INWY~11

Chapter 11

Tok, tok.

Arms crossed, Dante leaned against the window, tapping his finger against his forearm out of habit.

The blazing sun from earlier had disappeared within a few short hours, swallowed whole by clouds. 

His mood, too, seemed to sink into the same gray heaviness pressing down on the sky.

In the dimly lit room, his cold golden eyes followed the carriage that had just departed. It carried Riena.

Not one of the Behern Palace’s carriages, but a battered public coach whose origin was anyone’s guess.

She hadn’t even let anyone know she was leaving—there was no one to send her off. 

It was her own decision, made so that no one would notice the former Grand Duchess slipping quietly away.

Dante stood rooted until the shabby coach disappeared from sight, and long after that besides, before finally turning his head.

Sliding one hand into his pocket, he lazily reached for the whiskey on the table. 

The cork rolled across the wood with a dull rattle, followed by the clear clink of glass as bottle met cup, a sharp sound echoing in the stillness of the room.

Unlike the pale amber of ordinary whiskey, this liquid was a dark, almost black-brown. 

It rippled inside the transparent glass with each motion of Dante’s hand.

Normally, he did not drink. 

For a simple reason: alcohol clouded the mind, and dulled judgment always left him in a fouler mood.

Still, he tipped the glass back and drained it in one swallow.

The harsh liquor burned down his throat, its bitterness lingering on his tongue. 

He frowned faintly, then poured again. 

And again he drank.

His thoughts slipped back, unbidden, to their encounter a few hours before.

When he had stepped closer to her… his gaze had fallen, not on her face, but on her feet.

Not fine leather shoes adorned with jewels, but those worn, battered, all-too-familiar shoes.

The very same pair she had worn three years ago when she first entered the palace. 

The very same pair she had never taken off.

He hadn’t thought she still owned them. 

Those years of being Grand Duchess had not been enough to replace even one pair of shoes—Dante found it almost laughable.

‘I apologize for disturbing you so early, Your Grace.’

‘But I felt I must give you a final farewell.’

A final farewell.

Dante let out a low, humorless chuckle at the memory of her words.

She had clung to him for help, only to cast it aside and walk away when it suited her.

His hand, lifting the glass once more, froze midair.

A sudden image surfaced: the two small trunks she had carried in her hands. 

Even when loading them onto the carriage, that was all she had.

Crash!

The glass slammed down hard enough to splinter. 

Dante strode out of the office in great, furious steps, his face set in grim lines.

For three years she had lived here as Grand Duchess. 

Yet she left with only two small trunks?

That was absurd.

Up the grand staircase he went, past his own office and chambers, to the floor above—her rooms. 

Without hesitation, he wrenched the door open.

His golden eyes swept across the chamber.

Maids who had been busy tidying froze at his sudden entrance. 

Wide-eyed, they quickly gathered their tools and scurried out, leaving the room in silence.

Only then did Dante step further inside, his movements slow, deliberate.

The furnishings, the arrangement—everything was exactly as it had been when he had first given her the room three years ago.

Not one thing had changed.

That sameness prickled with something wrong.

Tok, tok.

He tapped his arm again, frowning, before striding to the wardrobe and yanking it open.

A bitter laugh escaped him.

“Thrown away like so much trash.”

Inside, the wardrobe glittered with finery. 

Dresses commissioned for her, velvets and silks he had chosen with his own hands, all of them crowded inside untouched.

So that was the source of the sour taste in his chest.

“No wonder she was still wearing those rags on her feet.”

His lips twisted.

Riena Bronte, the woman who had entered the palace with nothing, who had held herself so proudly as though she were nobility itself, had left without taking any of it.

I won’t forget the kindness, she had said.

And yet what he saw here screamed of someone desperate to erase it.

A surge of something hot and violent rose in him. 

He clenched his jaw, then shut his eyes briefly before opening them again.

Yes, he knew the name of this feeling well.

Disgust.

The same disgust he had always felt, ever since inheriting the tainted blood of the Venachert line.

His teeth ground together. 

On his tongue lingered the bitter aftertaste of whiskey.

***

Rain pounded down in sheets.

It drenched Riena’s face as she stirred, flinching. Her lips parted, but all that escaped was a weak moan.

An accident.

Her body screamed with pain. 

The cold ground beneath her, the merciless rain drumming across her skin—it all felt foreign.

She tried to push herself up, but her body would not obey. 

Heavy. 

As though a boulder pinned her to the earth.

At last, half-resigned, she only blinked slowly.

Would someone find her? 

And if they did… would she even survive?

She stared blankly up at the sky, where rain poured endlessly through the torn heavens.

Strangely, she felt no will to cling to life.

Then I will die, she thought. 

Like this, I’ll die.

A faint laugh curled in her chest. 

Her mind was slipping again, darkness closing in—when suddenly, a shadow entered her vision.

Boots.

Not fine leather, but heavy, military boots, slick with rain.

Someone had found her. 

Relief or exhaustion—she wasn’t sure—washed through her, and drowsiness struck like a wave.

She surrendered, closing her eyes.

***

“Your Grace!”

Dante had just returned to his office when the butler’s frantic voice rang out.

The man was pacing nervously before the door, soaked through, glasses beaded with rain, jacket dripping, trousers clinging wet.

“What is it?”

Dante arched a brow, taking in the sight. 

His butler, who prided himself on perfect composure, never once disheveled—now stood pale, sweating, trembling. 

Whatever the news, it could not be good.

The dread settled in his stomach.

He asked again, voice edged with irritation. “I asked you twice. What has happened.”

Still, the man hesitated. 

Dante’s jaw tightened.

At last, the butler spoke, voice quavering.

“…Her Ladyship…”

He faltered, then forced himself on, eyes hollow with horror.

“…Her Ladyship has been in an accident, Your Grace.”

Boom!

Thunder cracked the sky open, rattling the walls. 

The roar made Dante wince, pressing his brows together.

“Your Grace, the Grand Duchess… she has been in an accident.”

Perhaps fearing he had not been heard, the butler repeated himself.

“How.”

Dante’s voice was low, sharp. 

A dirty tide of dread and loathing churned in his gut.

“The carriage skidded on the rain-slick road and struck a gas lamp. It overturned. There was a small explosion—the coach caught fire. The driver was found badly injured but alive, however—”

“I don’t care about the driver.”

The icy interruption cut him off. 

Dante turned his head slowly.

“T-then… Her Ladyship has not yet been found. The road runs beside the river—she may have been thrown into it when the carriage overturned.”

The rain drummed louder, drowning the silence. 

Dante looked out the window at the torrent.

So early in the season for rain, and yet here it was, falling in a deluge so thick one could hardly see a step ahead.

He clicked his tongue.

“Of all the possible ways, it had to be a carriage accident.”

Not even a full day since she had left. 

Barely half a day—and this.

A bitter laugh twisted from his lips.

“Send a search party. Hounds, divers—everyone.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Bring me a body, at least.”

“…Yes, as you command.”

Dante’s golden eyes gleamed cold as steel. 

The butler paled further, bowing low before hurrying away to carry out his order.