Haunting Recollections
Just before departing for the Great Temple, Sylvien Valentino strode through his mansion with heavy steps.
He headed first to Canna’s bedchamber.
As he stared silently into the room, her figure shimmered before his eyes. She was curled into a tight ball, speaking in a hesitant stammer.
“I-I’d like to go outside… but my clothes are dirty.”
“Then wash them yourself. What are those hands for?”
That was what the maid had replied. Of course, it had been nothing.
“Um… there’s a bug in my food…”
“And?”
“……”
“Eat every last bite. Honestly, you have no appreciation for how precious food is.”
What was even more absurd was that Canna had truly chewed and swallowed the bug along with the rest.
What a foolish woman.
He could not comprehend what had terrified her so much that she would consume vermin.
“Get up this instant! It’s already morning!”
The sharp sound of a slap across Canna’s cheek seemed to echo. It was only an auditory hallucination, of course. He knew it was.
But to her, it would have been anything but.
“As punishment for missing your greeting time, the mistress has ordered you confined. You are not to leave this room for the next week.”
This was a bedchamber, not a prison.
Yet that woman had not even been permitted to step outside at will.
Once again, the suffocating pressure returned. Sylvien felt as though an invisible hand were slowly crushing his throat. He left the bedchamber.
But the corridor offered no relief.
“Kyaa!”
Canna slipping and falling with a thud. She had crossed the spot the maids had deliberately slicked with oil. Her head split open, blood streaming down. The maids who witnessed it burst into giggles.
Canna had whimpered at first, then forced herself to laugh along with them—hehe.
And then the dining hall.
“Where on earth did you learn these table manners? Clear this wench’s dishes at once!”
Josephine’s thunderous shout suddenly gave way to a wicked smile, as if a delightful idea had struck her.
“No, never mind. Mix everything onto one plate for her. It’ll be easier for Canna that way.”
“Yes, madam.”
Fruit, vegetables, steak, stew, water, sauce—everything was mashed together. It was stirred like slop for a dog and tossed in front of Canna.
“What are you waiting for? Eat.”
Canna’s hands trembled violently as she shoved the mess into her mouth. Eventually she could bear it no longer and retched violently.
“What a vulgar little creature.”
Josephine and the maids had watched the spectacle together.
Canna hunched over alone, heaving until only gastric fluid came up. She vomited again and again until there was nothing left.
“My appetite is completely ruined. Since you soiled it, clean it up yourself.”
Josephine clicked her tongue in distaste.
“You beastly thing.”
Beast. Beastly thing.
Come to think of it, he had used those very words himself. In the garden one night, at a party, to a disheveled Canna.
“You’re worse than a beast.”
Sylvien stopped in his tracks.
When he came back to himself, he had already reached the garden. He stood motionless, then slowly turned his head.
To him, it was merely a beautiful garden.
Yet even this place had not been safe.
“I-I’m cold… please let me inside. Mother, I was wrong.”
On a day when snow fell heavily, Canna stood barefoot in the garden, begging. Once again, she had failed to appear for the greeting time.
Three times a day—morning, afternoon, and noon. If she was even a minute late, Josephine would erupt like wildfire and deliver merciless punishment.
That was how Canna had lived for seven years.
“I truly cannot fathom how the Addis family educated their daughter.”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“Do I ask anything difficult of you? All I want is for you to keep time properly. That’s all. Is that so hard?”
Josephine, wrapped in a fox-fur stole and fur coat, mocked Canna.
“When I was young, I thought all ducal children were perfect. But seeing you, I realize that isn’t true, Canna. Or is it because you’re a bastard child?”
She had exposed her own vile inferiority complex, twisting Canna, crushing her, squeezing until not a single drop of juice remained.
“I was wrong.”
“That’s enough. Stay here and reflect until I give you permission to leave.”
Josephine snorted and turned away, retreating into the warm mansion. Canna shivered for hours in the garden, sobbing and wailing as snow blanketed her.
“Mommy… Mommy, Mommy…”
Sylvien closed his eyes. The voice ringing like a hallucination faded away.
When he opened them again, he quickened his pace. Only after climbing into the carriage did he finally breathe freely.
“We will depart now, Your Grace.”
Sylvien offered no reply. The carriage began to move, carrying him away from the Valentino mansion. He gazed coldly at the shrinking building through the window.
In that moment, Canna’s voice echoed once more.
“The kind of ostracism someone like me experiences, the pain suffered inside a beautiful mansion like this… they couldn’t possibly be the same, could they?”
She had been right. It truly had been that way.
He had known she was not living well.
He had known.
He had known, and yet…
Why had it never struck him the way it did now?
The answer lay in her words as well. Perhaps he had unconsciously believed that her suffering could not compare to the battles he fought with his life on the line, the conflicts, the duty of protection.
Since everyone in the world carried their own misfortunes, perhaps he had thought hers was simply one more among them—a tiresomely common occurrence.
That was why he had felt no interest.
Sylvien had felt absolutely no interest in her.
A very long time ago, he recalled the day he had caught a girl attempting to run away from home.
He had been moving in secret, searching for the boy who was to become the next Holy Spirit of the Great Temple after fleeing to the empire.
That was when he saw fourteen-year-old Canna.
At the time, Canna had been astonishingly ignorant. She had been strolling through the streets without realizing she had become a target for thieves.
He had considered leaving her be, but then remembered the help he had received from Duke Addis during a battle. Thinking of the duke who had aided him several times, he had seized the man’s daughter and returned her to the Addis family.
The girl had glared at him with such bitter eyes. She had looked at him as though he were a murderer driving her off a steep cliff.
Eyes boiling with rage, hatred, sorrow, and despair like molten lava.
After meeting that gaze, he had found himself recalling it once or twice a year. It had been that intense.
Even now, if he wished, he could summon it vividly. Perhaps that was why, when Canna proposed to him again years later, he had considered it positively.
“You wish to avoid the engagement with Her Highness Princess Lilienne, don’t you?”
Of course he did.
Yet he already knew dozens of ways to avoid the engagement.
There had been no need to enter into an awkward sham marriage, and yet…
“Very well.”
Nevertheless, Sylvien had accepted. After all, it had not been a bad offer.
And at the time, he had been somewhat curious about how that girl with the blazing eyes had grown up.
But for some reason, Sylvien had soon forgotten that gaze.
When he met Canna again, he felt astonishingly little. He felt no interest whatsoever.
Whether she lived or died.
He had not cared what suffering she endured within the mansion.
A low laugh escaped Sylvien.
Yes, it had certainly been that way. So why had he begun investigating her only now?
He had tortured the servants to wring every last detail from them.
What kind of life Canna had lived in this mansion. What kind of pain she had endured. Only now had it become unbearably important to him.
Only now.
“Huh?”
On her first night at the Great Temple, Canna—on the verge of sleep—startled awake. Sylvien had come to see her.
“Were you sleeping?”
“No. I was just about to…”
Canna looked him up and down.
He stood in the dark corridor in perfect formal attire. Not a single wrinkle disturbed the cravat at his throat. His appearance was as breathtakingly beautiful as always.
What’s going on?
Yet she sensed a strange dissonance. Canna tilted her head.
“Is something the matter?”
“Just a moment.”
“Um…”
With only those curt words, he pushed the door open wide and stepped inside.
“……?”
Why is he acting like this? She found it odd, but did not drive him out.
Perhaps there’s something we need to coordinate in advance?
The ceremony to annul their holy marriage was tomorrow. Maybe there were details they needed to align. That would explain why he had come at this late hour, so unlike him.
“What is it? Sit down for now.”
But he did not sit on the sofa.
Instead, he leaned his back against the wall. Tilting his head at an angle, he stared at her.
“……?”
Canna met his gaze. After studying him for a long while, she finally realized what felt wrong—what was different from usual.
His face, illuminated by moonlight—Sylvien’s face—was far too clear.
The expression that had always existed behind a hazy mask and a dazzling smile was now painfully vivid.
“What’s going on?”
Why was he like this? Why had he come to her with his raw face exposed? An ominous premonition crawled up her spine.
“Why are you acting so strangely all of a sudden?”
“Who knows.”
His answer was tossed out carelessly. There was no sincerity in it.
“I don’t know either.”
He was not even being polite. Canna glared at him, dumbfounded.
He was looking at her with an almost insolent gaze. It was ridiculous. What was that utterly disrespectful expression supposed to mean?
“Didn’t you come because you had something to say?”
“Ah.”
Sylvien tilted his head back languidly. His disheveled silver hair fell over one eye. The ice-blue eye revealed beneath it looked bored.
“Perhaps I did.”
“……”
“Or perhaps not.”
What in the world…
Had he been drinking? Was he throwing a tantrum?
No, there was no smell of alcohol on him. Besides, alcohol was forbidden in the Great Temple.
“If you have no business here, please leave.”
Canna collected herself. His behavior was so unlike him that she had been startled, but she had no intention of being swept along.
“The annulment ceremony is tomorrow morning. I need to wake early, so I should sleep now.”
“The annulment ceremony.”
He repeated the words in a hollow voice. His face looked like an empty doll with only its shell remaining. To Canna, that was eerily unsettling.
Sylvien, not smiling…
“I banished Josephine Elvester that very day.”
“I know. I heard.”
The news had spread instantly.
Josephine, who had played the role of mistress of the Valentino household all this time, had been driven out to the countryside. And not just any countryside—to Cletin, a frigid wasteland said to be no different from barbarian territory!
“You heard?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Pardon?”
“So what do you intend to do now?”
“……”
Canna blinked.
What did he mean, what did she intend to do? She could not follow the flow of the conversation at all.
Sylvien let out a sigh.
Then, with a somewhat irritated gesture, he swept his hair back. At last both eyes were revealed. And he asked again.
“What do you intend to do?”
His blue eyes pierced straight through her.
“Will you come back?”