Invitation of the Crescent Moon - Chapter 81

Thump, thump. His heart was beating. Unfamiliar events happening in a familiar space lingered at the edge of his memory before suddenly bursting forth.

‘That dream again.’

A lucid dream. Though it was just a dream, his racing heart foretold what would happen next.

His calloused, rough hands were soaked in blood. Blood that wasn’t his. The person collapsed in his arms, body drenched in blood, was none other than his wife.

“Ashika, don’t lose consciousness. Please. Without you, I don’t exist either.”

He would gladly give up the family name and everything else, so please don’t take her away from him—he prayed desperately to a god he had never believed in, praying again and again.

But despite his earnest pleas, the woman’s body in his arms grew cold. Her weakening breath and faint heartbeat—all the signs foretelling death were so painful they seemed to cut off Drushia’s own breath.

“Hold on. Please, Ashika.”

Even to his sobbing voice, her tightly closed eyelids would not open again. His heart was collapsing. The world beneath his feet that had been supporting him crumbled, and he too was falling down.

Despair, fear, anger at the world that was taking her away. The boiling emotions coalesced into one lump that gripped his heart.

“…Your Grace, please come to your senses….”

Someone’s voice was heard from far away. He instantly caught the sensation touching his shoulder and twisted it away.

“Aaaahhh!”

“Your Grace!”

Thud, someone’s body was thrown to the floor.

Drushia looked back and forth between Mihail, who was lying face down on the floor, and Kalf, who stood with a furrowed brow.

“Y-Your Grace. I was wrong. I was wrong, so please, my hand….”

It was none other than Drushia who had pinned down Mihail’s back. He was also the one pressing down on the poor aide’s arm, twisting it backward as if to break it.

“Ah, this won’t do.”

It seemed he had dozed off. Quite deeply too. Judging by how he hadn’t noticed someone entering his office.

“That’s why you shouldn’t touch someone who’s sleeping.”

Drushia let go of Mihail and sat up. However, Mihail couldn’t get up right away and groaned while lying face down. When Kalf grabbed his arm to help him up, Mihail let out a piercing scream.

“Ah, don’t touch me! It hurts, I said it hurts.”

“Tsk.”

Drushia clicked his tongue at the mess he had made.

“Your Grace, it seems my right arm is injured.”

Mihail barely lifted his aching arm and whimpered. It was natural, considering he had been ambushed by a well-trained knight, not an ordinary person. Moreover, since he was half-asleep, his strength hadn’t been properly controlled.

“Consider yourself lucky I didn’t break it.”

“How can you say such cruel things?”

“Kalf, call the physician. Mihail, didn’t you have something to report?”

Drushia said while wiping his sweaty forehead with his hand. Though his face appeared calm, his fingertips were trembling slightly.

“Mihail, report.”

“Yes? Yes, Your Grace.”

It was relentless pressure. Though Mihail looked upset, he didn’t forget his duty.

“The person we sent to Maiheller territory today has returned. He investigated various rumors and information about the vassals’ families directly from the site.”

“And?”

“You know the poorhouse that had a fire on Palmred Street? There’s someone who provides quite a lot of support to it—Viscount Bailey—and his wife is from Maiheller territory.”

“Isn’t that the largest poorhouse in the capital that receives a lot of support from nobles?”

He meant that among all those nobles, who wouldn’t be connected by one degree or another.

“That’s true, but there aren’t many nobles who have connections all the way to the Healers’ Union. Viscount Bailey is one of them.”

“Healers’ Union?”

“Yes. Viscount Bailey is the main force operating the poorhouse’s clinic.”

Deep furrows appeared on Drushia’s brow.

“As you know, none of the clues we’ve been following so far have any clear evidence. Each one individually could be dismissed as mere coincidence. But the problem is that this keeps repeating.”

Kalf’s words hit the mark. There was no physical evidence, but the circumstantial evidence was becoming increasingly solid.

The Grand Duchy issue that everyone had forgotten surfaced after the poorhouse fire, and the Grand Duchy patients who broke into the racetrack created a sense of fear. This eventually led the Emperor to convene a meeting and the nobles to speak with one voice. On top of that, there was the attack incident that targeted Drushia.

“The connection isn’t immediately apparent, but….”

Kalf held back his next words. At his uncharacteristic attitude, Drushia voiced the omitted words.

“Why? Are you suspicious of Maiheller?”

“Gasp.”

Mihail’s eyes widened as he looked back at Kalf. His face showed he didn’t understand how such a leap was made. But Kalf’s expression was more serious than ever.

“You must have a reason for thinking that?”

“I had a bad feeling.”

“Who? Could it be Shafri?”

While Drushia was unconscious, Shafri had stayed at the mansion the entire time. Though everyone was in chaos, Kalf had received reports on every single one of Shafri’s actions without missing anything.

Instead of Shafri’s ambiguous activities, Kalf pointed to someone else.

“Maiheller’s personal physician is not from the Empire. There’s no information about when, through what route he came to belong to the Maiheller family, where he’s from, or when he came to the capital.”

“That is certainly strange.”

“It doesn’t make sense for someone who is a high noble’s personal physician to have no past history whatsoever.”

Drushia tapped his temple with his finger, lost in thought. Kalf continued coldly.

“The person with no past history isn’t just Maiheller’s physician.”

“Marquis Maiheller is the same. I heard that not only Gerbeau Maiheller but also the previous marquis had holed up in their territory and never appeared in the capital.”

“There were rumors that the marquis’s wife was ill and staying in the territory, but when we actually went to the territory, they said she had died last year and they had held the funeral.”

“Huh.”

Even Drushia hadn’t known that. Formally speaking, Drushia was still Shafri’s fiancé. He remembered Shafri demanding that he attend Baroness Hennessy’s funeral and show proper respect as her fiancé.

‘But her own mother’s funeral was held without any notice?’

Kalf reinforced Drushia’s suspicions with a hardened face.

“Marquis Maiheller is suspicious, Your Grace.”

“Do you think he’s after the Grand Duchy?”

“I’m not sure about that, but I think you should be careful.”

Mihail looked at Kalf and swallowed dryly. Whether he had expected it or not, Drushia remained unshaken. He just kept his mouth shut with a thoughtful expression.

Papers on the desk fluttered in the wind coming through the window. The office with the three men was so quiet that even such a trivial sound seemed loud.

Kalf and Mihail waited only for him to speak. However, Drushia was lost in thought and completely forgot about his aides’ presence.

“…Your Grace.”

Mihail, who had been waiting all along, spoke first.

“Ah.”

Drushia, who had been lost in thought for a moment, raised his head. His face looked more haggard than usual. His darkly shadowed eyes, rough face, and disheveled hair that hadn’t been properly arranged.

It was an unusually unkempt appearance for a man who was usually meticulous about his self-care. Drushia was aware of his own condition.

‘My insomnia wasn’t this bad before. Is it worse because of these strange dreams?’

When had it started? When he began having these incomprehensible dreams.

At first, it was after he spent his first night with Ashika at the inn on the way to the Grand Duchy. Ashika, who often appeared in his dreams, was a lovely lover, and he had quite sweet dreams.

However, as if to mock the pleasant dreams he had been having, nightmares began after Ashika disappeared. The more the dreams repeated, the more he began to worry that they might have some meaning.

Mihail asked cautiously again.

“May I continue with the report?”

Drushia leaned back against his chair and gestured. It meant to continue.

“We investigated Lady Igraine.”

Drushia’s eyes flashed open. The previously relaxed office suddenly filled with tense atmosphere. Mihail continued his report while rubbing his aching arm.

“Sir Berth, her closest guard knight, used to work as a mercenary. He has colleagues from that time in the capital, and it seems they often received commissions.”

There were plenty of capable people in Igraine too. Yet the fact that Ashika had sought outside help meant she desperately didn’t want her grandfather to find out.

“So where is she?”

“They bought an empty mansion and hired people, but that’s all. It seems they prepared hastily, but there was no trace of Lady Igraine.”

“Did she just vanish? How can there be no trace?”

“Perhaps she’s no longer in the capital.”

That seemed more likely. If she wasn’t in the capital, where could Ashika have gone?

“What about the trading companies and other connections that Ashika managed?”

“This might not be significant, but the trading companies entering the Grand Duchy have had almost no changes for the past five years. However, there’s a newly added trading company recently. That company departed for the Grand Duchy a few days ago.”

“Isn’t this the regular visiting season?”

“These days, smaller trading companies receive divided shipments and enter more frequently in smaller amounts.”

Kalf answered Drushia’s question instead. Usually, since they couldn’t enter without permission, most trading companies avoided the complicated process and didn’t visit the Grand Duchy often.

“That must be troublesome to manage. Did Igraine’s side approve this?”

“Distribution is Igraine’s authority. The work increased, but it also made external exchanges easier.”

“Who managed that?”

“As far as I know, it was Lady Igraine.”

Suddenly, a thought flashed through Drushia’s mind.

“That’s strange. Why now of all times?”

The capital was buzzing with all sorts of rumors about the Grand Duchy. If it was a small trading company, shouldn’t this be a time to lie low?

Tap, tap, his fingers drumming on the table moved quickly. It was because his heart was that anxious.

“Grand Duchy, Grand Duchy….”

“When Your Grace went to the Grand Duchy last time, didn’t Lady Igraine chase after you?”

“Ah, now that you mention it.”

He had forgotten. With major incidents happening one after another at the time, he hadn’t even been able to ask why Ashika had chased after him.

“I feel like all problems are pointing toward the Grand Duchy. Am I the only one who thinks so?”

Mihail looked confused, and Kalf also had a puzzled expression. Drushia stood up from his seat.

“Send a letter to Grandfather. Tell him I’ll go to the territory via the Grand Duchy.”

“The Grand Duchy… you mean?”

Mihail thought ‘here it comes’ and flinched his aching arm. Wondering if he could hold the reins, seeing Mihail’s worried face, Drushia said bluntly.

“Kalf will handle my affairs in the capital, and Mihail will come with me to the Grand Duchy. I’ll send a physician for that arm, so don’t worry.”

One good hand would be no problem holding reins, Drushia’s face seemed to say.

“Prepare right now. We leave today.”

Having given those instructions, he immediately left the office. His steps naturally quickened with his urgent heart.

How could she have disappeared so thoroughly?

“Sending a marriage proposal without permission and getting severely backstabbed.”

Nothing was easy with that woman. That’s why it was more heartbreaking, and Ashika, who had hidden herself away, was just spiteful.

“Just wait until I find you.”

He wouldn’t let it slide, he vowed to himself, yet his longing heart kept growing bigger and bigger.