The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 1

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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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Episode 1
In the Duchy of Daeus, an island on the right of the empire, September was a season when fishermen’s farewells to their families grew shorter. Some grew so brief that men would slip away alone in the dead of night without a word.
Taciturn fishermen resented their families’ worry. Hearing concern brought fear rising to the surface. And how could a man face the western sea if fear took hold?
By contrast, greetings lengthened again around April, when April Lunos—now entering her seventh year of house arrest—was born. Thus April was a season of farewells, yet for April, alone in Lunos Manor, there had been no one to bid them to for seven years running.
In January, with three months left before her fifteenth birthday, a trial was held.
The trouble had begun when April’s betrothed, Duke Miller Daeus, fell in love with another woman.
April’s parents, acting on the conclusion that their daughter’s honor had been desecrated, were caught attempting to poison the Duke and his lover.
The people of the right island were descendants of seafarers, and to them, an engagement was a promise of lifelong companionship. For her parents, killing the man who betrayed their daughter was simply what duty demanded.
And that September, when April turned fifteen.
Three members of the Lunos Clan household were executed.
The clan head and his wife were put to death, while April—not yet sixteen, the age of adulthood by the Duchy’s reckoning—received seven years of house arrest.
She had no other siblings, and the remaining relatives scattered in all directions, unwilling to be swept away by the waves created by a sinking house.
No one could have imagined that the most powerful clan in the Duchy, save House Daeus itself, would vanish in an instant.
Yet April’s parents, those facing their execution, accepted it all with calm resignation, as though it were a doom that had always been written.
Only when April’s guilt was pronounced did they cry out that their child knew nothing; but the moment house arrest was decreed, they grew gentle, as though they had never spoken.
And in that single moment, stepping toward the executioner’s block, they took turns speaking one final word to their daughter.
“It was always going to happen.”
“I love you.”
April, wailing under a grief that pierced her heart, could answer neither of their words.
That failure stayed with her for all seven years.
Many in the Duchy, including the magistrates, had sworn that April—capable of nothing but causing trouble in high society—could never survive seven years alone.
Yet after her parents departed like fishermen bidding farewell in September, and seven years passed, April remained alive. More than that: she had managed reasonably well.
“…It’s quiet.”
Like any other morning, April opened her eyes as dawn broke, and muttered absently while combing through hair tangled from sleep.
When house arrest ended, she had expected someone from House Daeus to appear at once and noisily pry out the palisades stakes driven into the manor’s outer wall.
She had even prepared herself for the possibility that they would find some other pretext and ultimately execute her.
Yet now, past October, not a single command had come from Miller Daeus, the head of House Daeus.
He seemed to have forgotten the very punishment he had imposed.
To erase someone who had wronged you completely from your mind—he was, without realizing it, inflicting the cruelest revenge of all.
Though her sentence was complete, April’s life remained unchanged from those seven years before.
As dusk fell, she moved about as she always did, carrying a candelabra and lighting the gas lamps on the first and second floors one by one.
The manor had been fitted with numerous gas lamps to suit Lady Lunos, who disliked the dark.
Yet something was peculiar about those lamps burning.
Though the Lunos Manor’s gas lines had been blocked long ago, the lamps had burned steadily throughout all seven years.
They burned, in fact, with such brightness that it seemed as if gas were being injected in excess.
April, trailing her long dress behind her, walked the corridors and lit all the lamps. This was the most important task of her day.
After lighting them thus.
April gazed out through a broken window that no longer closed, at the palisade stakes driven in close ranks beyond.
A month had passed since house arrest ended.
Now she could wait no longer.
Those seven years had been unbearable enough; she could not let that punishment continue to rule her life.
Today, her resolve hardened completely.
April descended to the first floor, took up an axe she had carefully sharpened, and went to where the stakes were planted. She selected one and began striking it with the blade.
She meant to leave, regardless of who welcomed her.
Because there was someone she had to meet outside.
Miller Daeus.
My betrothed.
A traitor who fell in love with another woman.
He had executed the Lunos couple for attempting to take his life and that of his lover, and had leveled the same charge against April.
There was no evidence that April was involved, but emotion overruled.
Though he was educated enough to know that punishing April on suspicion alone, without physical proof, violated the law, he sentenced her to house arrest nonetheless.
He must have feared that if he left her in high society, she might one day actually kill the woman he loved.
That her parents had failed to kill the Duke came as no surprise when they received the death sentence.
Their only regret was that they had failed to kill the Duke for the sake of their daughter’s honor.
But she was different—she had known nothing of it.
Yet just as she could not prove her innocence, she could not prove her ignorance.
For many reasons, April had to meet Miller. And if, after meeting him, she could go on living a while longer, there was only one thing she desired.
Honor.
The honor of the Lunos Clan that her parents had sacrificed their lives to protect.
To reclaim it, she could not afford to be choosy about her means.
If the world believed her an evil woman, then fulfilling that expectation seemed no worse than the alternative.
After swinging the axe for some time, April finally toppled one stake, and that gap was enough for her to slip through.
Her arms now spent, she could no longer lift the axe. Letting the blade fall to the ground, she stared into the thick darkness of the night.
She steadied her breathing, took up the candelabra, and stepped outside.
The moment she crossed beyond the stakes, a sharp wind rushed toward her.
April quickly cupped her hand around the candle’s flame and surveyed the estate—overgrown with weeds that no one had tended in years.
“There’s much to do.”
How much had the world changed in those seven years?
High society alone—the only world April had known before her house arrest—would have seen fashions change with each season.
Above all, April Lunos was a villain who had tried to murder Heidi Daeus, the current Duchess—wise and beautiful.
The convictions held by people in the Duchy would not change easily.
Seven years ago, April had understood that her social life was over.
When she stepped into the streets, people would throw stones. Yet still, she had to restore this house.
Fix one thing, and two more will break. The work would be endless, a cycle of repair and retreat.
As April contemplated where to begin with this sudden freedom, she noticed a faint light approaching.
April’s vision was not especially keen, so she narrowed her eyes to look, but still could not make out what it was. The light grew brighter and more numerous.
Cutting through weeds that had grown without bound came a contingent of police.
At the sight, April felt a surge of injustice rising within her.
“If only you’d come a little sooner—I wouldn’t have wasted all that effort.”
With those words, she moved toward the officers.
She felt a desire not to appear awkward in response to people she was meeting for the first time in seven years.
House arrest had ended last month; they were only now arriving to inform her of it.
April decided she ought to say something about how ill-timed this was. But even as she was composing her words, she came to a halt.
They were armed police.
Not the kind sent to notify someone that house arrest had been lifted.

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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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