Chapter 4
“Aaahhhhhhh!”
The cry of a newborn filled the mansion, and in an instant, the Grand Duke’s estate was overcome with festivity.
Everyone sang praises of the newly born child and offered words of gratitude to the Grand Duke’s lover, who had suddenly appeared and taken her place.
Not a single person questioned the fact that the child was illegitimate.
On the contrary, as if Sasha had long been an acquaintance, the ladies fussed over her, calling her “young lady, young lady,” and tending to her with affection.
Regardless of her own wishes, the newborn child was registered as the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess’s son, the heir of the Grand Duchy.
Thus, Sasha came to reside in the estate.
She claimed the room adjoining the master bedroom shared by the Grand Duke and his wife, and the Grand Duchess was cast aside, discarded like a threadbare garment.
She sat listlessly, curled up on her bed, staring out the window.
The Grand Duke now treated her with nothing but frigid indifference.
The warmth she had once thought genuine, the servants she believed had opened their hearts to her, all of it changed in an instant. The same people now wore stiff, emotionless faces as though it had never been otherwise.
It felt as though she alone existed in a strange, alien world.
Seeing the mansion after Sasha’s arrival made it painfully clear. Manufactured kindness. Manufactured affection. Manufactured warmth. Everything she had felt had been meticulously planned, all of it a piece of the Grand Duke’s elaborate scheme.
Her chest felt as though it were being crushed, and her breathing came ragged.
At first, she could not believe it.
— …Sasha, why did you tell her.
Even after hearing what amounted to a tacit confession from his own mouth, she could not believe it. No, she didn’t want to.
— Asila, are you alright?
— If there’s anything I can do for you, tell me. We’re husband and wife.
Those tender words, which had once been her salvation, every single one of them was a lie.
Every last one was born of his hatred for the imperial family, a piece of his carefully constructed revenge.
The calloused hand that had stroked her cheek, the lips that had pressed kisses to her forehead and brushed lightly across her skin, all of it, lies.
Her hands trembled violently.
A tear fell, then another.
The sheets beneath her slowly grew damp.
It was said that the previous Grand Duke and Duchess had been murdered by the Emperor, disguised as an accident.
Yes, of course he would have hated the Emperor for it.
But why, why must that hatred be taken out on her? Simply for being the Emperor’s daughter? For the crime of being a remnant of the imperial bloodline fallen into his grasp?
As a child, she had borne her mother’s sin.
The reckless woman who had drugged the Emperor and stolen a night with him. And the child born from that act.
Though she was acknowledged as a princess, she was simultaneously branded the daughter of a criminal. Confined in the palace from birth, she had been discarded. She grew up in the scorn of others.
And now, was she to bear the Emperor’s crime as well?
She had not asked to be born. She had not chosen those two as her parents. Not a single thing in her life had been of her own choosing.
Not even receiving love. Nor growing up happily between them.
A father who discarded her without hesitation, and a mother who vented her fury upon her day after day, until at last she took her own life before her daughter’s very eyes.
And now, why was all their sin being laid at her feet?
What wrong had she ever committed?
She thought she had survived her mother’s crime. Believed she had resigned herself to it. Accepted it as something unchangeable.
But this… to realize that the first person she had ever loved, the warmth and solace he had offered her, had all been fabricated lies… to learn that the very hand she believed had saved her was in fact dragging her deeper into hell…
She felt as though she might go mad.
Two months, three months passed. And with time, it became achingly clear, there was no longer a place for her in the Grand Duke’s estate.
She lived as nothing more than a machine to perform the duties of a mistress, handling documents, then wandering out into the gardens to sit amid the grass until dusk.
The lovely woman with curling pink hair and fresh green eyes, Sasha von Barte, the cherished daughter of a powerful northern count. The Grand Duke’s openly acknowledged lover.
The Grand Duke no longer forbade her from going out. No, he paid her no mind at all, regardless of what she did.
And though as a noblewoman she could not fully sever ties with society, she was still occasionally taken to official northern banquets.
Of course, with Sasha in attendance as well.
Officially, the partner at his side was still the Grand Duchess. But in truth, she was left alone at the far end of the ballroom.
The one who danced with him, who accompanied him wherever he went, it was always Sasha.
Though she was his concubine in title, her status as the cherished daughter of a powerful northern family meant no one dared speak against her. If anyone was scorned, it was the Grand Duchess.
“I thought the young lady would be the Grand Duchess…”
“Who would have guessed some obscure princess would suddenly appear?”
“Hush, but it was an imperial decree. Poor Lady Barte…”
“Can you really blame His Grace? The Emperor did that to the previous Grand Duke and Duchess…”
The freedom she had once so longed for now left her choking.
The more she wandered the world outside, the more she came to understand, with brutal clarity, why he had once kept her confined within the estate.
In the north, imperial influence was weaker than in other regions.
The people of the north trusted their Grand Duke above even the Emperor. And it was common knowledge, impossible not to know, the enmity between the imperial family and the Grand Duke’s house.
So it meant that everyone who came and went from the mansion, every servant within it, had known all along. That there was no way the Grand Duke could truly love her.
There wasn’t a single person unaware that Sasha was the Grand Duke’s lover. People even whispered, wondering why Lady Barte hadn’t already dealt with the Grand Duchess.
The fact that the mistress hadn’t laid a hand on the wife somehow became a sign of mercy, painting Sasha as a generous, kind-hearted woman.
It was shameless, brazen absurdity.
Some even dared to say that the position of Grand Duchess had originally belonged to Sasha.
The endless humiliations she suffered, solely because she was powerless, because she could do nothing on her own, filled her with unbearable shame.
The world she once believed was peaceful and safe was, in truth, a more wretched swamp of hell.
The weight she’d gradually regained over the past three years melted away once again. The voices of those who tormented her lingered endlessly in her head, leaving her unable to sleep for even a few hours a night.
She had once thought the Grand Duke’s estate was no different from the hell of the imperial palace.
But she would correct herself now.
There was a difference between quietly enduring the violence of her mother alone, confined within the palace walls, and standing exposed, forced to endure the malice of countless people face to face.
This place was an even deeper mire.
She kept hearing phantom whispers behind her back, snatches of gossip that may or may not have been real, and nausea would rise in her throat.
She no longer wanted to do anything.
She wanted to sit in her bedchamber and abandon it all.
But she couldn’t.
Even in that state, the image of Sasha fluttering around with a demure smile, basking in the Grand Duke’s warm affections, kept flashing through her mind.
Whether or not he sought revenge against the imperial family, the Grand Duke had succeeded, completely, thoroughly breaking her as a person.
It was wretched, realizing that there was a bottom even lower than what she’d known within the imperial palace.
Watching the man she loved, regardless of his intentions, the one who had dragged her into these feelings, holding another woman in his arms, murmuring tender words… It felt as though her heart was being ripped to shreds, hour after hour, day after day.
After finishing her duties for the day, she aimlessly wandered until she found herself seated on a bench in the garden.
When she looked toward the mansion, she saw Sasha through the window, her hand looped around the Grand Duke’s arm, laughing brightly.
The Grand Duke’s blue eyes crinkled warmly as he gazed down at Sasha.
She wanted to look away, but her eyes refused to leave them.
Even though that smile wasn’t meant for her.
Even though, of all people, she should hate him the most.
Her traitorous heart kept pounding in her chest.
It made her feel even more pitiful, realizing that if he were to tell her, even now, that it had all been some cruel joke, she might still be able to forgive him.
The feeling she’d come to know as love for the first time wasn’t something she could easily sever.
Even if the entire world scorned her, as long as he alone showed her affection, she thought she might be able to endure it.
Even after everything, she felt she could forgive it all with a single word of “I love you.” That if he told her it had all been a lie, this affair with Sasha no more than a pretense, she would close her eyes and let it all pass.
She wanted to resent him, but she couldn’t.
She wanted to leave, but she couldn’t.
She wanted to give up, but it was impossible.
She missed the Grand Duke’s tenderness. Even knowing it had all been fabricated, she longed for it.
— I… I love him! I love him…!
Then why? Why won’t he look at me?!! It’s all your fault!!! If only you’d never been born!!
Suddenly, she recalled her mother’s voice from long ago, screaming at her, declaring her love for the Emperor.
Back then, she’d thought love was a foolish thing.
Her mother’s and the Emperor’s relationship had been doomed from the start. A meeting of two people who never should have crossed paths.
And her mother, driven mad by her desperate cries for love, had died without once earning so much as a glance from the Emperor.
But now… she felt she could understand her mother, even just a little.
Though the paths they took were different, the agony of one-sided, hopeless love was the same.
And truly, she felt that if she let her mind slip even a little, she might go insane.
She sat there vacantly, watching the gentle breeze stir the flowers.
Her heart felt like it was tearing apart, and in that moment, the annoyingly warm sunlight, too bright and peaceful, stoked a fresh wave of irritation.
[No, over there, over there!]
[I can sense it, I swear!]
[Ugh, why are you so slow? Hurry up!]
A sound, like the chattering of children, rang in her ears.
At the same time, something tickled the tip of her nose, and when she looked up in surprise, she froze.
A tiny, translucent, greenish girl no bigger than a fingertip clung to the tip of her nose.
[It feels so nice here!]
[Guys, you have to come! It’s so comfy!]
[I’ve never met a human like this before!]
In an instant, two, three more identical girls appeared, encircling her face.
Even as they brushed their cheeks against hers and flitted about noisily, she felt inexplicably refreshed. She simply sat there, letting the little fairies do as they pleased.
Was it some kind of magic? How strange. She’d never once seen a mage at the Grand Duke’s estate.
“…………Could you, um, give me a little space?”
Not knowing exactly what they were, but growing frustrated as her vision was blocked, she whispered softly, and the fairies shrieked in surprise and scattered away.
[Oh my gosh!]
[She can see us!]
[And hear us too!]
[She’s not an ordinary human, I knew it!]
[Redin, get over here right now!]
As she silently watched the fairies chatter and buzz about, a sensation prickled at the back of her neck, the distinct feeling that someone was watching her. She turned her head.
A man stood there. She blinked in shock.
“…You can see them?”
After a long, wordless moment of staring, the man, astonishingly beautiful, finally spoke.
