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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 78
Chapter Title: Unending Danger (4)
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Isabel’s face flushed.
“Hey! Are you making fun of me? You’re much prettier!”
“I am… prettier?”
“Of course, you are! Don’t you look in the mirror? Wait a minute!”
Isabel sprang up, grabbed a hand mirror from the table, and held it up to Ariana’s face.
Ariana gazed at her reflection in the mirror.
Perhaps because she had just looked at the vibrant Isabel, her own face in the mirror seemed particularly gloomy. Lightless eyes, a firm mouth, a somber expression.
“See? You’re much prettier.”
“Well, I think you’re prettier, though.”
“Look at her. Don’t go around saying things like that. You’ll get ridiculed. Especially be careful in front of the noble ladies attending the party tomorrow.”
“What are the noble ladies of the Eastern Territory like?”
“Many of them are nice, but sometimes there are some incredibly petty ones. If you say one wrong word, they’ll latch onto it and grumble, and a soft-hearted person like you won’t be able to endure it.”
If she knew what kind of things I’d been told, she wouldn’t say that.
Still, it felt good that Isabel was worried about her. Ariana smiled gently and nodded.
“Okay, I’ll be careful.”
When Ariana answered docilely, Isabel lowered the corners of her eyebrows and stroked Ariana’s hair.
“I don’t know what those people in the Western Territory babbled to you, but everything they said was a lie. Don’t take it to heart. You’re beautiful. There’s no one prettier than you in our Eastern Territory.”
“……”
“That’s why I’m worried. If you’re too pretty, there are always girls who get jealous. I can handle other girls, but Wi-ona worries me. She’s really difficult to deal with.”
The name Wi-ona brought back a memory.
Princess Wi-ona Obelier, who later married a Count of the Cameria Empire and became a Countess, was someone Victoria detested fiercely.
It was because she had a similar personality to Victoria.
“At the party tomorrow, there’ll be a woman with eyes like this. She’s a few years older than me.”
Isabel pulled down the corners of her eyes with both hands as she spoke.
“She’s Jeor’s younger sister, and she resembles Jeor a bit. She looks kind, but she’s nastier than Jeor. But, um… how should I put it? Anyway, she pretends to be kind, but something about her is subtly annoying.”
Isabel was frustrated, unsure how to express it.
It was understandable.
Someone like Isabel, whose thoughts and actions align, would be the complete opposite of personalities like Wi-ona or Victoria, making them both incomprehensible and undesirable to understand.
“If she says anything, just ignore her. If you retort, she’ll use that as an excuse to say even more unpleasant things. She has a few followers, and it’s so annoying how they gather around her and giggle. I want to punch her, but I can’t…”
Isabel, frowning and grumbling, was adorable.
“But if, by any chance, you really can’t stand it, just punch her. I’ll figure out the rest somehow.”
She wouldn’t actually punch Wi-ona just because she was annoyed, but Isabel’s words were so reassuring that Ariana felt a little like crying. Thinking it was fortunate that she was in the bathroom and her body was wet, Ariana said,
“Okay, Isabel. I’ll trust you completely.”
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
Late into the night, Ariana sat on the sofa, staring at the dress Isabel had brought. Her eyes were fixed on the elaborate dress, but various thoughts drifted through her mind.
‘The party…’
When she turned 18 and attended the Imperial Palace party as Viscountess Albrecht, Ariana had barely managed to enter the central hall of the palace, led by her husband, Ingow Albrecht.
The pink dress, chosen to suit Ingow’s taste, was a style long past its prime, and she remembered how some noblewomen nearby had cast mocking glances at her.
Back then, she had acted like a fool, not knowing the etiquette of parties.
Helena, along with the noble ladies she had befriended, laughed at Ariana.
Under her father, Eastern Duke Russell’s, cold gaze, the sneers of the noble ladies and gentlewomen, and the solitude of no one asking her to dance, Ariana had to endure that time, barely holding back her tears.
Pushing away the unpleasant memories that felt as fresh as yesterday, she recalled the Empress she had seen that day.
She pictured the figure of the most noble being among women, walking beside the Emperor with impeccable posture.
The moment the Empress entered, all the women looked at her with longing and bowed their heads—a scene that came to mind.
While there was dignity that came with her status, every single one of the Empress’s movements seemed perfectly deliberate, making it impossible to look away.
“If I ever sit on the most noble seat on this continent, the place beside it will be yours.”
She had been foolish enough to believe those words, trying to recall the Empress’s movements and practicing her posture.
Recalling her past self, she let out a self-deprecating laugh at how ridiculously naive she had been.
Ariana practiced and practiced until she could mimic the etiquette and posture of the imperial family, but her situation had not changed significantly.
It was much later that Ariana discovered negative rumors were circulating about her.
The vulgar viscountess who tried to act like a member of the imperial family to catch the eye of the 3rd Prince. The frivolous viscountess who only thought of adorning herself with the money her husband painstakingly earned.
It was even later that she found out Victoria was behind those rumors.
‘I’m still not free from that.’
She hadn’t intended to think about this, but unpleasant memories kept resurfacing.
She had thought that once she severed ties with the Western Territory, she would no longer have to recall those miserable memories. But those memories still clung to her ankles, pulling Ariana into a sticky darkness.
The difference now was that at the end of the darkness, there were two red lights. Waiting at the end of the sticky, dark emotions were blood-red eyes.
Crimson eyes, watching Ariana.
‘Back then, was Northern Duke Cyrus Karha also hiding somewhere, watching people? What did he think, seeing me mimic a posture that didn’t suit me?’
She couldn’t understand why Cyrus came to mind at such a moment.
What do I look like? Do I seem vulgar or frivolous? Does my posture look like I’m wearing clothes that don’t suit me?
She couldn’t understand why she wanted to ask such questions either.
His silver hair and beautifully drawn face vividly came to mind.
The surprise and tension of their first encounter, the admiration for his outstanding appearance.
Even though he was someone who only intended to use her, the reason he came to mind whenever her vision blurred black might be because he was the one who extended a hand in her difficult moments.
At the time, his help was bothersome and overwhelming, but looking back now, because he helped, she was able to settle in the Eastern Territory more smoothly than planned.
For a moment, the thought, ‘I miss him,’ struck her, and Ariana abruptly stood up.
‘What am I thinking?’
It seemed her mind was in turmoil because of the party tomorrow, leading to all sorts of thoughts. Ariana had no good memories of parties.
‘Being alone in my room makes me think all sorts of things.’
Ariana put on her robe, grabbed a few medicine bottles, and left the room.
A few lanterns hung in the hallway, so it wasn’t completely dark even late at night.
Ariana headed for Sini’s room. The fact that the slave with golden eyes was in Chase Castle was unknown to all but a few people.
Sini’s nursing was handled by a young maid who couldn’t speak or write. When Ariana entered, the maid, who had been sleeping on a small bed, sprang up.
Having only done laundry before, the maid, who had never met high-ranking individuals, bowed her head, flustered by the Princess’s appearance.
“I apologize for waking you. I’ll leave soon, so please continue to sleep.”
There was no way the maid could sleep just because Ariana said so. The maid quietly stood pressed against the wall, trying not to look directly at Ariana.
Ariana looked down at Sini, who was lying in bed.
Even lying on a soft bed, Sini didn’t look comfortable. Sini, curled up with a body that couldn’t be straightened, looked small despite probably being taller than Ariana.
Every time Ariana saw Sini, she recalled her past self in the Western Territory.
An unfortunate being, unloved by anyone, merely used until death. A being who would die and be remembered by no one.
Ariana opened a medicine bottle and poured some liquid into Sini’s mouth, then applied ointment to Sini’s scars. The hand applying the ointment paused on Sini’s thin shoulder.
On Sini’s shoulder was a tattoo of a wolf’s face inside a circle. It was a tattoo that proved she was a slave.
Ariana carefully traced the tattoo.
Sini, who had been groaning, opened her eyes. Her golden eyes, revealed between her eyelids, looked like the sun rising.
Her wavering gaze stopped on Ariana’s face.
“M-miss….”
Ariana smiled faintly and stroked Sini’s cheek.
“Yes, get well soon. So I can show you good weather.”
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
The next morning, a telegram arrived for Ariana. It was from the Northern Territory, stating that Isaac Peren and Grand Duke Andrei Hern would be coming to the Eastern Territory.
‘Andrei, that must mean Grand Duke Hern, right?’
Ariana had met and conversed with Andrei before.
It was when she was 24, moving as the 3rd Prince Harold Blenwit’s subordinate, at a small party held in a salon in the Imperial Capital.
The 3rd Prince Harold, who had asked Ariana to dance, pressed close to her and pointed to a man, saying,
“That man is Grand Duke Andrei Hern, the Northern Duke’s closest confidant.”
A handsome man with black hair that reached his nape, large eyes with slightly drooping corners, vivid purple pupils, and a tall stature, was surrounded by male nobles.
“Befriending him will be helpful later.”
The 3rd Prince didn’t explicitly command Ariana what to do. But those words were enough. If it would help him, Ariana had to befriend Andrei.
Ariana seized an opportunity to approach Andrei. She offered him a drink, flashing a frivolous smile.
There was no shame.
This frivolous smile, this vulgar demeanor, would all be helpful to the 3rd Prince, and if she succeeded, the 3rd Prince would need her, and he wouldn’t say she shouldn’t have been born.
Andrei took the glass Ariana offered and smiled kindly, then whispered into Ariana’s ear as she let out a sigh of relief.
“I don’t like women who approach me with ulterior motives, Madam.”
The sharp blade hidden in his gentle voice pierced Ariana’s heart. Andrei was no longer looking at Ariana, who was staring up at him with wide eyes.
His purple eyes were directed at the nobles filling the salon.
“This place is still filled with a terrible smell.”
Ariana couldn’t understand what he was talking about. Andrei lowered his gaze and looked directly at Ariana, saying,
“Don’t step on this disgusting path, Madam. There will be nothing good at the end of this path.”
