Surviving as a Terminally Ill Heiress - Chapter 60

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 60

“……What?”
I was dumbfounded.
Until now, I’d heard rumors about Vincent even without Tru bringing him up.
He was the only son of House of Count Grime, a vassal house of House of Ambrose, and had grown close to my siblings since childhood, which naturally made him familiar to me as well.
In everyone else’s eyes, he must have seemed the archetypal fiancé candidate.
Count Grime himself—that bear of a fox—had likely been angling for it from the start.
But where on earth did Orka come from all of a sudden?
“My goodness, you didn’t know? Lately the chemistry between you and Orka has been shooting through the sky like a comet!”
“But how…….”
“There’s a five-year age gap between you and Orka, you see. Until now you were simply too young, so he only seemed like a guardian figure, but now—tada!”
Tru, abandoning the knitting needles, produced a Hand Mirror from nowhere.
“You’ve certainly begun to look like a proper lady, miss.”
I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror.
I’d grown considerably since arriving at the Ambrose Mansion for the first time.
Thanks to good food and plenty of leisure, I’d been developing faster even than in my previous life.
“So whenever the two of you stand side by side, more and more people say it looks like a painting! And on top of that, you two share your own special language.”
“The language……it’s just Ritzian.”
“Regardless! When you two whisper to each other in that strange tongue at parties these days, even I get a little flutter!”
Tru let out a squeal and hugged the Hand Mirror to herself.
Ah, if you’re talking about that whispering.
[Look at that count’s crown. It’s absolutely tragic.]
[Prime customer material for Cecil’s wig shop, if you ask me.]
That’s all we ever say to each other.
I lost for words, gripping my forehead in my hands.
Having a language that only we understood was certainly an advantage.
We could remind each other of our shared roots, lost to history.
I wouldn’t deny that this was one of the reasons I’d hired Orka as my aide.
But if this is how it’s coming across to the outside world, it’s like…….
‘Orka is looking like the ideal lover for my tastes.’
What does that even make me then.
My fiancé candidate is Vincent, and my secret lover is Orka?
“Please tell me the rumor about us being in some blood-soaked love triangle hasn’t started circulating?”
“Goodness, how did you know? It’s just beginning to make the rounds now—hot off the press!”
This was driving me insane.
I clicked my tongue in disapproval.
“People really do have nothing better to do.”
“Oh, don’t be like that! Come now—which one speaks to your heart? Hmm? Try choosing one. Cute Vincent, or kind-hearted Orka?”
“There’s nothing to choose. It would be an insult to both Vincent and Orka.”
Putting my foot down firmly, Tru grumbled that I was no fun.
I swallowed a sigh and turned my gaze back out the window.
The carriage had already crossed the bridge and was cutting swiftly through Peta Territory.
In the distance, I could see the remains of the Portal, suddenly stripped of light and crumbling inward.
The way home was still long.

* * *

My eyes opened in the dead of night when everyone was asleep.
I rose from the hotel room, which had grown quite familiar to me, and made for the balcony.
“……Phew.”
White breath escaped from my lips.
The further north we traveled, the sharper the air became.
I should have brought a shawl.
After shivering for a moment, I leaned against the round balcony railing and tilted my head back to look up.
A Crescent Moon hung in the slightly hazy sky.
The night after the deepest dark of the new moon, when the first thin sliver appears like a fingernail.
Nights like this—that creature usually makes an appearance.
Not that I’m waiting for him specifically.
But still…….
“He’s not coming.”
I muttered it aloud for anyone listening.
It’s cold. I should go in.
And yet I lingered a few more times before turning slowly to leave.
But in the end, neither soft rabbit-fur blankets nor Slippers appeared as if by magic.
Instead.
“Achoo!”
I caught a Cold.
Damn it—I’d been so diligent with my health all this time, and I’d never caught so much as a sniffle before.
Draped half-listless across the carriage seat, Tru gazed at me with concern from across the way.
“Are you alright, miss?”
“I’m not alright…….”
Having been ill for the first time in ages, my body felt heavier than ever.
Traveling such a long distance in this state was downright miserable.
“We’re almost there now, so please hold on just a little longer.”
Right. Matilda’s calculations had been precise.
Despite the ups and downs along the way, I’d arrived at the Capital today, perfectly on my birthday.
“Well……open the curtains for me, would you.”
“But won’t the cold air get in…….”
“I’m suffocating.”
I glanced pointedly at the curtains, tightly drawn.
Throughout the entire journey, thanks to Tru’s fussiness, I’d been trapped in a carriage without even being able to crack the windows or curtains.
Being this stifled would never help my illness improve.
Tru reluctantly pulled back the curtains with an unhappy hand.
And I let out a rueful laugh.
The view outside the window was terribly familiar.
“Wait.”
“Yes?”
“Tell the driver to stop.”
Tru, bewildered, knocked on the driver’s seat.
Soon the carriage slowed and came to a halt, and someone opened the door.
It was Alec, who had been following on horseback.
“What can I do for you, miss?”
“Since we’re nearby, I’d like to stop there for a moment.”
“Ah……as you wish.”
Both Alec and Tru looked utterly unprepared for what I’d said.
Understandably so.
Everyone knew of the place in these parts, but I’d never sought it out before.
The carriage door closed again, and we turned down an unpaved path instead of the main road.
The road was so poorly maintained that the large carriage couldn’t venture too deep.
In the end, I left Tru behind and stepped out of the carriage to walk with the knights.
Well, not quite alone. Shasha came along too.
I’d told her to stay in the carriage, but she kept following me anyway, so I scooped her up with a smile and carried her in my arms.
“Come on, let’s go pay your respects too.”
Meow?
I nuzzled my face against Shasha’s soft fur as she cocked her head, walking slowly forward.
A place where the air hung particularly cold.
The Pauper’s Cemetery.
This cemetery, located near the Slum where I had lived, should have long since vanished by now.
It had been swept away for redevelopment.
In my previous life, I’d learned of this only much later.
When I finally visited, I could no longer tell where anyone’s grave was, or what had become of the remains.
I had nowhere to protest. After all, this cemetery—or rather, not a proper cemetery at all, but a place where the poor simply buried their dead however they could—had begun that way in the first place.
So I wasn’t angry that day. I wasn’t sad enough to cry.
I just felt…… desolate.
Because that day had been my birthday.
Alec and the knights waited at the cemetery entrance.
I gave them a soft nod in response to their knowing looks.
Passing unnamed graves, I stopped at the place where a polished headstone stood.
It felt strange.
I’d paid for someone to erect it, yet to my eyes, I was seeing this grave marker for the first time.
My mother’s name was carved into it.
Sena Flang
When erecting this stone, I’d deliberated quite a bit.
Which name to inscribe. Whether to append the House of Ambrose surname afterward.
The old man had even gently suggested moving her to the Ambrose cemetery.
I was tempted, but……still, I thought.
“Isn’t it better to wait here?”
For that wretched first love, you see.
The name and place where I’d first met him.
Whenever it comes—whenever he says, ‘You’ve waited so long’—the one who finally takes my mother away by her new name won’t be me.
Then Shasha wriggled in my arms.
I loosened my grip slightly, and she leaped down lightly, circling the headstone.
As if she knew something and was paying her respects.
I watched her quietly for a moment, then spoke.
“……Our youngest. I think she once told me she’d leave home if I gave her even one more sibling, so I went and picked this one up.”
I laughed softly, then traced my fingers across the cold stone.
Over her name and the date of her birth below, my hand slowed as I shifted to trace the date beside it.
The day my mother passed away.
It would be coming very soon.
So every year on my birthday, I thought of my mother’s final days, and for that reason I’d tried not to celebrate my birthday anymore.
Being too busy to live had been a good excuse.
I didn’t have to dredge up those painful memories.
Not in my previous life, and not in this one either.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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