Chapter 2
2
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“Cough, cough!”
A weak cough echoed from not far away.
I blinked, but the surroundings were dark.
‘Ugh, I must have just died.’
To hear coughing even after death.
Did I come to the afterlife with Emperor Habib?
How awful…
—Swish.
The sound of curtains being drawn.
In the revealed window, the palace is faintly visible in the dim dawn.
‘Hmm? It looks a bit like Ruelle Palace?’
Is there a Ruelle Palace in the afterlife too?
I tilted my head, and the coughing grew closer.
“Cough, cough! Your Highness, are you awake?”
Reflexively, I turned toward the sound, and a scream burst from my lips.
“U, uwaaa…!”
I was even more surprised by the absurdly babyish voice, and I quickly covered my mouth.
“Oh dear, Your Highness…”
The coughing woman approached in a fluster and quickly picked me up into her arms.
Then, she patted my back gently.
“Did you have a bad dream? You mustn’t shout like that… It’s a big problem, Your Highness…”
I lifted my head from her embrace and rolled my eyes around in bewilderment.
It was definitely a familiar face… a face I had missed so much.
‘Gabi.’
My childhood nanny, who was our only companion in our secret, aside from my mother and the guard.
“Gabi…?”
As I cautiously spoke, Gabi chuckled.
“Are you feeling a little better now? It’s time to return to the Main Palace. We must hurry before the sun rises. Heave-ho!”
Of course, Gabi had died a long time ago.
But the problem was that this situation was too familiar to say that I had met her in the afterlife.
The young princess waking up in the detached palace before sunrise and returning to the Main Palace.
‘It might sound crazy to others, but it was our daily life.’
Gabi skillfully held me close and wrapped a large cloth around her body.
Then, she wrapped it around again with another cloth.
Which meant…
‘My body has shrunk.’
Small enough that I would be hidden from view when Gabi held me in her arms and covered me with a robe.
“Cough! Just bear with it for a moment. Okay? Our kind Your Highness, just endure a little longer since we’re going to see your mother.”
I bit my lip as I went through a series of actions that I could imitate even in my sleep.
‘Damn it!’
I begged so much!
Even as I was being framed and dying because of my wicked twin sister, the only wish I made instead of cursing her!
It seemed that God hadn’t even listened to me.
So, I… must have become a royal twin again.
‘Damn it!’
The Holy Kingdom of Ruelle.
This country is a sacred nation that has been ruled by passing down Divinity from the first king, who received the power of God, to his daughter, to his daughter's daughter, and to that daughter's daughter, generation after generation.
Over the generations, the king's power was sometimes strong and sometimes not, but there was never a time when they did not possess Divinity.
‘Divinity is, in a way, a symbol of the monarchy in this country.’
In Ruelle, a long time ago, twin princesses were born.
The princesses were born with different Divinities, and their powers were equal.
Two who should have been one king were born.
They were too busy competing rather than cooperating, and in the end, they waged war among themselves and nearly ruined the country.
‘There’s even a terrifying legend that the First Princess, who was born with the magic of water, submerged the capital in the sea, creating Ikan Island.’
Since then, the Ruelle royal family has hated twins.
Not just hated, but abandoned the weaker one as soon as they were born.
Then peace returned, and as always, a single daughter with strong Divinity could inherit the throne.
‘That was the case for hundreds of years, until we were born.’
My mother, King Oblin, was a magnanimous king who would be recorded in history, and she hid and raised us, the forbidden twins, for a full 15 years.
No one knew that the princess was a twin, except for her guard and the midwife.
‘Even my father didn’t know. For 15 years.’
When I was young, I couldn’t understand my mother’s audacity, but the truth was revealed when we turned fifteen.
My mother said that before giving birth, she received a secret oracle to be sure to save and raise the twins.
Thus, Gabi, who was a midwife, stayed in the detached palace and raised us, taking turns with my mother every other day.
‘One day as the midwife’s daughter, one day as the king’s daughter… the twin princesses of Ruelle.’
Let me be clear, it is never a life I want to experience twice.
“We’re here, Your Highness.”
Gabi whispered.
As soon as she put me down on the bed, she suddenly picked up the other baby on the bed.
‘Rosa, it’s Rosa…?’
It felt like just yesterday that I was looking for my sister alone in the cold prison, but Rosa was a baby toddling around, fast asleep.
‘To think I’d meet that wretched thing again.’
As I watched in shock, Gabi wrapped Rosa in the cloth that had covered me and disappeared in an instant.
I closed my eyes and struggled to accept this unbelievable reality.
‘I’ve become a baby again…’
The early hardships of the twin princesses were vivid in my mind.
‘Do I have to do that again…?’
I was starting to calculate whether it would be easier to just die again.
That’s when I heard someone whispering nearby.
“Your Highness, are you still asleep?”
Beatrice…!
Beatrice was a maid who loved me so much when I was young, but she was kicked out of the palace overnight because of my small mistake.
I opened my eyes wide and stretched out my arms toward Beatrice.
“Tritz…!”
I was so happy to see her after so long that I choked up and called out, and Beatrice smiled softly.
“Our Your Highness is holding me from the morning, what a happy day, isn’t it?”
Tritz, I’m happy to see you again too, but…
I shed tears in Beatrice’s arms, feeling so touched.
“Sigh…”
After being seated in front of the vanity mirror, I sighed in disbelief.
The me in the mirror was a complete toddler.
Just like Rosa from earlier.
‘…How am I supposed to live this long and arduous life again?’
I had a mountain of worries left, but Beatrice just laughed as if she found it amusing.
“Oh my, did our baby princess just sigh? Where did you learn such a thing…?”
“Eeeugh…”
Even when I repeated the sigh, Beatrice just chuckled and continued to brush my hair.
I came to my senses around the time Beatrice started braiding my hair strand by strand.
Then, I quickly shook my head and brought both fists to either side of my head.
“I want bun hairstyle. Like this.”
Beatrice’s eyes widened.
“Bun hairstyle? But you used to hate that hairstyle.”
I nodded and said again.
“Still bun hairstyle…”
The corners of Beatrice’s lips turned up.
“I don’t know what wind has blown, but His Majesty will be happy, won’t he?”
That’s right.
The so-called ‘bun hairstyle,’ with the hair rolled up in a circle on both sides, was my mother’s favorite.
‘When I was young, I didn’t like that hairstyle because I hated my mother pulling my hair…’
But when I think about it, the lifeline of my life has always been just one thing.
‘My mother, the King, Oblin Theresia La Farca.’
Because of the secret oracle, my mother went through all sorts of hardships to hide and raise us on her own.
But even in that difficult life where she had to deceive even her husband, she loved us and loved us again.
‘Despite the huge difference in abilities between Rosa and me, she never discriminated against us for a moment.’
It’s something to be tearfully grateful for, but in a second life, that alone is not enough.
In order not to repeat the misfortunes of the past, my mother must be on my side.
‘I can’t let her just think of me as a deficient finger.’
I don’t know what to do right now…
‘First, let’s start with the bun hairstyle.’
Soon, Beatrice brought a wet towel and wiped my face and hands.
She brought a fancy dress that would be unimaginable for a future defeat and dressed me in it, and then arranged the hair ornaments evenly.
“This one.”
This time, I chose the antique gray ribbon ornament that my mother liked the most.
“My goodness, you’re not choosing the sparkling fluorescent one today? Her Highness will be so moved that she’ll collapse.”
I looked in the mirror with the ribbons hanging down to my shoulders on both sides of my head and suddenly became curious.
“Tritz, how old am I?”
Of course, I’m asking because I don’t know.
It’s not like I can know my age by looking in the mirror, and Gabi’s coughing from earlier is still bothering me.
‘I hope I’m not five years old.’
Beatrice burst into laughter once again and counted four fingers.
“You are four years old. In just four months, you will be five years old. How wonderful will the five-year-old Princess be!”
Oh, that’s a relief.
I smiled in satisfaction.
“Yeah, I’ll be totally awesome. Tritz will be so surprised.”
I lied without even wetting my lips, but Beatrice giggled.
I let my lips droop as Beatrice went to get the cloak.
‘No, if I’m going to live again anyway…’
From now on, there should never be anything that surprises Beatrice.
I remembered a crucial thing I had to do in order to do that.
‘I have to save Gabi.’
If I stay five years old like this, Gabi will die of consumption, and our lives will begin to go downhill in earnest.
‘No, no.’
How much the doctor who treated Gabi at the time regretted the late treatment.
He said that if it had been a little earlier, he could have saved her, he said that so many times.
‘I’m still four years old.’
So, first of all, I’ll save Gabi.
Spitting on Rosa, who was sleeping peacefully, and kicking her out the window can be done as a hobby.
“Don’t even think about it!”
Beatrice’s steps faltered as she was heading to the audience chamber.
From early in the morning, my mother’s voice echoed loudly to the hallway outside the audience chamber.
Of course, my mother, King Oblin, is a really good person.
Only to me… to us.
‘But if my mother was really just a kind and good person, could she have kept a secret for 15 years and deceived everyone? Including her own husband?’
Bang!
The sound of a table being struck, and someone began to beg urgently.
“I, I will correct it. Your Highness… Immediately, correct it…”
“Until you bring a proper report, the royal guards on the Troin border will be withdrawn.”
“Your Highness, please, just not that…!”
That tactless Count Troin…
What kind of wealth and glory is he trying to enjoy by having an audience with my mother this early in the morning?
My mother is especially not in a good mood in the morning.
‘She hasn’t seen me yet.’
With a benevolent heart, I tapped Beatrice’s frozen shoulder.
Beatrice pretended to be weak and made a crying face, then gestured to the guards as if she couldn’t help it.
The guards quickly shouted.
“Your Highness, the Princess has come to pay her respects.”
“Oh, is that so?”
My mother’s face lit up, and she chased away Count Troin in a small voice.
“Get out of here.”
“But Your Highness, the guards…”
I got out of Beatrice’s arms and toddled to my mother.
“Mommy!”
My mother waved her hand at Count Troin as if he were annoying.
“I know, I said I know. Hurry up and get out of here, right now…”
Then, she turned to me and smiled as brightly as the sun.
“Ogu, ogu, our daughter came? Did you sleep well? Weren’t you cold all night?”
