80 - Pieces of the Broken Glass Slipper
Shattered Glass Slipper Shards 80
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I bowed my head in thanks and then spoke as if nothing were wrong.
“You don’t seem to attend the Masquerade often. Otherwise, there’s no way I wouldn’t have seen someone as wonderful as you.”
But the man accurately discerned what I was trying to probe and scoffed. Now he was openly using informal language.
“A deer who clearly attended for the first time is saying all sorts of things. That’s why you look foolish.”
“How can you be so sure that it’s my first time?”
“If someone didn’t recognize such a lovely doe, they’d have eyes for decoration.”
“Women can change as they please. So surprisingly that a man’s insensitive nature wouldn’t notice. It’s like magic. So don’t be so sure.”
“I think there’s no one who can surpass me when it comes to keen perception.”
His confidence, bordering on certainty, was amusing, so I provoked him.
“Then you know who I am?”
It was just a bit of playful banter thrown out to hide my trembling body. But the man stroked his chin and pondered seriously, soon giving a deep smile as if he had figured it out.
“The only one who likes to dress like this is Chatoul, that damn bitch. But that bitch is in the hall right now, isn’t she? Besides, there’s a rumor that that woman has a new toy these days…”
I sighed and replied.
“That was too easy a question. I won’t deny it.”
At the same time, I was certain. He wasn’t Theodore Vitraice. The man who dared to call Madame de Châteauroux a ‘bitch’—while acknowledging that I was her toy—and maintained such a nonchalant expression couldn’t be him.
Being indifferent even if I were to tell Madame, that was a luxury only someone who could completely evade her favor and power could possess.
Then who the hell was he to spew such irreverent language?
In that moment, a voice flashed through my mind like the wind.
[Drag her out.]
[Is that my fiancée’s sister? How unsightly and wretched.]
[That’s not a woman. She’s a viper full of venom. If you don’t cut off her head, she’ll raise it at any moment and try to bite your ankle. But my lovely Roena is pleading so earnestly, so I can’t help but spare her.]
Ah, how could I forget? When Sissae of the past was dragged by the hair and thrown into the center of the hall, when I raised my face, filled with spite and hatred, to look at the center, the terrifying man who was smiling at me.
Roena’s man, the absolute power who had lifted her from the gutter, this man.
I unknowingly took a step back. My mind was shouting that it couldn’t be, but my body, having recognized him, was very honestly expressing fear.
“Hoo?”
He drew out the end of his words, sounding puzzled, then nodded as if he understood. He was smiling happily, as if he found it very admirable that I had recognized his identity.
“You’re sharp in strange ways, after all.”
It was the moment my suspicion solidified into certainty.
The people of the Empire referred to the Emperor as the sun. Everything was done through the Emperor, and they thought that this warm, absolute being always emitted a gentle energy and embraced all things.
But the sun in my world was Lustewin Halberd. Compared to the Emperor, whom everyone looked up to, or the Knight of Clear Hearing, he was insignificant.
Was that why? Before I returned, my world was narrow and small. The land of my heart was barren and rough, even arid.
The inside, where the sun called Lustewin did not rise, could only be a cold winter. My heart, where not even a weed could take root, was no different from a skeleton, with a gaunt appearance.
Unable to accept food, my skin became rough, and my bones weakened. A heart that had not received love could not produce warm blood.
A chest that could not beat always harbored coldness, and my disposition became as cold as ice. Only nervous shouts and curses were the only means by which I could feel that I was still alive.
In fact, although I was the eldest daughter embraced by the Bishvarts Family, my debut was not very successful. No, it was so miserable that I didn’t want to recall it.
What good memories could I possibly have, but there was no experience that had so miserably ruined my narrow world like that.
But now, there is a need to delve a little deeper into this painful memory and think about it again. Because it was a time when I could still harbor the seed of innocence in my life.
Sadly, I, Cis de Bishbalz of the past, thought that the contempt for me existed only within the Bishvarts Family.
I comforted myself that it couldn’t be helped because everyone was being deceived by that audacious girl.
That’s why I thought I could start anew here, where Roena hadn’t debuted. It was an expectation I could have because I didn’t know that the place I was about to step into was a jungle teeming with fierce beasts.
So when the door to society opened and my name was called, I smiled brightly with a flushed face. I bravely took a step forward, expecting such a fantastic thing as beautiful people smiling kindly at me and offering me a glass.
But people seemed speechless at my more disappointing appearance than expected. A quiet horror was covering the entire hall.
That was only for a moment, and someone pointed at me and shouted that I was more shabby than a crow covered in dust. They mocked that if it weren’t for the dress covered in jewels, they would have thought a begging beggar had been washed clean and sent out into society.
Most of the reactions were that it was hard to believe that I was the biological daughter of a femme fatale known to have seduced her stepfather with her beauty.
Was that why? No one spoke to me. Even though I knew that it was one of the virtues of a gentleman to ritually ask a girl debuting in society to dance, they cruelly ignored me.
Sir Halberd, who had come along out of my stepfather’s mercy, also did not reach out to me. He just treated me like I wasn’t there, pushing me into the corner of a pillar.
After that, the Crown Prince appeared and offered congratulatory greetings to the women debuting in society, but I couldn’t dare to approach his precious person.
I didn’t even dare to look at his face. To people, I was already no different from a shadow stretching long at the end of a pillar.
Around this time, prominent women were trying to become someone who could attract the Crown Prince’s attention. There were many who said they would rather break their ribs from tightening their waists if they could only attract his attention.
The trends in society were being dictated by Madame de Châteauroux and the Crown Prince’s tastes. Even Roena wore clothes that the Crown Prince liked.
It was also because Chatoul’s clothing tastes were extremely lewd, but no one was brave enough to criticize the eyes of the one who would become the future sun as being old-fashioned.
Rumor had it that the Crown Prince was a very beautiful person. Not just to the extent that he could be dismissed with the single word ‘beauty,’ but a bewitching man with a lewd energy that would stir up lust.
Because he was born a martial artist, his entire face was full of fierce energy, but the natural sensuality transformed even that into a wild charm.
Sensuality in a man was something to scoff at, but in reality, there were more than a few people who squirmed, overwhelmed by the alluring beauty that would make their lower bodies wet on their own if they stood before him.
Whether the rumor was true or they were coveting his position, the Crown Prince was surrounded by beautiful women.
Even old foxes who had tasted men to their fill couldn’t hide their flushed cheeks and endlessly gazed in his direction.
Even a man like Lustewin Halberd was pushed to the back like an insignificant knight when the Crown Prince appeared. It was only natural for the unchosen men to frown and puff on their cigarettes.
I didn’t miss this opportunity. I cleverly flashed my eyes and wandered around the beautiful knight. I wanted to catch his eye, even if it was just a fleeting glance.
Since my sun was not the Crown Prince, the fantastic appearance and status that all women desired were of no use to me.
Rather, I hoped that the Crown Prince would appear often and attract the attention of the women. I wanted Lustewin to be free from other beautiful women because of that.
I knew that Sir Halberd despised me, but I felt that it would be more than enough if he stood by my side like this.
Above all, although I was the eldest daughter of the Bishvarts Family, my position in society was worse than that of a rural baronet’s daughter, so I couldn’t loiter around the Crown Prince, who was the center of power.
It was like picking stars in the sky to be able to see his face in the forest of women with deer-like long limbs.
Of course, I later had the opportunity to admire his beauty from afar, but because I was already blinded by the man called Lustewin Halberd, I didn’t even receive any particular impression.
I just had the trivial thought that a man could have a more lewd face than a prostitute.
The reason I was able to see the Crown Prince up close was when my sin of oppressing Roena was revealed.
His knights dragged me like a dog, and the Crown Prince was smiling, but his eyes were looking at all of this as if he were bored.
Although he was neatly dressed in his uniform, he exuded a languid energy as if he had just come out of the bedroom.
But the reason I couldn’t look at him in a daze was because one instinct within my body was raging madly and warning me.
After rolling around in the jungle called society for several years, you gain the ability to find someone stronger than yourself. You learn the humility to bow your head when you sense a dangerous situation.
Especially if you are forced to endure in a place where everyone doesn’t welcome you like me, the above abilities become twice as specialized as others.
It was truly a strange thing. How could that fierce face look so sensual, and how could the dark energy that surged so wildly that I couldn’t breathe be neutralized by the brilliant beauty it possessed, bewitching people? And thus, making them have a heart of reverence?
Clearly, the Crown Prince was a burly man. He had a solid physique no less than the knights who guarded him.
Above all, he was born with martial bones and was said to have one of the best swordsmanships in the Empire. His lecherous nature also resembled the Emperor, and he had no equal when it came to carnal matters, so he had quite a few scandals.
The consensus in society was that there was no man like him in the Empire. But strangely, he was more beautiful than anyone else here.
Was that why? I thought for the first time that the Crown Prince was dazzling. I felt like I could understand the women who were suffering from lovesickness for him.
But that was only for a moment, and when I met his gaze looking at me, I had to grab my head as if it would become empty and tremble.
Fearfully, the Crown Prince was not seeing me as a person. It was inorganic, as if he were looking at a stone kicked on the street, as if he were appraising the furniture scattered around.
Therefore, beheading me would be as meaningless as breaking a branch for fun.
People in society often ignored me, treating me as if I didn’t exist. But it was nothing compared to the gaze the Crown Prince was sending. No, it would have been better if they had threatened to behead me with a look of hatred.
I would have been relieved if they had tortured me and made me confess my sins. Rather than having my very existence denied like this.
