Chapter 33

If this is the real end – 16

 

In one of my lives, I stole a novel from father’s study.

It was apparently a story with father and Silvia’s mother as the protagonists. There weren’t many characters in this book. The princess of the neighboring country and the knight chosen to protect her. … …And also, the maid the princess had taken along with her from her home country.

Naturally, the story didn’t have only these three characters, but the ones that left a deep impression in my memory were only them. However, while it was natural for the two main characters to remain in my memory, on the contrary, it was strange how I couldn’t forget the maid, a supporting character whose name was never said.

It was an ordinary servant and her physical appearance wasn’t even described. She didn’t accomplish many things in the story. In the first place, I didn’t even know what the role assigned to her was.

The only thing that was made clear about her, was the fact she was the person the princess had personally hand-picked and taken out of her home country. 

 

“That maid might have been a bit pitiful but… I wonder if she was doing fine?”

 

The person who had muttered these words as their line of sight was lost in the horizon, was the author of this novel.

The truth about this novel I heard from the author had been almost completely similar to my predictions. The knight described in the novel was my father, the princess of the neighboring country was Silvia’s mother. In reality, it wasn’t “the neighboring country” but a more distant one.

Anyway, they had sacrificed their body, their heart, their everything to this forbidden love. It was a predestinated, tragic, heart-moving passion.

Right. That’s probably why their love became a story. Readers could dream of them.

Although the characters in the book experienced turns and twists, they were finally wedded and swore to spend eternity together. It was an ending that made you think happiness was surely waiting for them ever after.

 

… … But, unlike the story, in the real world, father and the princess didn’t get tied together.

Because the princess returned to her country.

 

“In the first place, because she had run away from the civil war occurring in her home country, it was decided from the beginning that she would come back once it had settled. She was only a young girl, but she was unmistakably a member of royalty. From the moment she was born, she had to bear the responsibility of a person descending from the royal family. She definitely couldn’t run away from this. After returning to her country, her official duty as a member of the royal family was waiting for her.”

 

Therefore, due to the difference in their social positions, the knight and the princess couldn’t be wedded.

If you wanted to summarize everything plainly, that’s what happened, but the situation must have been more complex. “However, it’s something that couldn’t be helped” had said the author with a sigh.

The problem was what happened afterward.  

 

“The princess, who had to return to her country, didn’t allow the man she loved to marry another woman.”

 

The woman who spat out a laugher that resembled a sneer was undoubtedly very familiar with them.

Whether she had guessed my doubts or not, I remembered the author telling me about a social gathering for writers. And that one could get various information there. I didn’t know if that place truly existed, I thought she might only have said that randomly.

For a book she said she had written from gossip and information obtained from other people, it was awfully detailed.

It would rather make more sense for her to claim to be a person who used to be involved with them. But I respected her will to not reveal her background. Because what was important was not who she was, but what the meaning behind the story she had written was.  

 

“The princess thought like this: rather than having her beloved knight snatched away by a woman whose name and face she wouldn’t know… then it was better to have him marry her own substitute.”   

 

She narrated with loquacity. She insisted it was only a supposition and absolutely not the truth.

But she continued and said that the woman who married the knight as the princess’s substitute, might have been carrying another duty. Maybe, that other responsibility was even more important.

 

“It must have been... to monitor everything.”

 

It was the answer I had already guessed from the flow of her story.

I myself, wasn’t simply living as the elegant daughter of a noble family. It wasn’t like I couldn’t understand how difficult a position they were placed in, or how they were influenced by the expectations of the people around them.

The real ending of the princess and the knight, which hadn’t been written in the novel, was far from a happy one.

If you closed your ears at this point, you could end the story here with a dream-like ending. You could probably claim with a loud voice that true love wasn’t restrained by social barriers.

However, reality was never that sweet.

 

“A monitoring person was necessary to make sure the knight would not err from his path and fail to keep his promise. That was probably not something the princess herself wished for. But the people who knew the circumstances of the two well, made sure the knight never crossed the country’s borders even by mistake.”

“… Cross the country’s borders?”

“It was likely he would go to her country to elope with the princess, or to take her away by force, right? Because after all, that’s how much he loved her.”

 

It was impossible to know what kind of mess could make a person who had embraced the thought it was alright to throw away everything and anything.

And that’s precisely why a tie was needed, the author had told me. In other words, “something” was necessary in order to prevent my father from moving around easily.

It was for this reason that this extremely selfish princess’s wish to present another woman as her own substitute was granted. But it probably wasn’t a bad agreement for both father and the princess.

If the woman chosen as the substitute was a person related to the princess, through this woman, it would be possible to secretly report each other’s current situation. 

           

In that way, the princess gave a woman to the knight as her substitute.

This person was the princess’s maid… … my mother.

                                                           

As the overseer of the knight who had fallen for the princess, mother ended up as the only person left behind in a foreign country.

Her wedding seemed to include the meaning she would never again step foot on the ground of her homeland. She was a pitiable person on whom was imposed the consequent responsibility and duty of what was called a “political marriage.”

That person who became a piece of the strategic game that politics were, offered her lifetime to the princess and the knight.

But if the story had stopped her, a faint hope could have bloomed for mother too. In fact, until just now, I had thought that father and mother were in mutual love.

No matter if at the beginning, it had been a political wedding like what would usually happen between nobles, after spending many years together, I never doubted my belief that an emotion akin to a deep affection had been born.

You could say that was how well they played the part of a close married couple. Everyone envied that couple that got along so well. Father was very affectionate to mother, mother loved and respected father.

There might not have been love at the beginning of their relation, but I had been convinced that the two of them had ended up being in love with each other.

 

**********************

 

In the dull dark sky that seemed to be smeared with a thin layer of ink, the toll of a bell reverberated.

In that place, the various people standing under the umbrellas held by servants avoided them and looked up.

Even though there was no music, they partly closed their eyes, seemingly impressed by the sound.

But I lowered my umbrella even more and bent down. I couldn’t pretend to be lost in strong emotions like them.

 

“It’s the sound of a departing soul.”

 

Someone softly muttered that.

A black coffin was carried in a corner of the vast garden of our earl’s estate. Even though the coffin could have been decorated with special ornaments, father seemed to have decided not to do so.

The bell continued to ring out as if it was dropping down on the glossy coffin. But naturally, the bell wasn’t ringing for mother’s sake. It would chime every day at the same time, it was a bell that announced the time for all the people who didn’t have enough money to buy a watch.

Ordinarily it was a sound I ignored, but only today, I heard it awfully clearly. I thought it was a gentle sound, it sounded like something hitting a glass.

Each time it echoed, the image of a glass being shattered to pieces again and again came to my mind. The sharp fragments seemed to pierce me here and there. In my arms, my feet, my face.

And so, in my eyes, my hands seemed to be dyed red.

 

“… Big sister.”     

 

The raindrops falling on the ground made the mud sullen my feet.

As I single-mindedly gazed at my dirtied feet, a shadow fell on my line of sight. When I raised my head, silver hair that seemed to be glittering despite the absence of sunlight entered my field of vision.

Under the umbrella held by a servant, my little sister was staring fixedly at me. Before us was mother’s coffin. It had already been closed and mother’s beloved roses were decorating it. On top of it, the merciless raindrops were falling incessantly and gliding down to the ground.

On the other side was father, receiving everyone’s condolences. The official explanation was that she had succumbed to an abrupt illness and the people who had come to visit seemed to believe it. In the first place they had no reason to doubt it.

The evaluation others had of mother was of a person who wasn’t involved in trouble or wouldn’t be hurt by others, not of someone who would choose to kill herself.

For the sake of father, who wanted a funeral as calm as possible, only a limited number of people came. But maybe due to mother’s popularity, you couldn’t say that only a small number of people had gathered.

They stood in front of father turn by turn, offering him words of comfort and compassion. The whispering voices blending in with the sound of rainfall reached my ears but I couldn’t catch the content of their conversation.

While I was thinking of how strange it was to not hear them despite the fact that I was so close, I suddenly noticed the bell had stopped ringing. But I was probably the only one who paid attention to that.

A dim rain had been falling since this morning, clouding my field of vision and blurring the scenery in a white mist, making the current scene look like something very distant.

 

“Is it true…? Sister.”

 

A drop of water was hanging on the silver eyelashes covering those purple eyes gazing straight at me. She was probably crying until just a while before. Just by seeing the redness at the corner of her eyes, I knew she was trying to endure something today.

Looking at me in the eyes and clearly urging me, she once again asked, “Is it true?”

Usually, her voice left behind a lovely reverberation that seemed to linger eternally, but today the impression it gave was different. As if it was dry, as if something was lacking…

If her voice had a temperature, then I thought that today it was cold. Her pale lips were the clear proof of it.

 

“Did you take from my room the tea mother had prepared for me?”

 

Although I felt like I was still wandering in the middle of a dream, I could understand Silvia’s words accurately.

Inside that nightmare I could never wake up from, the voice of my little sister was the only thing I perceived as something real.

 

“Big sister, you wouldn’t… do that, right?”

 

I sighed over the fact that the secret could no longer be kept in the mansion.

Did father talk to her, was it one of the maids who happened to be present, or did the chamberlain let something slip?

The servants were never allowed to chat about serious affairs that should not be disclosed, but this restriction would not apply if their conversation’s partner was Silvia.

That was because the first priority of this house was her. Someone had surely talked to her, thinking it was best to let her know. Your older sister is a thief.   

 

“… … Why?”

 

I questioned Silvia, who was staring at my face with uneasy eyes.

Why? She probably wasn’t expecting to be asked back a question. Taken aback, the face of my little sister solidified as she exclaimed, “…Eh?”

The fingers of my little sister, which had lost their aim, wandered in the air.

 

“Why... do you think so? That I didn’t steal your tea. Why... do you believe in me?”

 

I do not know who you heard that from, but the situation might be exactly as that person described, you know?

When I added this, Silvia’s eyes seemed to flip and open wide, distorting her looks. She had a beautiful face that seemed to have been created by a first-class craftsman after investing all his sincerity and diligence in his earnest work. This face was very similar to her mother’s.

 

“Because you wouldn’t do that big sister. You would definitively never, ever, do that. Everyone was saying you might have done something to mother, but...”

 

The end of her sentence wasn’t spoken out loud and disappeared amidst the sound of the rain.

As expected, father and the people in the estate were doubting me. I had been released from house arrest for today only as mother’s funeral was held.

But I didn’t know what would happen from tomorrow onwards.

I had only faced father in front of mother’s room and didn’t meet him since then. Although I had thought the steward or someone else would undoubtedly ask me about the details of mother’s death, it didn’t happen.

I thought they might already have drawn their conclusion.

 

“Big sister, I know that you truly are... a very kind person…”

 

The umbrella protecting the slender body of Silvia seemed much bigger than those held by the others. Maybe because of this, not many people noticed Silvia’s discreet crying voice.

Our sharp-eyed father had noticed his beloved daughter’s unusual behavior, but he was in the middle of receiving everyone’s condolences and couldn’t come here. He simply threw a sharp glare toward me.

However, we were at a funeral, it would be strange to show an excessive reaction to Silvia’s grieved appearance. Rather, you could say it was more natural that she mourned her departed mother.

And yet, just because it was “me” who was standing in front of Silvia, father appeared to harbor wariness. Even though I was also his daughter, it didn’t change anything. In his head, I was sure he was assuming that the severe older sister had said something cruel to the younger one.

Since when have things been like this?

No, possibly, it might have been the case since the beginning.

 

From the time we were born, we had been sisters who were not allowed to live and grow close together.

 

“…… What happened?”

 

I didn’t know since when he was here, but Soleil was standing near Silvia as if he was trying to peer into her face. He wasn’t holding an umbrella and there was no servant at his side.

Thinking he might have done so in order to reduce his distance with Silvia even a little, I watched over the two who stood close together.

The servant holding the umbrella took in the situation and tactfully bent the umbrella in the direction of Soleil, so they stood close enough for their shoulders to touch.

If he, who must have been giving his condolences to father just a while ago, had come here now, that must be because father had said something to him. He may have been requested to stay by Silvia’s side.

Although it’s such a time, although I knew it was my mother’s funeral… the presence of Soleil made my heart tighten.

 

“… Ilya?”

 

Even though my name was called, I couldn’t lift up my gaze.

Today, for this moment only, I didn’t want to see the two of them.

Soleil slightly stepped in front of Silvia as if to protect her and was looking at me, but I didn’t have the energy to ward off his gaze.

           

Even though I wanted to mourn mother’s death.

Even though I wanted to grieve about her death.

I couldn’t do it.

Then, because I didn’t know what to do while I was in such a state, I didn’t have the confidence to feign calmness in front of them.

 

“Sorry, Ilya.”

 

While blood was spilling from her lips, mother, on the verge of her death, had expressed an apology to me.

I recalled these words again and again.

Even though mother had been married off in this country like a human sacrifice, she had given birth to a child so that father could fulfill his duty as a noble.

She naturally didn’t have a say in this. It had been one of the obligations imposed on her. It was the job any woman married into an aristocratic family had to accomplish.

She served father as the substitute for his beloved princess and even had a child; no one could fathom what mother’s feelings were.

Under that composed smile of hers, I could easily guess she must have put away all her emotions.

Like Crow had once said, the people who had given up on everything only had a smile left, I could also understand this.

In fact, the letter she had left behind was short, what was written was as follows:

 

“I don’t know how to describe the anxiety and discomposure I felt when I became pregnant. Even if I understood that I ought to rejoice, my heart was already exhausted. However, I had no choice but to give birth.”

 

It was impossible for me to not understand mother’s loneliness and anxiety as she was forced to abandon her birthplace.

In this situation where the best you could do was to accept reality, if you added to it the fact of becoming pregnant, it was a matter of course you would be mentally driven into a corner.

If I had been an ordinary noble’s daughter, I probably would not have understood. I had been born and raised in this country, at my family’s side. I would never have to face such a situation as being forced to cast away my hometown, and if everything had gone well, I would have married a man who would have been my first love.

But I was repeating the same time over and over. Unable to confide in anyone, never allowed to seize the hand I had asked for help, becoming unable to even breathe, I had been beaten up by a harsh reality.

And that’s why I understood well the feelings of mother, who had to split her chair and blood to conceive a child.

Reality was far too cruel to let her feel just a pure, genuine happiness.

 

“Looking at the face of the baby who was just born, my relief surpassed my joy. But, I thought it was fine like this. Because I had resolved myself to come to terms with reality in my own way.”

 

Mother had written so.

That she had vowed to protect this child and live as she supported her husband.

But fate was irremediably cruel.

           

In mother’s letter, the truth even the author of the novel had not known was written.

I thought that it was a reality hard to accept, for mother but also for anyone else who would have been in her place. For her, it must have been like a bolt out of the blue.

Because at any rate, the princess, who should have officially vowed to separate from father, had set foot in this country once again. This time she wasn’t fleeing a war or seeking asylum. She had crossed the border only to meet father.

Imagining the event that occurred afterward, I inevitably recalled my own past. I recalled when Silvia became pregnant with Soleil’s child, the time when she told me of her pregnancy, the moment when I passed away unable to hold in my arms the child I had given birth to, I recalled these various events.

           

In other words, the princess had conceived father’s child with her own body.

She had given birth to the precious Silvia.   

 

“I stole... Silvia. I stole something from you.

“… Why?”

“Because... even you... you stole.”

 

The weeping voice was probably mine. But the one who was crying was Silvia.

She kept saying, I haven’t done anything, and you too, you wouldn’t do something like that, big sister!

 

“Everything, everything... you stole everything.”

“No, sister... I have not… not stolen anything…!”

 

We were sisters born with a few months of interval. You didn’t need a vast imagination to guess which birthday made father happy. Even from his current devotion, it was crystal clear.

The birth of an illegitimate child would not be celebrated with great pomp.

But in our mansion, it might have been different.

 

“Pretending to be a girl from the street, the princess became pregnant and inconspicuously gave birth to his child. But my husband absolutely didn’t hide Silvia’s existence, he held her up in his arms and cherished her. I remember well the appearance of the princess as she watched over them, as well as their smiles full of satisfaction, as if all the joy in this world had been gathered here.” 

 

The beautiful letters lined up on the pure white paper were slightly crooked.

Mother had been right next to them, watching as father and the princess cuddled together, hugging the little baby preciously. Perhaps in her arms, she was holding the newly born me.  

 

“Silvia, you have stolen... from me… just about everything. You stole. Then, even after this… you will steal everything away from me…!”

 

The reason why it was decided from the beginning that I, the eldest daughter, would have to leave, was for the sake of the sickly Silvia.

The man who would marry Silvia would succeed the house, and in case something were to happen to her, father’s younger brother would inherit the family leadership.

But I had noticed that all of this was only a facade, a front.

Father simply wanted to keep Silvia at hands. He decided to marry me off somewhere in order to detain Silvia in the estate.

For example, even if now, Silvia were to fall in love at first sight with someone in the academy, the situation would not change. That man would enter our family as a son-in-law and inherit the house.

I was born from father and mother, his legal wife, I was raised as a child of nobility, and grew up without experiencing any hardship or inconvenience.

In that way, it was true I had lived a life everyone envied, but in reality, I didn’t have anything. 

 

“Ilya… what the hell happened to you…!”

 

Soleil stretched out his hand. In an effort to grasp my arm, he pushed aside the umbrella held by the servant and approached me.

 

“Do not touch me!!”

 

Do not touch me with this hand.

With this beautiful hand, do not touch this body that had bathed in mother’s blood.

 

“Do not...touch me…!!”

 

I dodged him and took some distance from these two.

My umbrella slipped off my right hand and rolled on the ground, separating me from Soleil as if it was drawing a boundary line.

In the rain that had slightly increased in strength, Soleil was still about to walk toward me. But the slender arm extended behind him didn’t allow him to.

My little sister controlled Soleil with her face drenched in tears. She was about to stop him from approaching me.

“Big brother.” Even amidst the rain drops knocking on the ground, the whisper of Silvia could still clearly be heard. It was a helpless, naïve and soft voice that seemed to coil around you.

Everyone would turn back upon hearing it. As expected, it was Soleil who noticed quicker than anyone else that my little sister had tripped on the mud and was staggering.

I was forced to watch his profile as he embraced my little sister with one of his hands.

           

I knew this hand didn’t exist to hug me. I also understood that this hand was not here to protect me. One day, this hand will choose my beautiful little sister who grew up without being stained by any impurity.

Because there is no way to stop this hand, that had once promised me, “From there on, let’s always get along well,” to drift away and leave me.

 

“I... what on earth... should I... do… how should I live, what should I do... for it to work out… Why... will no one... stay by my side…?”

 

For a second, the sky was dyed white and my sight was blurred.

A few seconds later, thunder resounded.

The rain intensified; the soaked coffin was reflected in the corner of my vision.

My mother, who should no longer felt any pain, seemed to be screaming with a loud voice.

           

With a serene smile, mother, who had surely lived while restraining all her emotions, had spat out her real thoughts at her very last moments.

 

“Sorry, Ilya.”

“… I... have... never…”

 

Suffering and agonizing, she spoke with great pain, stopping after every breath, unable to close her eyes.

She wholeheartedly looked at my face, coughing violently as if her breath was heavy like lead.

 

“… I... have... never... been able to love you……”

 

That’s why I couldn’t withdraw my eyes until the moment mother took her last breath.

Because I was hoping that maybe, she would correct those words.

Because I had thought that my mother, who had inhaled one big breath at her last moment, might have laughed and said “I’m joking.”

I was hoping that at the last moment she would declare, “in reality, I love you very much.”

But mother had stopped breathing at that moment.

 

“In reality, from the beginning, I didn’t have anything. Still, under the impression I had everything, I had no other choice but to continue to believe I was loved. Do you understand my feelings?”

“Big sister...”

“Even though I knew I wasn’t loved, I lived, persuading myself that I was, I should be loved… My feelings... can you understand them…?”

 

I embraced my body with both arms. Apart from me, no one would hug me.

Still clinging to Soleil while looking at me, Silvia’s face further distorted, her lips shivering and her whole body shaking.

But... that child... was hiding behind my fiancé.

 

“… … Ilya!!” 

 

I heard father’s voice as he yelled, having distanced himself from the people offering their condolences. He was probably thinking I had made my little sister cry. And this wasn’t false.

           

But, I too, was crying.

           

When I turned my face and saw father, who was quickly coming here, and Al who was running after him, the sky was once again colored white.

A thunder strong enough to make the ground shake rang out.

As I looked up because of the sound that made me wonder if the sky hadn’t been torn in two, black feathers lightly fell down.

           

Unblinking, my eyes followed the fluttering feathers that seemed to be dancing. 

 

“… Crow…”

 

Just as I called out his name, many feathers fell on the ground, dying my field of vision in pure black.

That’s it. It’s fine like this.

If this world could end like this. 

 

“Hey, Crow… where are you?”

 

Closing my eyes, on the other side of that blackness, I heard a voice.

 

“To straighten a thread that has been entangled complicatedly and seems impossible to untie, you can only cut it with a scissor and fix it with a knot.” 

Chapter 32                                               Chapter 34

Nocta’s thoughts:

This chapter disappointed me a bit to tell you the truth. We still don’t know why Ilya’s mother poisoned Silvia while pretending to love her.

It’s understandable she didn’t like Ilya considering how she was forced to have her. But then, she wasn’t forced to love Silvia, so why did she pretend?

And another thing: I felt her trauma is a bit weak compared to how she acted (yandere poisoner).
It is a medieval setting with nobles. She was serving a princess so she must have been a noble too. As an aristocrat, she was raised to be mentally prepared to have a political marriage.
Being the princess’s substitute might have been hard, as well as never being able to see her family again. Well, I don’t believe someone serving a princess would meet their family often anyway.
But she became the wife of an earl and he treated her well, even if he didn’t love her. Okay, the bitch princess broke her promise and had a child, causing some trouble in her household. But it’s not the first time a noble husband has a mistress.
Did it break her heart because she loved her husband? Such a thing was never mentioned, so we don’t know.

So for me, there is not enough justification for her mental break down.
I don’t like her, I hate the father, I hate the bitch princess, Silvia and Soleil pfuff, really, where are the likeable characters in this novel?