“…Miss, Miss!”
At the unusually clear, sharp voice, Kaela startled and opened her eyes with a gasp.
“Oh, I’m sorry. You were surprised.…Are you okay, Miss?”
Cecil, a maid working at the Duke of Ostein’s house, looked worriedly at the Miss who was looking around panting heavily. The Miss opened her beautiful eyes wide and looked around as if she was seeing a very scary landscape.
“Miss, are you hurt? Did you have a bad dream?”
She felt the surroundings rushing in like water, without any gaps. The voice, the warm temperature, the touch of the velvet sofa and cushion she had been lying on for a while, the soft falling dress that wrapped her body, and the arm that was just right to look good. Everything was so naturally clear that it was rather creepy.
“Oh my, look at your face turning white. You must have had a bad dream.”
Kaela, panting, reached out and grabbed Cecil’s hand. The rough, dry, calloused, solid hand. That hand was warm. It was too warm.
“Are you okay, Miss? Calm down. You had a bad dream. Were you scared?”
Scared? She was tormented by fear to the point of being pained. But now she didn’t feel any pain, cold, or even the terrible hunger.
Kaela looked around the unfamiliar room for the first time in a long time. This was definitely the bedroom of Duke Ostein’s townhouse she used before she got married. There was a four-poster bed with white curtains, clean and thick bedding, a sturdy dresser, and a sofa full of cushions with a subtle pattern. And on the wall across the bed, there was a mirror.
Kaela got up abruptly and went to that mirror, holding Cecil’s hand.
“Miss?”
Cecil was startled to see the only daughter of the Duke of Ostein glaring at the mirror, and then slapping her own cheek with the other hand that was not holding hers.
“Oh my, Miss! Miss!”
The daughter of the Duke of Ostein, who slapped her still baby-faced cheek so hard that it made a smack sound, shook her head and roughly fixed her disheveled hair. Then she took a deep breath and looked back at Cecil, who was making a fuss.
“Why did you wake me up? What’s going on?”
Her cheek was burning. Was the brief pain normal? Is my mind clear? Her mind was always sharp and on edge. She had to be like that in the North, where she was walking on a knife’s edge. But she died, what is this?
“The Duke, His Grace the Duke called for you, Miss, your cheek is red. You should at least steam it first.”
“It’ll go down on its own. You woke me up well. Thank you!”
“Miss…!”
Her hand, which slapped her cheek mercilessly, was trembling, but Kaela left the room first. She had to think carefully about whether she had just had a very long and detailed dream, or if this is a dream now.
‘A dream? That’s funny. Where is there such a long and detailed dream?’
How could the days of torture in the North Lusenford be a dream? Either Kaela was crazy, or it was a terribly evil magic, it’s either of the two.
‘Or this could be an illusion.’
Tears welled up suddenly, and Kaela quickly rubbed her eyes. This situation could be a fleeting illusion that she is seeing because she is so desperate for her deceased self. It was a time when she was somewhat happy.
Ah. The large windows were what she remembered, and the corridor was full of sunlight. The forgotten path was revived in her memory. Kaela found her way to her father’s study, a little unfamiliar but proficient. The huge staircase, the open terrace, and the corridor where warm beige stones are stacked instead of carpets. It’s all Ostein style.
She was afraid even as she knocked on the door of the study. Is this a well-decorated dream? Or is it a trick played by the people of Lusenford?
“Come in.”
Her heart dropped. The voice from inside the door was very old in her memory, but it was clear. What on earth is going on? Kaela opened the door to the study with a trembling heart.
“Your father has to go to the palace today, so you’ll have to eat dinner alone. You should go to bed first as it might be late.”
It’s father. It was father. The father, whose head was so brutally shattered that it was hard to recognize, was standing intact, adjusting his lapels. Kaela looked at her father with a blank face.
“Are you going to the palace?”
“The Emperor has called.”
Is it a premonition? The situation that is repeating exactly as Kaela had experienced is ominous and strange. She knows the navy coat, gray vest, and bright khaki pants that her living father is wearing now. And she also knows how blood was spilled all over it. Yes. That was exactly what my father was wearing when he passed away.
“Why?”
Kaela didn’t know why her father went to the palace that day. So she asked.
“I don’t know. I knew it sometime.”
A blunt answer reveals a reluctance to go. Kaela held her confused head.
“But why is your face like that? No, where did you get hit? What’s wrong with your face?”
The face that Kaela last remembered came up full of worry and grabbed her flushed cheek.
“It’s nothing.”
She said so and began to rummage through the study. There was no time to share the aftermath and reminisce. Even if this is a dream, if she doesn’t move properly, she will regret it terribly when she wakes up.
“It’s nothing, but your cheek is red! Why are you taking that out?”
Duke Ostein Adeo de Chasser was surprised to see his daughter, whose one cheek was swollen, open the study safe and take out one of the family treasures, a protective magic tool. The daughter who brought the gold necklace pleaded earnestly with her father.
“You have to wear this just in case.”
“No, why all of a sudden…”
“To protect your body once, right? Since you never know when and how something will happen, you must wear it. You can’t take it off. You know? Please, Father.”
She even climbed on her father, who was much taller than her, to hang the magic tool, and tucked it into the inside of his shirt. The father couldn’t stop his daughter, who was stuffing it in. He was a normal father who was very weak to his only daughter.
“And…”
There was no time. Kaela almost begged before her father left.
“Don’t trust the Emperor, Dad. Never. Please.”
It’s a well-known fact. The emperor was a lunatic and a madman hidden behind a noble mask. Receiving no refute, Kaela, who saw off her father, gnawed at her lips and finally stood up abruptly.
If she intervened in the meeting between the emperor and her father, both father and daughter might be in danger. The emperor was a terrifying figure. Despite being the legitimate heir, he was so suspicious that he slaughtered all his siblings who were born from the same mother over trivial faults. He broke off all his engagements with other countries and married the current empress as if he had kidnapped her, and has been confining her ever since.
His cruelty reached its peak when he tormented Peon, the illegitimate child of the empress. The emperor mentally abused Peon, who was in his early teens, and after taking the empress hostage, he drove him to the barren Lusenford to confront the evil dragon.
Do you want to see your mother? Then obey like a dog.
He abused the child, insulted the empress as a dirty prostitute one day, and praised her as a noble woman the next. Yet, he himself fathered numerous illegitimate children, each from different mothers, and enjoyed watching them compete for the throne. He was a lunatic who wielded his immense imperial power recklessly.
However, Kaela had to do something to protect her father against such a lunatic. With a mere magic tool, a magic tool that only blocks an attack once, she could block a bullet. But would there be only one bullet?
With that thought, Kaela abruptly stood up from her seat.
“Prepare the carriage!”
She has been starving since a while ago. She wanted to eat so much. Soft cake, soft lamb meat, boiled vegetables, anything was good. But she didn’t remember, when she put it in her mouth, she resisted the food she wanted to grab with both hands without manners, or that impulse, and instead Kaela headed straight to the palace. It was better to die with her father if she was going to die. It was tiresome to die lonely and unfairly in the North, even in the dream.
“I’m going to the palace.”
The carriage of the Duke of Ostein eventually passed through the palace gate again in the evening. As soon as the carriage stopped, Kaela jumped down and ran to the ‘Sacred Forest’ where her father was killed. Everyone except the emperor called it the monster’s garden.
If she was going to die, she would rather be shot by the emperor’s bullet and die with her father. Or, at least, the Grand Duke of Lusenford, her husband who might be here, had to be stopped.
Sure enough, a huge man with a very tall stature and broad shoulders appeared far away at the entrance of the garden. In his hand was a box containing a gun that would kill her father.
“Your Grace the Grand Duke!”
In this nightmare, she ran wildly and stopped the man she had never dared to touch.
The Lady of Ostein, Kaela de Chasser, burst in front of the Grand Duke of Lusenford, Hyperion Sabrand Ferraro.
