let my tense shoulders sag, thinking we might be safe now. Then I made a vow: never again come to the Imperial Castle at night.

* * *

After that day, the Duke and I grew a bit busier. We had to prepare our engagement ceremony as quickly as possible. The butler handed me the Cuvershaiden budget proposal and told me to allocate the funds for the ceremony. He added a condition: he’d help if I ran into trouble, but I should try to handle it on my own as much as possible. Thanks to that, even after finishing my assistant work for the Duke, I stayed buried in piles of documents.

‘S-s-so exhausting…’

My eyes felt like they might spin in their sockets from fatigue. But I didn’t want to give up. Assembling a household budget was normally the lady of the house’s job. The butler must have entrusted me with this task with that in mind.

‘I can’t give up. I’ll pull it off perfectly.’

I clenched my fists, forced my eyes wide open, and scanned the documents. The unfamiliar work was tedious and grueling, but still I read through the numbers written before the monetary units with stubborn persistence.

“Not clocking out yet?”

Soon, without turning to look at me, the Duke asked.

“Just a little more on this. I’ll head in before sunset, though.”

“Ask Handel if you’re unsure. Once this becomes your regular work, you’ll only need to check for errors and wrap things up. No need to rack your brains over it like this.”

“Still, if I want to grasp how the budget works overall, it’s better to handle it myself at least once, isn’t it?”

“Diligent.”

Look who’s talking, the in-law’s side says.

I laughed silently to myself at the Duke’s words. Who was it that was handling all sorts of matters, even if less so lately? The Imperial family must be delighted to have someone so capable working for them. A person who could take on so much and see results wasn’t common at all.

My fiancé, quite the talented one….

But just as I was smirking to myself like that, Shion suddenly passed through the study door. The child barged in, shoulders heaving as she shouted.

“Unnie! Oppa!”

“What? What’s wrong?”

I narrowed my eyes slightly and turned to look at her. But behind her, I saw an old woman with white hair approaching.

“Wh-what!”

I shot up from my seat in shock. The Duke also scraped his chair back with a clatter.

Good heavens, she was right before my eyes—the one I’d thought was in the Imperial Castle. At a time when the sun hadn’t even fully set. She must have followed Shion all the way to Cuvershaiden. It was as if some law of ghost conservation was at play—rid the headless ghost, and another ghost appears in its place.

The old woman just silently looked down at Shion. Her face was etched with a bitter, sorrowful emotion. I didn’t know what circumstances drove her, but I didn’t want to understand why she clung to Shion, who clearly disliked her. So I made a shooing gesture, as if to drive her away and tell her to go back.

“Laura, stay still. Don’t provoke her.”

The Duke quickly stepped in front of me, blocking my way. Realizing my mistake, I pressed my lips shut tight. That woman had possessed me before, regardless of my intentions. And I couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t happen again.

“It’s because of you that Unnie and Oppa are scared! Go away!”

This time, Shion flailed both hands in front of the old woman. Her adorable gestures didn’t look threatening at all. Still, the woman obediently retreated, backing out through the door. As soon as her figure vanished completely, the tension that had wound me tight loosened, and all kinds of worries and anxieties began flooding in.

‘What do I do now?’

Not long ago, after leaving the headless ghost at the Imperial Castle, I’d thought only Shion remained—but now it seemed another one had suddenly appeared.

‘Things have gotten too complicated….’

I turned to look at the Duke. He was rubbing his face, looking perplexed. Then he shifted his gaze and looked at me. He seemed to study my face for a moment before speaking.

“Why are you about to cry?”

“No—no… I’m not?”

For a moment, a choked voice rose in her throat. Honestly, she was furious at how absurd the situation had become. With Madam at risk of vanishing any moment, that sudden white-haired old woman clinging to her felt infuriatingly burdensome. And on top of everything, she had no idea how to send that ghost into ascension.

Of course, during the Crown Prince’s birthday banquet, she had glimpsed the old woman’s memories by chance. In them, she had learned that the grudge was held against the nation’s founding king. But the king had died long ago. Which meant there was utterly no way to resolve that resentment.

“You seem too caught up in this.”

The Duke reached out and caught her fingertips. In response, she just shook her head. It was obvious he was carrying far more worry and concern than she was. She was simply no good at hiding her expression. She didn’t want to show it, but the gloom kept leaking onto her face. And the Duke, pinning her with his gaze, continued speaking.

“Right now, looking at you, I feel like the moment things go wrong, you’ll crash hard. Whatever the outcome, we’re both still people who have to go on living, so don’t… get too immersed.”

It sounded almost like he was talking to himself. And also like he was already bracing for Madam’s disappearance. But even so, she knew him. When Madam left the land of the living, he would be devastated. And if she couldn’t even ascend, he would be disappointed all the more.

“……Yes.”

So she answered that way, but even she couldn’t stop thinking about Madam’s ascension. Whether she crashed or whatever happened, right now she had to focus every ounce of herself on solving this problem.

But despite her resolve, no answers came in the days that followed. Several days passed like a mundane routine. She tried everything to send the white-haired old woman back, but nothing worked. The old woman didn’t even pretend to hear them — she just kept tailing Shion, annoyingly persistent.

“Why is a soul I sensed in the Imperial Castle here?”

The priest looked toward where Shion and the white-haired old woman were and spoke. Summoned by the Duke to stay at Cuvershaiden for a time, he tilted his head, looking rather taken aback.

“That’s the same soul. That day, it latched onto the little ghost and followed us all the way to Cuvershaiden.”

She replied with an awkward expression.

“Ugh! Get away!”

Shion was thoroughly fed up, snapping at the old woman. At that, the old woman fidgeted nervously and shuffled back a few steps. Then she began to watch the little girl’s face, gauging her mood. Seeing how persistently the old woman kept worrying about Shion, she suddenly thought — maybe she really did know the child.

“Shion, do you really not know that person… that ghost?”

“No! I really don’t know her!”

At her question, the child cried out as if she were being wronged.

“But you can’t remember being alive. You might have known it then.”

“I don’t know that. You keep saying weird things.”

“What things?”

“She says she definitely remembers me. That’s why she says I’m her.”

“What does that mean?”

“That’s what I’m saying!”

I couldn’t make any sense of it at all. But then again, she wasn’t exactly a creature of sound mind, was she? I could accept that she might babble nonsense without meaning.

“What exactly did she say?”

The priest turned to look at me and asked. I just shrugged in response.

“According to the kid, a soul from the Imperial Castle only speaks weird things to her. And it seems to keep following her around, which is annoying her.”

“If it’s following her, couldn’t we send it back together? Like we did with the headless soul we left at the Imperial Castle?”

“I was actually thinking of trying that, but…”

Of course, I’d considered this approach too. It’s just that no matter how sweetly I coaxed and cajoled Shion, it didn’t work at all.

“What?! I’m not going! Stop trying to send me away! I’m never leaving this mansion. And I absolutely don’t want to be alone with that old woman!”

Just like that. I think if it were just Shion, I could have managed somehow. But once that white-haired old woman latched onto her, the kid stopped listening to me simply because she didn’t want to be alone with her. She really was the most unwelcome of guests.