Chapter 5
After Shuelle stormed off in anger, Ayla stood alone on the terrace, staring at the darkness that had settled over the garden.
“It looks just like me,” she thought.
The dim evening, where it was hard to see even a step ahead, felt just like her uncertain future.
“There was never a place for me after all.”
With only two months left before a marriage that promised nothing but misery, all she could do was sit by the window and gaze at the night sky. But tonight, even the twinkling stars failed to bring her any comfort.
“What am I supposed to do now?”
As Ayla murmured faintly, the voice of a young boy from her memories quietly echoed in her mind.
“What is it that you truly want?”
“I just don’t want to be disappointed anymore.”
She wanted to stop placing hope in things that only ever let her down. She wanted to stop yearning for her family’s approval when they never cared about her happiness in the first place.
To do that, she knew she had to let go.
It was a heartbreaking decision, so painful her fingers curled inward from the weight of it, but now she finally understood.
Everything she had worked so hard to earn had been nothing more than an illusion.
“No matter how hard I try, my family will never love me.”
So, she would let it all go, as she had always done, with desperate resolve.
“I’ll break off the engagement and leave this house.”
She would find a way, just like the boy in her memories once showed her. Even if it came at a cost.
Late that night, Marcus returned home after a long meeting with the noble council. He frowned as he looked up at the third floor of the mansion and saw the lights still on in Ayla’s room.
“I just can’t bring myself to feel anything for her,” he muttered.
Marcus, with his silver hair and silver eyes—the very symbols of the Everett family, sighed as he remembered Ayla, who had once come to him asking to cancel her engagement.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried.
But Ayla had been born without a single trace of Everett blood. Marcus had never been able to care for her. Her blue eyes stood out too much. Unless she had been born to clearly announce to the world that she was not a true daughter of the Everett family, how could she have such eyes?
At the very least, she should have resembled him in some small way. Then maybe, just maybe, he could have cared for her.
“I want to break off the engagement, Father. If you love me, please allow it,” Ayla had pleaded.
Her desperate voice lingered in his mind, leaving an uncomfortable sting.
It was an outrageous request, and to him, it was an arrogant attitude.
His wife, Claudia Everett, had become pregnant right after their marriage and gave birth to their first daughter, Shuelle. Disappointed that the child was not a son, Claudia became pregnant again, but due to depression, she lost the baby. That child had also been a daughter. Claudia’s depression deepened, and one day, she vanished from the mansion with the knight who had served as her guard.
Marcus, born into a noble lineage, could not tolerate such disgrace.
A duchess abandoning her child and her family for the sake of a love affair? It was unthinkable. He had to bring her back and make her sit beside him once again. There could be no stain on the perfect life he had built.
Publicly, Marcus claimed Claudia had gone to her family’s estate for medical rest. Privately, he sent trusted people across the land to find her.
One day, Claudia returned, heavily pregnant.
She came back in rags and insisted the child she carried was his. In some ways, Marcus was thankful. That excuse allowed him to pretend the scandal had never happened.
“You should be grateful I raised you as a noble lady, even when we don’t know who your father is.”
The bitter words slipped from his lips without much thought.
One by one, he recalled all the things he had done for her. He had fed her, clothed her, given her a place to sleep for nineteen years. Though she was born from another man, he had not abandoned her. He raised her as the daughter of House Everett.
He never asked for much in return.
Just one thing. Do not bring shame to the family name.
She was to remain beautiful and dignified, someone others would admire, as befitted her title.
He had provided all the education and support she could possibly need. It wasn’t too much to ask.
Marcus was a man who kept track of every favor.
If he gave something, he expected it to be repaid. That was the foundation of all his decisions and actions.
He raised her as part of the family, so she should be used for the benefit of the family.
But then something unexpected happened.
His younger sister, the Empress, had given Ayla a tiara at the debutante ball.
“Your beauty reminds me of a blue rose,” she had said.
That was when it began. People started calling Ayla “The Empire’s Blue Rose Lady.”
Marcus was far from pleased with this.
It was only natural that he found it irritating when Ayla received more attention than his real daughter, Shuelle.
Worse still, now even arranging Ayla’s marriage had to take public opinion into account.
He turned down several better marriages offers because of it. In the end, he had to settle for one that was barely acceptable. That was the Esteban family’s heir, Lord Rodrigo.
Marcus, as a duke of the Descartes Empire, was well aware of Rodrigo’s reputation for being promiscuous.
But really, what nobleman didn’t enjoy the company of women? Rodrigo was the legitimate heir to a count. Even if he fathered an illegitimate child, he was neither foolish nor weak enough to bring them into the household.
That was good enough.
And yet Ayla dared to speak of happiness. She dared to reject the match he had arranged.
Ungrateful and Insolent.
Marcus felt deeply offended and annoyed.
“It’s already a headache dealing with the First Prince…”
The meeting had dragged on because of him. After all the trouble it took to exile that prince.
“And of all times, he had to push this through while I was away.”
The current nobility was split evenly between two factions: those supporting the Emperor and those loyal to the Empress. Marcus Everett stood at the heart of the Empress’s faction. As her elder brother, he was effectively its leader and the most prominent figure opposing the Emperor.
One day, while Marcus was away, the Emperor seized the opportunity. He proposed a monster subjugation campaign along the southern border and barely secured a majority vote. The seal was stamped before Marcus could intervene.
The Emperor had clearly manipulated the situation, persuading nobles loyal to the Empress who held estates in the south. There was no real reason to oppose the subjugation itself. The problem was that the campaign would be led by the First Prince, who had been sent off to the far northern lands.
Despite this, Marcus had felt confident. The reason was the utterly unrealistic conditions written in the subjugation contract. The Empress’s faction had not sat idly by.
The terms required the subjugation to be completed within two years. It was an impossible demand.
Even the mercenary guild, when consulted, had said it would take five years of employing top-class mercenaries to make it feasible.
And yet, he had succeeded? In just one year and eight months?
They said he swung his sword every night like a man possessed, earning the name “Butcher of the Night.” Had he really gone without sleep just to finish the campaign?
No, that was impossible. No human could go that long without rest.
The sheer absurdity of the situation left Marcus with nothing but heavy sighs.
“Should I have killed him back then…”
Clicking his tongue in frustration, Marcus stepped into the mansion. With the First Prince arriving in the capital in just two days, he had no time to deal with Ayla’s emotional outbursts.
He quickly pushed all thoughts of her aside and headed for his study. He needed to find a way to regain control before the Emperor gained wings through the First Prince.
At that same moment, contrary to the intelligence Marcus had received, the First Prince, Leomond Zigranta, had already entered the capital in secret the day before.
The Moonlight Manor, known as a secret salon where imperial nobles gathered at night behind masks, served as the headquarters of the intelligence guild Leomond operated behind the scenes. Though this was his first personal visit, given the situation, it had become necessary.
Leomond sat quietly at one end of the bar, sipping from a glass and thinking about Ayla, whom he had encountered there the previous night.
“She couldn’t have been his wife… Maybe a fiancée?”
Those blue eyes, wandering like a stray puppy left out in the rain, briefly flickered before his mind’s eye before fading.
She was clearly looking for someone. Unlike the others who came to the secret salon for pleasure or business, her behavior had stood out.
Then he saw her face beneath the mask and recognized her instantly.
“That little girl turned out to be a noble.”
He had been sure she was a commoner.
She looked far too poor to be anything else.
Her small feet had been crammed into worn shoes. Her clothes were tattered. Her skin was rough, and her hair had lost its shine from dirt and dust. Her body had been small and thin, too fragile for someone her age.
“Maybe she was adopted.”
Some nobles did take in orphans as part of charitable acts. It was a reasonable guess. Even with that shabby appearance, she had been rather pretty, which must have drawn someone’s attention.
Either way, it seemed things had turned out well for her.
With that final thought, Leomond shook his head and cleared his mind.
He had no time to dwell on old memories from childhood.
He dismissed the fleeting nostalgia and began focusing on the conversations around him.
He had not come to the capital ahead of schedule without reason.
