Was it because on the way here she had picked up the chilling past entangled with this manor?
Or because of that tiny reflection that could produce optical illusions at any time?
Or because of Kirix’s elegant and beautiful face, which never seemed to lie to her?
Honestly, looking at Kirix was confusing. Even while discussing a topic as detached from reality as spirits, the man did not seem foolish or ridiculous—rather, if she did not keep her mind firmly in hand, there were moments when she lost herself and was captivated.
His soft yet calm way of speaking, his dignified demeanor that never lost its grace, and yet the subtle wall of bloodline felt beneath it all made this possible. She did not know how many times she had marveled, thinking so this was what the dignity of an old royal house felt like.
But it would not do to keep going like this. She had to pull herself together. Even if she wrote articles meant to bewitch the masses, she herself had to hold fast to reason.
“Was a lot of your luggage damaged?”
“Yes, all my quill pens are broken. Um…… it seems I will need to go out—could you perhaps tell me the way to the village market nearby?”
A reporter preparing an article without a pen was unthinkable. Along with that, Ayesha hastily prepared an excuse in her head. If he asked why she needed a pen, she would say she had to write a letter to her family.
But instead of probing for a reason, Kirix gladly extended her his goodwill.
“If it is writing implements, there is no need to go out. There are plenty in my office. I was just about to show you around the manor, so this works out well. Come this way.”
He led Ayesha out of the bedroom.
As they climbed one more floor and wound this way and that through a long, long corridor, Ayesha could not take her eyes off the countless decorations hung all over the walls. Above the lights that sparsely illuminated the corridor, paintings depicting the prosperity of House Eseldor hung in frames. The quantity was truly vast. Just as the rumors said, Langfield Manor was the history of a family and a vast work of art spanning an age.
Marriage, the founding of a nation, the death of a king, and the birth of a new heir…….
As Ayesha quickly skimmed the works and guessed at their meanings, she paused briefly before one painting.
She had no choice. Anyone seeing this work for the first time would surely be taken aback.
The painting depicted the carnal union of a man and a woman taking place beyond a translucent curtain.
Because of the whitish folds of the curtain, detailed expression was omitted, and only the silhouettes of the man and woman showed faintly, yet from the ridges drawn by the man’s back, rippling with powerfully surging muscles, to the woman’s white, slender arm limply draped over the bedsheet, and the abundant blonde hair flowing down below the bed like a wave, one could sufficiently infer the situation as the painter of the time had seen it. The pitch-black veil spread beneath the woman’s back emphasized her skin all the more pallidly.
While the other works each held a page of history and possessed dynamic, splendid styles and vivid colors painted with generous use of pigment, this work alone had blurred tones and an unrefined sketch, making plain that it had been done in haste. That was why it stood out all the more.
What on earth was the intention of deliberately painting such an obscene scene and leaving it for posterity?
“Immortality.”
Perhaps noticing Ayesha’s bewilderment, he spoke casually.
“Immortality……?”
“Have you ever heard of it? The rumor that Eseldor was cursed by God.”
Of course, she had heard it in passing from the editor-in-chief before coming. But she had not expected the head of that very family to speak of the curse himself instead of hiding it.
“To trace it back, it is a story from about two thousand years ago. In that ancient time, the son of King Eseldor evaded the eyes of God and seduced immortality. The problem was that immortality was a being belonging to God’s authority. God, learning of this belatedly, was enraged. But by then, immortality had already fallen in love with the man.”
Yet the legend that followed was even more absurd than expected.
“Ayesha, do you believe in God?”
“God? No, I don’t believe.”
She had come on this business trip having boldly denied God’s existence, and now here she was—not only faced with a claim of being cursed by God, but with the story that they had actually stolen immortality from God?
Afraid that her awkward expression—unable to affirm, yet unable to rudely deny in front of the client—would be noticed, Ayesha quickly turned her gaze back to the painting.
Then in any case, was that woman in the painting, joined in body with the man, the immortality seduced away from God?
“Are you saying that God, robbed of immortality, cursed House Eseldor?”
“That is right.”
“Um, then what happened to that immortality?”
Kirix raised his straight chin and gazed at the painting.
“What do you think happened, Ayesha?”
“Well…… if immortality means not dying, then it seems it should still be alive somewhere.”
With questions tangled this way and that, forcing out an answer made the words come out less than smoothly.
“If so, Eseldor would not have declined so rapidly.”
Kirix replied composedly.
Ayesha was dumbfounded.
He had just told her that immortality had been seduced and fallen in love, and yet the conclusion was this again?
“It simply means that a legend is, after all, only a legend. For a family that once founded a nation, its rise and fall passed so quickly that to others it must have seemed there could be no explanation but God’s curse. If immortality had truly been with them, House Eseldor would still be reigning as a royal house even now.”
“……I suppose so.”
Did he mean it?
If it was displayed in the middle of the central corridor where the manor’s people passed most often, and even alongside paintings of other historic moments, then ‘Immortality’ must be a work of tremendous significance to House Eseldor.
“Ah, so this must be the prince who fell in love with immortality.”
Once she had recognized the silhouette through the work, the prince’s face in the other paintings began to register clearly.
War, victory, triumphal return.
The prince depicted in the various works was truly a god of war and a hero. He stood at the most dangerous forefront and led the battle. The image of him commanding soldiers or charging at the enemy with a sword in one hand and reddish-brown hair streaming was uniquely distinct and vivid, as if he might leap out of the painting at any moment.
Dramatic license for the sake of art might have been added, but the prince had the typical warrior’s build, a full head taller than the soldiers. In the first night with immortality, he had been rendered in a hazy blur, so she had thought his frame was slender, but seeing the other works with crisp lines and colors, his broad shoulders and unusually solid physique caught her eye. He was a striking man.
“Yes, that is right.”
“He must be a very distant ancestor of yours, my lord. But the two of you do not look much alike.”
“That is how long the years have passed. Even if there are traits of the bloodline, when the blood keeps mixing, they are bound to dilute gradually.”
“That is true—I also stand out as the only one in my family with this appearance. My parents used to look at my face and discuss how my forehead took after my mother’s side and my ears after my father’s side. I cannot tell at all no matter how much I look. And many people are surprised when I say we are family.”
“It seems we are in similar situations, the two of us. I have even heard talk that I must have a different biological father.”
“……Pardon?”
At the sudden appearance of a birth secret, as Ayesha floundered without finding an appropriate response, Kirix burst out laughing.
“It was only a joke. I am, in name and in fact, a descendant of House Eseldor.”
Only then did Ayesha press a hand to her chest in relief.
“Your jokes are rather chilling.”
“Shall I make another while I am at it? In Ayesha’s eyes, which face is better?”
“Between that prince and you, my lord?”
It was an unexpected yet amusing question. Ayesha did not hesitate twice and pointed to Kirix. The prince in the painting was quite handsome as well, but the Kirix before her, existing in the flesh, was—subjectively and objectively—far more handsome.
“You are more handsome, my lord.”
It was a natural result. For a family like House Eseldor, they would have chosen renowned beauties generation after generation as wives, so ever more beautiful descendants would have been born.
“Still, the two of you have similar builds. It seems the prince’s genes have not completely disappeared.”
“Is that so.”
Hearing Ayesha’s addition, he stared at the painting with a peculiar expression. It was a profile that seemed neither able to smile nor to weep, lost in some deep sentiment.
