Chapter 3 - Nocturne in the middle of the day
The carriage rattled as it rolled along.
Despite it being the heart of winter, warm sunlight streamed into the cabin, filling it with a soft glow. The sound of birdsong, as though echoing from a forest, felt so near, and the half-draped fur coat across Alperil’s shoulders gave her a sense of quiet comfort.
They had already been traveling without rest for half a day. To ease the queasiness in her stomach, Alperil turned her gaze away. The cold air that rushed in through the open window stung her lungs but felt bracing nonetheless.
In the bright daylight, the memories of the previous night grew faint, yet still hovered close enough to seem vividly within reach.
‘Alperil, marry my brother.’
Alperil, having taken in those shocking words as they were, had sat there dazed and silent.
Her trembling hands stilled, and her blinking eyes rounded wide. She hadn’t even dared to ponder whether the words were spoken in earnest, remaining utterly mute. A clear, lilting laugh had then rung out above her anguished face.
‘Ha.’
Ha-ha, ha. Hahaha…
The man who had laughed so heartily for some time suddenly wore a look of mild surprise, as if taken aback by his own reaction. Alperil’s mind went stark white at his inexplicable behavior.
‘A jest.’
After a brief, stifling pause, when Alperil finally forced an awkward smile in response, Leopold’s lips curled slightly to one side.
‘Surely you didn’t think I meant it.’
‘I… I…’
‘Even if that boy bears tainted blood, it would be a disgrace to pair a Heron’s son with a serf girl. Unthinkable, isn’t it?’
It wasn’t a question posed with any real expectation of an answer. Leaving Alperil’s stiffened face behind, he carried on speaking, as though none of it particularly mattered. Soon, the man’s dark brows lowered faintly.
‘Though, I wonder if what I’m about to ask is truly any different from marriage itself. You see, living beneath the same roof, exchanging glances, taking meals together, isn’t that all much the same as married life?’
The low murmur of Leopold’s voice, carrying that peculiar observation, felt somehow icy. Alperil had the odd sensation that the very air around them had turned cold and still.
‘Forgive me, my lord, but… I don’t quite understand what you mean.’
‘There’s not much you need to understand. Just remember these two things.’
One…
And so it was that Alperil found herself driven out of the ducal residence and bundled into a carriage swallowed by the darkness.
She couldn’t begin to guess at the duke’s true intentions, especially after he’d seen to it that several thick bundles of money were packed alongside her bag.
‘One year. Prove your worth in that time.’
That low, even voice still seemed to echo by her ear.
Alperil, recalling the man who once shattered a grand piano into pieces with a chair, thought grimly that it would be a miracle if she wasn’t killed on her very first day. With each turn of the carriage wheels, her sighs grew heavier.
Then, quite suddenly, Alperil’s brow furrowed. At this distance, they ought to have reached their destination by now, and yet everywhere she looked, a dense mist filled the landscape, leaving nothing visible. No matter how she strained her eyes, all she could make out were bare winter trees and a bleak, sprawling wilderness.
Sanctu Calereum House lay far west of the capital, secluded in the countryside. A thick, unnatural fog always clung to the area, so stubborn and opaque that nothing could be seen of the estate until one drew very near.
Unaware of that fact, Alperil was about to rap on the window and ask whether this was truly the right place when, without the slightest warning, the massive front gates of a manor appeared before her eyes.
Her lips parted slightly as the view opened up before her.
Though the carriage carried on for quite some time after that, the opulence of the buildings stretched on without end. It felt as though she were passing through the grounds of some foreign royal court.
Even in the dead of December, the man-made lake remained unfrozen, vast enough to hold several large boats. The detached annexes, separated from the main residence, were each as splendidly adorned as any noble’s estate.
When at last the wheels ground to a halt, Alperil stepped down without an escort.
It was not merely rare for her, it was an experience entirely foreign. But at that moment, she had no room left to mind such trivial things.
She was gazing up at the front gates of Sanctu Calereum, towering at what seemed ten times her own height, when a sudden, piercing whinny shattered the heavy air.
A moment later, the carriage that had just brought her here was already vanishing, its silhouette swiftly swallowed by the thickening mist.
“Ah…!”
Alperil’s startled cry was left unanswered as the coachman urged the horses to move faster, the shape of the retreating carriage growing ever fainter within the pallid fog. There was something unsettling in that hurried flight.
A creeping dread took hold of her at the thought of having been left alone in this bleak and unfamiliar place. She hastily snatched up the bag she had set on the ground and, almost at a run, made her way toward the manor’s front doors.
Thump, thump, thump, she struck the rounded oval door-knocker several times, but no reply came. Not even the faintest sound of a presence.
“Hello? Is anyone there? It’s Alperil!”
For a mansion of this scale, it was strange not to see a single servant standing watch by the entrance. Just as she was about to step back, weary of the silence, the door, which she’d thought securely fastened, rattled faintly in its frame.
Alperil’s brow furrowed.
Unlocked?
Tentatively, she grasped the handle again and gave it a firmer pull. To her surprise, the grand door swung open without resistance. Startled by how easily it moved, she instinctively stepped back.
Inside was nothing but pitch-black darkness. No crystal chandeliers matching the splendor of the exterior, no warm glow of candlelight.
The windows were shrouded in thick, black curtains, and the cold marble floors stretched bare, devoid of carpets. Alperil hesitated for a moment, then stepped inside, her voice barely a whisper.
“Is… anyone here?”
Cough, cough, the stifling dust, as though no one had lived here for years, instantly set her throat burning. Unable to bear the air, she crossed to one of the windows and yanked the curtain aside.
Rustle, rustle.
As the sunlight poured in, mice and insects scuttled from their hiding places, vanishing into cracks and shadows. The grotesque sight left her frozen, her body rigid and unmoving.
Her pale blue eyes darted about. The ceiling, soaring high as the heavens, was so discolored it was impossible to guess its original shade. As she tore down curtain after curtain with desperate hands, the unveiled sight was staggering.
Cobwebs, dust, dozens of empty liquor bottles rolling about. That was all. Not a single proper piece of furniture. Was this mansion abandoned? An instinctive terror rose within her, her dry lips parting slightly.
Bang!
The very next moment, as if to contradict her assumptions, a tremendous noise rang out. The sharp crash of multiple panes of glass shattering, the thudding clatter of heavy objects hurled to the ground.
A trespasser? A thief? It was impossible to imagine anyone actually living in a place like this. Narrowing her tense eyes, Alperil followed her instincts and darted toward the staircase leading upstairs.
It was an absurdly large place for a residence so poorly kept. Pausing midway down a second-floor corridor to catch her ragged breath, a semblance of reason returned.
Should I have brought a knife, or something?
The dreadful thought sent a tremor through her hand. She had no desire to end her life in a place like this. Just as her hesitation stretched on, clinging like fog—
Thunk…
The oppressive silence was broken by a faint, drifting sound from the far end of the hallway. It wasn’t the harsh clang of something striking. Straining to listen, her nerves drawn taut, Alperil caught the soft melody.
A piano.
Gentle keystrokes, a tender tune.
Relief swept over her at the sharply lowered chance of encountering a criminal, though it lasted but a moment before an irresistible pull took hold of her steps.
The quiet, sweet strains called to her, as though entrancing her legs to follow.
Afraid that even the smallest sound might disturb it, she moved without a breath. Her feet came to a halt before an ivory-inlaid door. A sliver of light leaked through the half-open gap.
She recognized the piece. Nocturne No. 2 by Cedric Sylvester, a pianist of the former neighboring nation of Vietra, now a sworn enemy at arms. A composer said to have lived an unfortunate life, caught amid countless wars. In Triberar, it was forbidden music, to play, to hear, even to record it.
And yet here it was, the serene flow of the melody stifled by unspoken tension. Andante cantabile. A slow, singing tempo.
Delicate and restrained, the performance was exquisite. A romantic night unfolding within a dream, drifting between reality and unreality. Alperil held her breath.
Her recent displacement, her worries for the Muller family she’d left behind, nothing came to mind now. Nothing could. The bittersweet melody summoned an aching loneliness that weighed heavily in her chest.
Through the narrow opening, she could make out little more than the faint outline of a man’s back. Unthinkingly, she pushed the door farther open, her gaze fixed on that broad back as it drifted near, then far again, carried on the tide of the shifting melody.
A sharply angled jawline, a faint, crooked smile visible in profile. Long, graceful fingers glided across the keys, stately and elegant.
She thought, perhaps it would be alright if she spent the rest of her life lost in this illusion.
Pluck.
The final, lingering note came so quietly, she hadn’t even realized the piece was ending. The reverberation left a deep, indelible trace in the air.
‘……’
At last, within the thick, honeyed silence that followed, Alperil abruptly came to her senses.
It seemed this was indeed the source of that earlier crash. Splintered fragments of a broken chair lay scattered haphazardly across the floor. Only then did Alperil falter slightly, the sight dragging her back to reality.
And then, the man.
Faint hints of red shimmered through his dark hair. In this dim light, it might have been mistaken for black, yet it was a deep, blood-tinged crimson. His broad shoulders, unusually pronounced for a pianist, naturally drew the eye.
At last grasping the situation, Alperil hastily pulled her foot back from where it lingered across the threshold, retreating a step.
The unreal performance she had just witnessed lent weight to her scattered, half-formed suspicions. As she thought, he must be—
“How was it?”
She inhaled sharply, catching her breath. A voice so low it seemed to rumble from somewhere deep, carrying a gravelly edge that sent a chill through her.
Alperil blinked slowly. She knew she ought to answer, yet her lips refused to part. When no reply came, the man’s large frame shifted, rising upright.
Still dazed from the lingering echoes of the music, Alperil, in that moment, doubted her own eyes.
The imposing figure gradually swallowed the space between them.
Damp, oppressive, like a torrential downpour at its peak, or perhaps the suffocating humidity left in its wake once the skies cleared. She hadn’t known a single gaze could contain all of that.
Hair like fine threads of blood, pale complexion to the point of pallor, a tall, solid frame. Features sharp as if carved from wax, his straight nose casting a soft shadow across his face.
Alperil’s lips parted, words forgotten. He was alive, moving. A fact so natural, and yet, in this moment, it struck her as strangely wondrous. So otherworldly was his appearance, it seemed a marvel he belonged to the same realm of living things.
The silence stretched, unpleasantly thick. His brow, dark as if drawn in ink, furrowed faintly in displeasure. Even the languid bass of his voice made her ears ache as it broke through the hush.
“You heard it, didn’t you.”
