Chapter 1
One Day My Sister Died
Yuan Pellieresse scratched at a hangnail, her gaze fixed on the tightly shut door of the adjacent room.
With each sound that leaked from within, her face grew paler.
She wrung her trembling hands together, biting her lip until she tasted blood, oblivious until Count Pellieresse opened the study door and entered.
Only when the Count locked the study door with a click and waddled over, casting a shadow at her feet, did she snap her head up and look at her uncle.
"Isn't it time you greeted guests on your own? Is it so hard to go in ahead of time and offer them a cup of tea with that pretty face of yours!"
"There are too many people today..."
"How many times do I have to tell you to understand that Pellieresse thrives because of these people?"
At the unwavering tone, Yuan bit down on her bloodied lip.
Seeing her hesitant expression, her uncle began to coax and soothe her, as if annoyed.
"Are you the only one who's struggling and hurting? I'm hurting too. But what can we do? This is the fate of Pellieresse. Do you think I want to do this? Nobles don't work, but Pellieresse does. Why? Because the only reason we've survived in this competitive noble society is our power. And you, who were born with it, should naturally share your abilities with people and work for the family!"
The same words she'd heard for ten years.
She knew it, but it didn't stop the pain.
Yuan headed towards the adjacent room, where her uncle was opening the door.
Her steps were slow and heavy, anticipating the pain to come.
A dark room.
Through the thick cigar smoke, high-ranking nobles in flamboyant attire were playing cards.
A woman with a cigar in her mouth, shuffling cards, expressed her annoyance at their appearance.
"What took you so long?"
"Haha, my assistant isn't in good shape today-"
"Stop the excuses and just treat me. Where has the Pellieresse reputation gone, making me come here in person?"
The noblewoman urged Count Pellieresse without even smoothing out her deeply furrowed brow.
The Count hurriedly took a stethoscope from his pocket and probed her neck.
Then, he gave Yuan a sharp look.
Her slender hand grasped the noblewoman's wrist, taking her pulse and absorbing the pain.
"Ugh-"
A sharp pain spread through Yuan's head.
At the same time, the noblewoman's sensitively furrowed brow smoothed out as if ironed.
"What, I feel a bit clearer-headed for a moment. Is it just my imagination?"
"Meeting a good doctor can drastically reduce stress just by getting a checkup. Hehehe! Assistant?"
Yuan handed over a prescription with a trembling hand.
Her uncle grinned from ear to ear, taking out a few medicine bottles from his pocket. Then, using a dropper, he dropped a few drops of medicine into the noblewoman's teacup.
He didn't forget to glance at the symptoms written on the prescription.
"Does your head feel like it's being pricked with needles? Like your eyeballs are about to fall out? Especially the left one."
"...Pellieresse is different, indeed."
Yuan watched the noblewoman happily accept the tea and pretended to adjust the shawl she was wearing.
Through the slight touch on her shoulder, the noblewoman's headache was completely transferred to Yuan.
As if not just the pain but even the expression had been transferred, Yuan's white, smooth forehead crumpled.
"Goodness. Pellieresse's medicine is worth the price!"
To have my head cleared and my headache disappear as if washed away. It's truly amazing!
With the noblewoman's exclamation, a commotion erupted here and there.
Those lying on makeshift beds in the corner brightened their eyes and made a fuss.
"Me too!"
"Treat me first! I'm more urgent!"
"Now, now. You all must keep your order. And you must remember. You are all very special people, so you are receiving treatment at this mansion. So, you must never tell anyone about this. It will put me in a very difficult position. I should only be treating precious people with precious medicines, but if this special treatment becomes known, it will be difficult for me to see you all! Do you understand?"
A man whose leg was almost crushed in a carriage accident. An old woman on the verge of death from a long-term illness. A man whose shoulder was almost severed by a magic beast hunting arrow.
Those who were horribly injured and sick grinned in the darkness.
Yuan's spine went cold with the approaching terror.
"Yuan."
"..."
"Think of this as practice for your sister."
Her uncle whispered to Yuan, who was staring into the darkness with a pale face.
"Now, let's go. We must fulfill our duty."
The reason her uncle didn't abandon Yuan, who was left alone after her parents passed away and her sister left the mansion, was very simple.
Yuan was the only one in this mansion with the power of Pellieresse.
It was her cousin Frederick who suddenly picked up Yuan, who was lying on the floor of the study's adjacent room like a dead person.
Frederick's sister, Regina's, shrill voice immediately pierced Yuan's ears.
"She acts like she's the only one doing research. Does she think she's the only one who can do research? She's enjoying the privilege of freely entering Father's study, so she shouldn't be so weak. Why is she making such a fuss?"
"Don't block the way, Regina."
Regina immediately stepped aside and walked closely beside her brother.
"I mean, seriously. Our uncle passed away, and we've taken over the Pellieresse mansion, so why are we still taking care of this crow? At twenty, other people already have fiancés. Just marry her off somewhere. Is the family business so difficult that we need to borrow this crow's hand? Are the academy students just decorations? Are you and I just decorations? It's annoying. They don't tell me anything."
"I don't know what it is, but looking at this, isn't it better if we don't do it?"
Regina, who had been complaining with half-closed eyes, giggled at her brother's words.
Yuan, who was only breathing heavily and burying her face in Frederick's chest, was suddenly thrown into a room.
Not onto the bed.
Yuan, who had been thrown like a piece of luggage onto the bare wooden floor without even a carpet, tried to get up, but Frederick ostentatiously dusted off his hands.
His contemptuous eyes swept over the shabby room.
Dirty, smelly, and cold. A room that even a maid wouldn't use. A room befitting Pellieresse's crow.
"Brother. Let's go quickly. You promised to look at my debutante dress design with me."
Regina's laughter-filled voice and Frederick's disgruntled footsteps faded away beyond the slammed wooden door.
Only then did Yuan release the pain she had been holding inside.
The pain she had absorbed and suppressed all day burst out as her tension eased.
Yuan's limbs began to tremble violently as her body stiffened as if she had been struck hard in the solar plexus.
Regina covered her ears at the pain-filled screams that leaked into the hallway.
"That crazy bitch. She's starting again."
"Unlucky crow."
"They're taking in a girl who should be thrown into Saint Yolona in this beautiful mansion and even making her work. Father and Mother are too soft."
In the silent third floor where everyone had disappeared.
Only Yuan's desperate screams echoed like a reverberation.
One year ago.
Yuan's sister, Louise Pellieresse, suddenly packed her bags and said goodbye.
"Can't you not go? Where are you going? What did Uncle make you do again?"
"Just wait one year. I'll call you somehow within a year. I'll come to pick you up."
"Now? Can't we go together now? Don't leave me here alone..."
"Yuan."
Louise put down the two suitcases she was holding and carefully cupped Yuan's face.
Her slender fingertips moved as if stroking every corner of her downy hair.
Louise's dark eyes welled up with tears.
"This is the best way."
Louise's voice was firm.
Instead of tears, only a firm determination was etched on her delicate chin.
Yuan could only open her mouth at the strange firmness, unable to say anything.
"I'll be back soon. Maybe we'll spend next winter in a warm place."
Her sister left like that.
In a small hired carriage.
Without any of the family seeing her off.
Without any explanation.
With a mustached man wearing a tall hat that she had never seen before.
That was already a year ago.
Louise got married.
No one told Yuan who her sister married or where the wedding was held.
From the winter Louise left until now, after another four seasons, it was winter again.
Yuan could only infer from the maids' gossip and the news she found among the old newspapers in the mansion's backyard incinerator.
[Deposed Emperor Claude Euphris's Terrible Womanizing]
It wasn't even a proper wedding announcement.
The names of the many women who had passed through Deposed Emperor Claude Euphris.
She only guessed from a single line in the article at the very end, 'Pellieresse Count's daughter, recently known to have married'.
Claude Euphris.
Even Yuan, who had never seen the social world, knew that man's name clearly.
A monster with a hideously twisted face.
A lecher who changed wives several times because of his lust for women.
If you look at his eyes straight on for too long, you'll be cursed, your body will rot, and your limbs will become stiff... Yuan traced the news of the Deposed Emperor and her sister, which didn't even have a portrait in the newspaper, with trembling hands.
Deposed Emperor.
Even if she was ignorant of outside news, she knew what that title meant.
Louise was the bride of this monstrous Deposed Emperor.
In other words, she had become the Deposed Empress.
The sound of horses' hooves clattering outside the large window echoed several times.
It was the sound of many people moving.
The Pellieresse mansion was located on the outskirts of the capital, Cielo, in a very remote area, so visitors were rare unless they were secret patients.
The unusual commotion made Yuan, who had been enduring the pain all night while replaying the day she parted with Louise, lift her eyes with difficulty.
"Louise?"
Her heart grew impatient.
It was like that day.
The snowy morning when Louise left.
The busy sound of horses' hooves and the chaotic atmosphere.
"Louise. It's definitely Louise."
Yuan barely managed to crawl to the door.
It took her a long time just to grab the doorknob and open the door, but she had a strange conviction.
It's Louise.
Louise always keeps her promises. The promised year hasn't passed yet.
Yuan gritted her teeth and got up, groping her way down to the first floor, leaning on the wall.
Her whole body ached as if it would break, but she didn't fall.
As if in response to her expectations, all the family members except her uncle were gathered on the first floor.
Frederick, who was the first to spot her, widened his eyes in surprise.
"How did you? You're not supposed to be..."
"Get that filthy thing out of here!"
Her aunt's fussiness brushed past Yuan like a sharp arrow.
Yuan, her eyes wide with encroaching anxiety, unknowingly pushed away her aunt's arm as she approached.
Her aunt's eyes widened.
In the mansion's first floor.
On the faded but clean marble floor.
There was a dark wooden coffin.
Inside the open coffin.
"Louise?"
Her sister.
Louise Pellieresse was there.
Still so beautiful that it tore Yuan's heart into ten thousand pieces.
Her sister, who had said she would come to pick her up if she just waited a year, had returned.
"Lou...ise."
The strength in her legs, which she had been forcibly holding on to, gave way at that moment, and she collapsed.
It was Louise who had walked firmly on her own two feet even when she was in pain.
Yuan's gaze turned to the man who had taken her sister away for the first time, past her aunt, who was gnawing on her fingernails, afraid that Yuan's shabby appearance would bring shame to the guests.
A neatly parted mustache on both sides.
A tall and skinny man who was dressed to the nines.
She had seen him from afar through the window a year ago, but she remembered him clearly.
Even the smooth texture of the tall hat he was wearing.
As soon as the man's eyes met Yuan's, his glistening eyes curved.
"The real one is here."
Leaving the frightened aunt behind, the man stood in front of Yuan, who had collapsed in front of the coffin.
The man's long shadow completely covered her body.
"I present my greetings to the next Deposed Empress."
Her sister had kept her promise.
The promise to come and pick up Yuan herself.
In such a miserable way.
In such a disgusting way.
