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❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅• •❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅•
A gloomy green light flashed again in the deep darkness and then disappeared.
In the dream that came back, Grace, who had lost her way there, was wandering in a place full of darkness.
‘…am I here again?’
Grace walked through the darkness with a bitter smile.
Also, she was less afraid than before because she knew that she would wake up from her dream as if she had done it after she saw or heard something.
[“——— You gave birth to a monster. — A monster that can’t live.”]
“……!”
Grace’s ear, walking in the dark, heard someone’s gloomy voice.
The voice, which would give her goosebumps just by listening to it, was strangely familiar to Grace’s ears. Who could it be? Who was it? After tilting her head for a while, she soon looked as if she had realised.
‘That’s right, that voice! That voice I heard at the wedding party!’
And today, the voice she heard when she fell asleep in the carriage.
Grace stopped for a moment, covering her mouth with surprise. After that, she cautiously stepped towards the side where the sound was coming from.
The eerie voice then that sounded as if it were ringing Grace’s head grew louder and louder.
‘If I go a little closer, won’t I be able to hear it more?’
It was when Grace was taking a step, thinking so.
[“——You probably won’t be able to live long.”]
Someone else’s voice was heard.
Grace stopped breathing in vain in surprise at the voice.
Not surprisingly, it was because the voice she heard now belonged to her father, the Duke of Alberton.
‘Father?’
Why in the world can she hear the voice of her father, Duke Alberton now?
Did her father really intervene in this, and if so, then how much he intervened and how far he knows?
Recalling the questions she had already asked herself several times, Grace dug into the deep darkness where the sound was getting louder and louder.
[“———To sustain life, we need the blood of that crazy Duchess Felix over there.”]
At that moment, the surroundings suddenly brightened up, and Grace’s body was tied up with something solid.
Grace looked down at her tightly bound body and dozens of people surrounding her, tightly tied her up with no room to defend herself. Suddenly, how did this happen, and Grace couldn’t come to her senses at the sudden change of the “dream landscape”.
“Come on, what are you doing? It must be stabbed in the heart at once. Do you understand? You must pierce that heart at once.”
“…….!”
And then, seeing her tied up, someone gave a hideous order.
Then a man with a sharp knife hesitated and approached her. Grace gradually stepped back and tried to recognize the man’s face approaching her, but strangely, she couldn’t.
However, the voice that ordered her to be killed was so familiar to her ears.
‘No way, I don’t think so. No way. It can’t be like that.’
Grace turned her gaze to the side where she heard the voice with terrified eyes.
‘……..father!’
There stood the Duke of Alberton, looking down at her with a frighteningly cold look on his face. Grace looked at him with a look of horror on her face and cried out.
‘How can you do this to me—! Then, ag—. Aagh!’
Was it not enough to take her life once at the monastery? Why was he trying to take her life from herself again? Yeah?
However, Grace’s scream didn’t last long. It was because the man with the knife, who approached faster than she stepped back, finally stabbed the knife into her heart.
‘Ugh——!’
No, I don’t want to die like this.
I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy!
Father, father! My father! The Duke of Alberton! Please stop!
Grace constantly struggled and screamed at the terrible pain spreading from her heart, but Duke Alberton’s eyes looking at her was cold and indifferent.
Like the eyes of a priest offering a sacrifice to God.
───※ ·❆· ※───
—You must die.
‘No, I don’t want to die. Now I have someone to live by my side and who will protect me.’
—You’re cursed, so you went crazy.
‘I’m not crazy, I’m not cursed.’
I… I’m fine.
“Ugh! keck! Cough, cough!”
“Madam! Oh my god, madam!”
“No——!”
Grace constantly resisted and struggled with the tinnitus-like voice.
Then, suddenly feeling her voice open up, Grace opened her eyes to her own scream. Grace gasped with blank eyes and nervously shook off the hand that was holding her shoulder.
“Don’t touch me! Take your hands off my body!”
“Ma, madam! Madam! It’s me, Sally!”
“…..Sally?”
Grace blinked blankly at Sally’s voice at the time when she shook off her hand that was holding her hand.
And slowly turned her head and looked around Sally’s hands, which was floating haphazardly on her body, and her familiar old bedroom.
Grace shrugged her shoulders at the view of the room that was now clearly visible and took a rough breath.
‘……. Ah, it was a dream. Moreover, that dream.’
Next to her, who was calming down little by little, Sally gently stroked her back with a worried face.
It was a friendly hand gesture as if taking care of a child who caused a convulsion. With that friendly touch, Grace slowly regained her composure.
Grace wiped her forehead soaked in cold sweat with her sleeves and turned to Sally, who looked at her with a concerned look.
“…..I feel better now, Sally.”
“Really? You’re sweating a lot like this….. Shall I call a doctor?”
“No….. It’s okay. No, don’t ever call them.”
When Sally said she would call a doctor, Grace refused with a straight face.
Having already learned from Sally’s words that her father, the Duke of Alberton, was investigating and collecting cases of the “curse”. It was dangerous to show her ‘this’ appearance to the doctor in this mansion.
Sally said to Grace with an even more concerned face.
“Still, if you want to attend the party, you should see a doctor……”
“…. Ah, yeah so.”
“Why don’t you just not attend today’s party? There’s going to be a party tomorrow either way.”
So Sally carefully suggested to her, saying, “Why don’t you just rest today?”. But Grace replied, shaking her head.
“No, I have to go. I’m sorry, but please help me dress up.”
For a moment, she was tempted by Sally’s sweet proposal, but Grace still had a reason to go to this party.
Pretending to attend a party somehow, pretending to have melted into it, deceiving the people in my family, then sneaking out of them and heading to the study. That was the reason.
In fact, refusing to attend and secretly heading to the study would have been a faster way. But she couldn’t because she knew well that the Duke Alberton would put a doctor or a servant as his watchmen on her.
‘So, I should never show it….. My father would think that I was cursed by the fact that I already collapsed once at the wedding party.’
She noticed that the symptoms were getting worse.
Just as in the dream she had seen a moment ago, the conviction that her father, the Duke of Alberton, might try to kill her was embedded in her mind. Even though there is no evidence to be sure of.
Grace raised her body as heavy as cotton soaked in water and walked to the dressing table, speaking to Sally, who was still looking at her with concern.
“Come on, please help me.”
“Ah yes. Madam.”
Sally hurried up to Grace’s side. Then, she brought a dress and jewelry next to her that seemed to have been prepared a while ago.
After that, Grace clenched her teeth as she watched Sally busily helping her groom herself. ‘I promise that tonight, I will find the clue to everything.’
───※ ·❆· ※───
Grace, who finished grooming with Sally’s help, looked back at herself in the mirror.
Her bright silver-blonde hair was curled up high and finished with lilac-shaped diamond decorations. And the dress was simple grey jewelry, unlike the splendid decoration of the intricate necklace that Arthur gave her before leaving the mansion.
Sally got up from the dressing table and spoke in an upset voice toward Grace, who was getting ready to go to the party.
“Do you have to wear that colour, ma’am? A light pink dress would be nice to accentuate the glamour, and if you don’t like it, I brought a dark sapphire dress.”
“No, this is perfect.”
Grace shook her head and rejected Sally’s offer. This colour was perfect to make Marianne, the bride-to-be, stand out the most.
Then Sally looked even more upset. Perhaps Sally thought Grace was caring for her sister who hated her.
However, Grace’s intentions were different.
‘That way, they won’t know even if I secretly leave the party.’
That’s why she deliberately wore a grey dress that the maids would wear.
To make sure that no one knows if she is Duchess Felix if she takes off her jewelry and wears an old overcoat kind of dress.
T/N: Merry Christmas!!! ヾ(≧ ▽ ≦)ゝ
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