The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 46

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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 46
He suddenly noticed April’s plate, still sitting untouched while he’d been eating, and retrieving her spoon, he scooped up a portion and held it out to her.
“You should eat too.”
“Okay, I’ll have some.”
“There’s no such thing. We should both do things we don’t want to. Don’t make me do it alone.”
“But you helped me.”
“Just one spoonful.”
Pejin couldn’t fathom why he’d made such a request.
April, who understood it even less, was watching him with an expression that verged on bewildered.
Yet his stubborn insistence that they both share in unwanted acts seemed to have worked—she opened her mouth.
Pejin found himself staring into the mouth that had opened at his behest without quite meaning to. Her tongue was small. Her teeth were small.
“How could you possibly chew anything with those?”
April, the spoon already in her mouth, narrowed her brow as if to ask what he meant.
Pejin spoke.
“Your teeth. They’re so small. I was just wondering if you could actually chew food with them.”
A fever made a man senseless.
April with her green eyes, April lying in the snow, April Lunos speaking with words that meant don’t die, with a face he didn’t recognize, one that made everything spin.
All those versions of April Lunos layered over one another in his blurred vision.
She seemed like many. She seemed like one. For a moment, it felt as though the entire world had been wrapped around her. It was a stupid thought.
Pejin lay back on the bed and spoke.
“I’m finished eating.”
“I’ll have someone clear it.”
“You haven’t finished yours.”
Pejin reached out and caught April’s arm as she began to rise.
“Finish it before you go.”
“You need to rest. I should leave.”
“I can’t. I’ll be cold if I’m alone.”
His fevered mind spoke fevered words.
Pejin murmured like this and closed his eyes, and April settled back into her seat.
Since most women favored him, Pejin had grown accustomed to the fact that there were hardly any he couldn’t keep once he’d taken hold of them.
Besides, he knew at least that April Lunos saw him as a man.
He knew he ought to refuse her quickly, but he couldn’t manage it.
Pejin closed his eyes and seemed to slip toward sleep, but the sensation was like rolling across a bed of needles. Yet still, he didn’t wish for her to leave. The fever was making him an idiot.
He thought: if she didn’t know what he’d come to the Grand Territory for, wouldn’t that be fine? If she never knew, not even at the very end.
Then it wouldn’t matter if she saw him as a man, or even if he saw her as a woman—would it?
Playing with fire was a light matter.
If one pursued only the bare minimum of caution, it wouldn’t spread far. If one watched carefully and took pains to keep it from growing…….
* * *
April gazed at Pejin, who held her arm and slept soundly, then withdrew his hand and laid it upon the bed.
His hair clung to his rosy cheeks, dampened with cold sweat. It seemed somehow wistful at first, but when she remembered it was a cold caught from jumping into the winter sea on such a bitter day, a soft laugh escaped her.
“He’s not a child.”
She knew he’d long since passed the age where such things were cute, yet seeing him behave like a child made him seem charming in his own way.
If she thought about it carefully, he pretended to be a lawman, but he held his position only because of his bloodline, and for his rank he was unreasonably young.
For someone who went about acting grown up everywhere, he was far too childish, and yet compared to that little boy in her memories, he was far too mature.
In her mind, a newly defined Pejin Dieu, authorized by no one but herself, had taken root.
April knew better than anyone that the fire of emotion was hard to extinguish. Therefore, she believed it was better to set a backfire instead. Her ambition for the Family was her countermeasure.
Affection would not overcome ambition.
April made the oath to herself again and again.
She left the room and made her way slowly to the 3rd Floor. The portrait of family on that floor had always bound her feet. She stood before it for some time, then went out to the Rooftop.
The Rooftop had been cleared of all the furniture Bauman was repairing, leaving only the manor’s original form laid bare.
April walked a full circuit of the Rooftop along the railing.
The Territory was vast, but the weather was clear enough that she could see everywhere. The land toward the Capital was sparse, but the path toward the river in the south stretched far.
The ships at Right Island had developed into efficient pirate vessels, ideal for ascending the river.
From here, one could watch merchant ships coming and going on that southern river.
Countless merchants disembarked from the south.
Once they unloaded what they’d brought, they took on honey and furs, or sometimes merely potatoes, before heading back to sea.
Being called a Witch had made her look strong, but it would never allow her to gather people into this Territory.
April had not the slightest intention of dispelling the rumors of a Witch that made her seem formidable, when she possessed nothing under her control.
If there was no authority to judge her, there was no reason to fear.
She had eventually devised a way to gather people without damaging that rumor.
There was only one way to gather people—especially the Clan—without arousing any suspicion. She had merely waited for the right moment.
“It’s time to hold the funeral.”
And now, as her heart wavered, she thought this plan must be executed. Before her heart tilted any further in another direction.
She descended the stairs slowly. The sun was setting, so Bauman had prepared candles and waited for her.
“Will you light the flame yourself again tonight, Miss?”
“I will.”
Though Bauman knew that April would entrust this task to no one else, he asked her the same question every day.
He seemed to believe that someday she might entrust it to another.
April now understood that seven years had passed and that she ought to entrust the lighting to a servant, yet the habit had taken root so deeply she could not easily tear it out.
April took the candle and spoke to Bauman.
“There’s something I need to do.”
“What might that be?”
When Bauman asked, April lifted her gaze to the field where two children had begun pulling weeds, and spoke.
“I’m going to hold a funeral.”
“A funeral……. Ah, yes, a funeral, of course.”
Bauman, who had been about to ask whose funeral it was, understood at once and nodded.
April continued.
“One cannot avoid gathering for the funeral of the previous Family Head.”
“That is quite true.”
The funeral of the Lunos Family Head and his wife.
April intended to hold a funeral after seven years that would bring together the people of the Lunos Family.
April went on.
“I’ll exhaust everything I have and make it grand and magnificent. I may even go into debt.”
“I know many skilled craftsmen throughout the realm.”
“Yes, and it’s because I trust you that I’m undertaking this.”
Bauman’s expression grew pleased at her words.
April intended to summon people to this Territory in a legal manner—and in a somber one.

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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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