Chapter 2
Lynette barely managed to lift her head and reach out a hand, but Kanna stood just out of reach.
“Kanna…!”
Lynette dragged herself to the iron bars and clutched them tightly.
“Please contact Grandfather. There’s not much time left.”
But in stark contrast to Lynette’s desperate cries, Kanna wore an emotionless expression.
Not sadness, not gloom—
Just eyes that betrayed no hint of what she might be thinking.
At that moment, Lynette realized she’d seen that strange expression somewhere before.
“Liri.”
It took a long moment before Kanna finally spoke.
When Lynette looked up at her, she saw Kanna was smiling.
“Grandfather won’t be coming.”
“No, it’s not too late! Please, just—”
“Oh, my poor little sister. You still don’t understand, do you?”
As Lynette raised tear-filled eyes, Kanna spoke again.
“I didn’t come here to help you.”
“Kanna…”
Lynette’s grip on the bars tightened as Kanna whispered with a faint curl of her lips.
Then, lowering herself to her knees, she met Lynette face to face.
“…”
Lynette couldn’t speak.
The words caught in her throat, stealing even her breath.
“I was the one who killed Mother.”
Kanna said it lightly, as though recounting a mundane memory.
“What?”
This time, Lynette barely managed to force a sound out—but Kanna’s mocking smile choked her again.
“Do you want to know why?”
Kanna tilted her eyes sweetly as she asked.
But Lynette knew she had no intention of waiting for an answer.
“…You’re lying.”
Her stomach turned.
She felt like she could vomit everything inside her.
Lynette remembered clearly the day Kanna first came to the estate.
A tall, skinny girl with tangled hair—that was her first impression of her.
After an explosion at Grandfather’s mine killed a day laborer, his orphaned daughter had been brought to work as a maid.
But once she was cleaned up and dressed in new clothes, her porcelain-doll features emerged.
Ivory hair that gleamed in the light, mysterious green eyes.
The maid girl’s status changed overnight.
Her father gave her the Hilt family name and adopted her.
Lynette had been twelve. Kanna, sixteen.
“Liri, I liked the Hiltka family from the very beginning,”
Kanna whispered, in a voice only Lynette could hear.
“I just wanted to be the real daughter of this house.”
“…”
“The Hilt suit me better, after all.”
At those words, Lynette lifted her head.
Kanna reached through the bars and gently swept aside her bangs.
The burn-scarred right eye was revealed, but Lynette didn’t flinch. She met Kanna’s gaze head-on.
“If you had died at Mother’s funeral, you wouldn’t have had to go through this.”
“Don’t tell me… you set the fire…”
“What are you talking about? You were the one who started the fire.”
Lynette’s mother had died when she was twelve—only three months after Kanna had become a Hilt.
Lynette couldn’t accept her mother’s death.
She had been far too young to process such a loss.
Maybe that’s why she hadn’t cried much.
But Kanna had sobbed loudly and accused her.
“You must not have truly loved her. You’re a bad child.”
Hearing that, Lynette had felt like she really was a bad child.
“The truth is, I was the one who killed Father too.”
She had been terrified of being a bad child.
That fear made her believe her mother had left because of her—so she cried.
And the one who held that confused, unstable little girl tightly in her arms was none other than Kanna.
That night—
“Liri, I lost my family a long time ago.”
“…”
“So I understand your feelings better than anyone else.”
‘Kanna…’
“It may not feel real yet, but slowly, and for a very long time, you’ll be sad. You’ll be angry at yourself, and the words you never got to say will echo inside you.”
“Then what should I do?”
“At times like that, you should sit alone in a quiet room and light a small candle. If you fall asleep like that, your mother, who went to the heavens first, will appear in your dreams.”
But when she woke up, what she faced wasn’t her mother—it was tragedy.
A room reduced to ashes. A lost right eye.
Her father even slapped her, saying she’d nearly burned down the entire mansion.
Still, Lynette couldn’t bring herself to say that Kanna had told her to do it.
Because Kanna had been clinging to their father’s arm, crying silently—
Her delicate and sorrowful face radiating sympathy and purity.
“You bitch. You’re a demon,” Lynette muttered under her breath.
Kanna smiled sweetly.
“Better to be a demon than a fool, don’t you think?”
At that moment, behind her radiant smile, a cold chill passed over Lynette.
“Don’t tell me… did you kill the Marquis of Romier too?”
Fassaid von Romier—Kanna’s deceased former husband.
In truth, his proposal had been addressed to Lynette.
But in the end, it was Kanna who became the Marchioness.
Lynette had thought it fortunate her sister had married in her place.
After all, even on the day he brought the proposal, Fassaid couldn’t look her in the eye—
Not since her face had been disfigured by the fire.
“Well, what if getting shot was the cause of death?”
Of course, the marriage had not gone smoothly.
Their father was the obstacle—he opposed the marriage as if he’d lost his mind.
Eventually, he gave in. But he did it in the most horrific way.
He left only a letter wishing them a happy union—then took poison and died.
Lynette didn’t cry.
Her father died, and yet she felt no sorrow.
But this time, she didn’t do the foolish thing of lighting a candle and falling asleep alone.
“Was it because of Argos?”
When had it begun between them?
Lynette knew it was a pointless thought, but she couldn’t stop herself.
“My, so you’re not completely stupid,” Kanna said.
“When did it start? When did it all begin…”
Kanna straightened her back and brushed off her sleeves.
Chin lifted high, she looked down at the dazed and crumpled Lynette.
“Liri, Argos says just looking at your face makes him sick. He thinks it’s pathetic the way you act like you’re someone important.
And the fact that you truly believe he loves you? He finds that laughable.”
With a sweet smile, Kanna turned her back.
“But thanks to you, Argos will become Crown Prince.
And I’ll be queen.”
“That will never happen. I won’t—
I won’t let that happen.”
Kanna’s laughter filled the narrow, damp cellar.
“Really? And how exactly will you stop me?”
Everything after that was a blur.
Bound, she was dragged away by someone—
And then the fire started at her feet.
All sensation faded, except for hearing.
Even as she died, Lynette could hear them cursing her.
‘Witch. Evil bitch. Filthy demon’s daughter.
‘Die. Just die already.’
And so ended the life of Lynette D’Clara Hilt.
Along with the poor unborn child who never saw the light of day.
—
When she opened her eyes, Lynette felt lighter than usual.
Her pillow smelled of fresh sunlight, and the bedding was soft and warm.
‘A bed…?’
Suddenly snapping to attention, Lynette bolted upright.
Lynette D’Clara Hilt had died.
She remembered the fire licking up her legs, the stones thrown from every direction, the words too cruel to repeat.
She wished it had all been a nightmare—
But it had been a grim, horrible reality.
“Ah!”
On instinct, Lynette threw off the covers and clutched her stomach.
The belly that should’ve carried a child was flat, as though nothing had ever been there.
But more shocking than that—
“It’s too small…”
Her outstretched hands, her body, even her feet poking out from under the chemise—they were all too small.
Still stunned, she sat dumbfounded atop the bed when—
“My lady, you’re awake?”
A familiar voice. Her maid, Riley, approached.
“…”
Lynette stared blankly at her.
‘Riley?’
“My lady, you must hurry and get up. The master is coming home today, remember?”
