The Chronicles of Van Deloney-Chapter 20: TEARS OF THE MOONLIGHT SORRROW

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MEANWHILE, at the House Grimoard, Lindice walked swiftly into the room, her gait steady and pace measured. The young woman was carrying a tray of water, medicines, and a clean cloth, ready to tend to those in need. As she went inside, she saw Madame Dorothea staring at Saevionh, who lay unconscious in bed.

"Your Excellency," started Lindice, her tone calm though not altogether without a hint of fear, "I had thought you to be within the walls of the study?" She walked toward the Countess with calculated dignity, her tone filled with a quiet desperation as she glanced in the direction of Saevionh, who remained silently at her side.

"I give attention solely to his welfare," the Countess answered with an oddly level voice, but an undercurrent of uneasiness. "I hope that my presence here has not caused any unnecessary inconvenience?"

"Not at all, Your Excellency," answered Lindice, still clutching the tray in both hands. "Although—forgive me—I did want to ask you something, if I might." Here, the Countess transferred her attention to the girl, silently encouraging her to speak.

Lindice hesitated only briefly before going on, her brow slightly wrinkled. "Why is it that you harbor that young woman under our roof?"

The Countess's face did not change, but her response was punctuated with an air of mystery. "That young woman is no mere maiden. She possesses within herself something much greater—a piece of truth yet to be disclosed."

Lindice blinked at the response, her own puzzlement thinly veiled. "I see...," she said, though her voice conveyed skepticism more than comprehension.

There was a silence before the Countess shifted gears with a question of her own. "And your brother, Argentum? I hope he does better these days? When I last saw him, he struck me most as a stray cat—spirited, but wild and without purpose."

A sigh left Lindice's lips at the mention of him, and her eyes dropped for an instant. "He is in good health, Your Excellency. And if ill fortune finds him again, I will do everything in my power to prevent it from growing worse." She moved toward him and set the tray on the nightstand, each movement precise, as if choreographed by duty and restraint.

When the contents were arranged to her satisfaction, she dipped into a gracious bow. "With your leave, madam," she murmured, and without waiting for a further word, turned and left the chamber, the door shutting softly behind her.

Dorothea, however, sat beside Saevionh, her voice gentle as she addressed the unconscious man, her words laced with genuine regret. "I am sorry." she whispered; her apology being uttered several times. Her fingers stroked his cheek gently, her face sorrowful as her mind wandered to the state of the man.

Dorothea looked to herself and rested her hand upon her ring-covered fingers, an indication of her self-inflicted guilt. "If only I had not done it, look at you I made it worse," she continued to apologize, her voice full of sorrow. Tears started to well up in her eyes, her face a picture of grief and remorse. "I wish it never happened, I am so sorry," she went on, the depths of her heart spilling out in the form of tearful anguish.

"Despite my quest for justice, I too shall be subjected to its ruthless grasp." She uttered to herself in a hushed tone, as her tears trickled down her cheeks. Her outstretched hand brushed against the sheet of the bed, as her grasp tightened. She took heed, remembering the reason for her existence, that her sorrow had been morphed into a thirst for vengeance.

"Through the past thirty cycles of the sun and moon, I will never cease my quest to unearth the fiend who brought Viktor in his brutal demise." She swore to herself that she would do whatever it took, at any cost, to obtain the justice she desperately sought.

After checking up on Saevionh, Dorothea retreated back to her study room, where she opened the drawer of her desk and extracted a torn aging family photo. The image appeared to depict a woman adorned in a simple dress, devoid of any discernible emotion. Her expression appeared as empty as it could be, with her visage carrying a hint of sorrow and anguish. Dorothea looked upon the photograph with a profound sense of melancholy, her thoughts returning to the events pertaining to the woman in the picture.

"Since when have I been a true member of this family?" Dorothea wondered to herself, staring at the old photograph that lay in her hand. The lack of any emotions on her face suggesting a void in her heart. "I am nothing but a shadowy presence that lingers through the halls of this mansion with no true place to belong," she continued, her voice laced with a sadness that seemed to consume her soul. With a final look of regret, Dorothea placed the picture against the flame of a burning candle, watching as the image turned to ashes in a moment.

"In a world plagued with misfortune, all I have known is loss. I am a mere disappointment, struggling to cling onto existence in a world that is unkind and unjust." As she glanced out the open window, where the moon's bright gaze met hers, she spoke to herself, "Why must I suffer in this life when the moon can simply stare from its perch in the sky, without a care or sorrow in its silvery gaze?"

Dorothea let out a melancholic sigh, her sorrow becoming all too apparent as it reflected in her expression, she was beginning to regret her own existence. "Oh, the regret I feel at my own existence is becoming quite overwhelming," she uttered, her regrets manifesting as genuine distress, as her voice was filled with a deep sadness. It soon turned into weeping, the depth of her sorrow becoming evident, as the thoughts of her shortcomings weighed heavily upon her heart.

The study was shrouded in a funereal silence, the sort that leans against the walls and fills each breath with nothingness. The hearth fire had been extinguished a long time before, leaving just a faint echo of smoke and the residue of warmth that used to be. Shadows crept along the floor like the fingers of ghost, and the thick velvet drapes moved minimally with the wind's mournful sigh..

Dorothea sat alone at her writing table, her hands clasped together, as if in prayer, yet no supplication could ease the pain within her chest. Her head was bowed, resting on her shaking hands, the load of remembrance too heavy to bear.

"Viktor," she breathed, so softly that it was almost lost to the silence. Her voice broke under the weight of grief. "What have I done with my life?"

Her shoulders shook as the first tear escaped her cheeks and then another, and then another—until they flowed freely.

"Why would you allow me to live in a world I was not meant to be a part of?" she gasped, every syllable wrung out on a ragged breath. "Not stand idle while shadows take you from this world. And now... now you are nothing, but a name whispered by the wind, a memory too sacred for the tongue."

She stood up abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor in a harsh protest, and stepped towards the hearth. She knelt where the heat had once been, holding the pendant he had given her in their youth—a plain thing, silver and worn, but still warm from where it had lain against her heart.

"You were owed justice, and I promise you," she declared, her voice taking on a fierce and shattered tone, "whoever dared to lay a hand against you will know the full extent of my fury. I will not rest, Viktor. Not while your killer roams free beneath the sun."

Her voice cracked again, and she brought the pendant to her lips, holding it there as if it could span the wide gap between life and death. The silence replied in its own mourning.

Outside, the wind screamed at the windows like a bereaved mother. Within, Dorothea reclined back on the floor, her body contracted in upon itself, lost in the recollection of a man lost too early and a life she no longer knew.

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There was no solace in that room, no comfort in the pages, no peace in the ashes of the fire—only the sound of a promise given in anguish.

"I'm sorry, Viktor," she whispered again. "If only I could exchange places with you."

And in that silent hour leading up to dawn, the lady of the house cried not as a countess, but a woman—crying not only for the loss of a loved one, but the long, grinding death of hope.

As Dorothea slowly rose, the pendant lodged against her heart, she bore the burden of the world on her shoulders. The room that had been a haven of understanding and order was now a mausoleum of abandoned hopes.

She turned towards the window, where the first pale light of dawn filtered over the horizon, a silent prelude to another day in a world that had proceeded without Viktor.

Her voice, once firm but now infused with a soft, determined sadness, rang out in the silence. "I will find you," she said, as though to the shadows themselves, to the image of a man she could no longer touch yet would never forget.

"And when I do, justice will be the very last thing you will ever know to fear. A fear that will be your own undoing as well."