The marquis usually handled affairs with a cleanliness bordering on obsession. When it came to anything under his authority, he allowed no room for error or ambiguity. Yet the one matter in which he had ever left space for controversy was the issue involving me and the marchioness.
Instead of delivering a firm judgment, he had chosen firm silence.
Of course, the matter had never once been discussed openly. Even so, it had quietly become the center of scandalous rumors. Knowing full well that his household had become the subject of gossip, why had he remained silent?
Even if the marquis had revealed the truth, the rumors would never have disappeared completely. Still, there had certainly been ways to minimize them. I found myself wondering what thoughts had kept his mouth shut all this time.
“Am I truly the legitimate daughter of House Ellient?”
“That question is not even worth answering.”
His eyes met mine without hesitation.
Those deep blue eyes, holding only me within them, did not waver in the slightest. And as I looked into them, I finally realized something. The marquis’s actions—actions I had never been able to understand—suddenly began to make sense.
‘Not worth answering.’
The marquis had not remained silent.
At least regarding this matter, he had spoken nothing but the truth. He had never once doubted that I was his daughter, so he had simply never felt the need to answer—neither to affirm nor deny.
He was a man so devoid of outward emotion that people called him the Ice Heart. There were moments when one could genuinely wonder whether he was even human, so rarely did he reveal what he felt. Just as stingy as he was with emotion, he was equally sparing with words. As far as I could remember, today was the most conversation we had ever shared as father and daughter.
People—including myself—had doubted his intentions and interpreted them however they pleased. In truth, he had merely refused to defend himself against baseless rumors invented by others.
The truth behind the torment that had haunted me all this time had been nothing more than an illusion born from inferiority and suspicion.
“If you intend to continue speaking nonsense, leave.”
Before I knew it, a smile had spread across my lips.
At this moment, I could finally be certain.
Without a doubt, I was his daughter.
His brows lifted slightly, as though he found it strange that I would suddenly smile in such a situation. It was the first time I had ever seen so many different expressions on the marquis’s face. Until today, I had never known he was capable of them.
Feeling oddly amused, I spoke.
“You asked me whether I wanted to become empress. Among all the unmarried women in the Empire, how many do you think have never dreamed of becoming empress?”
The empress sat at the highest position a woman could attain.
Becoming empress was a dream every woman imagined at least once. Just as girls dreamed of meeting a prince on a white horse, falling passionately in love, and living happily ever after, most noble daughters of the Empire dreamed of becoming empress.
Like all those noble ladies, Vionne too had merely dreamed of sweet happiness.
She had wanted to stand proudly at his side as empress. She had believed that if she could only become empress, she would live happily with him forever like a princess in a fairy tale.
Even imagining it had been intoxicating.
Her tragedy was simply that she had not allowed that dream to remain a dream.
Her desire for him had been far too great to end as harmless fantasy, and what made things even more unfortunate was that she had possessed the status and background necessary to turn that dream into reality.
‘Vionne Lossa Ellient’ had longed to become empress.
And in the end, she had become one.
But reality was not a happy fairy tale.
She had only realized that truth completely when death claimed her.
I possessed the memories of Vionne, the woman who had once been empress. Though it had been the position she desired more than anything, the ‘me’ who had sat upon that throne had never once been happy.
Now that I carried those memories, did I still wish to become empress?
Did I truly want to live the same life again, following the future I remembered?
What was it that I wanted now?
“So you mean to say that you are no different?”
I certainly had wanted to become empress once.
But the seat of the empress was not a place one could claim through desire alone. Countless interests and political forces were tangled around that throne. In other words, even if I wished to avoid it, it was not a position I could simply escape from.
Despite all the rumors surrounding me, I had been able to become empress back then not merely because I wanted it, but because the interests of the emperor and the nobility had aligned perfectly.
And those interests still remained valid even now.
“Did my wishes ever truly matter?”
“You…”
Bang!
At the very moment he opened his mouth, the office doors were violently thrown open.
It was nearly as rough as the way I had kicked open the marchioness’s doors earlier.
The marquis frowned deeply in irritation. Turning toward the entrance, I looked to see who had dared storm into his office without permission.
Who in this house possessed enough nerve to invade the marquis’s office?
A few possibilities came to mind.
First candidate: the marchioness.
The knights stood guard outside the office, but if the marchioness insisted on barging in, there was little they could do to stop her. It was not because they lacked strength, but because of status.
Physically, the knights who trained daily were far stronger than a delicate noblewoman. But they carried an absolute disadvantage: they could not lay hands on a noble lady carelessly.
Mad though she may have been, she was still the Empire’s marchioness and mistress of this household.
If she forced her way inside, the knights had virtually no means of stopping her. They could neither draw swords against her nor even touch her.
The second candidate was myself.
After all, I had just barged into the office without permission moments ago.
‘But I’m already here, so that rules me out.’
Excluding myself and the marchioness, there was no one else in this mansion who could storm into the office uninvited and survive afterward.
Which meant the intruder had to be the marchioness.
Certain of my conclusion, I looked toward the doorway.
But the figure standing there was someone I had never expected.
Unlike his usual immaculate appearance, he was utterly disheveled.
Just as one would expect from the servant of such a master, the butler normally wore an expressionless face much like the marquis’s own. Yet now his face was twisted with panic, and even his trademark slicked-back hair—usually so perfectly arranged that not a single strand ever fell out of place—was in complete disarray.
Seeing the rigid, meticulous butler in such a ruined state shocked me slightly.
Apparently, this was the marquis’s first time seeing him like this as well. Instead of reprimanding the man for entering without permission, he simply asked,
“What happened?”
“M-My apologies…”
The butler’s voice trembled violently.
Even speaking seemed difficult for him. His mouth opened and closed several times before he finally managed to force the words out.
“M-My lady…”
At that moment, seeing him like this stirred a memory I had forgotten.
Come to think of it, this was not the first time I had seen him so disordered.
Back then too, the butler had struggled terribly to speak.
His once-pristine clothing had been disheveled, and his normally calm movements had carried desperate urgency.
That day had been just like this morning.
When I woke up, my nanny was nowhere beside me. I had been told that she had been urgently summoned to the marchioness’s residence.
Naturally, I had not been pleased.
In fact, I remembered being unusually furious that day.
The maid stumbling over herself trying to explain what happened—I slapped her across the face without warning.
Now that I thought about it, that maid had been Marie.
For someone unaccustomed to serving nobility, she had likely done her best, but my anger had been too great to notice any of her efforts. Her clumsy behavior only irritated me further, and with my already nonexistent patience, it did not take long for me to explode.
I threw whatever I could grab. Eventually, I even turned violent toward her.
A mere servant like Marie could neither stop a noble lady like me nor flee from my violence. She had no choice but to endure it silently.
The other maids rushed in afterward, but none dared stop me. They simply hovered nearby in panic, wringing their hands helplessly.
Normally, my nanny or the butler might have intervened, but that day not a single person capable of restraining me came.
I did not stop until my rage had mostly burned itself out.
I threw objects at her, scratched her, kicked her, and yanked her hair mercilessly. By the time I was done, Marie’s condition was so miserable it was almost indescribable.
I was still breathing heavily with lingering fury while Marie lay unconscious and motionless on the floor.
Even the maids hovering anxiously nearby could not gather the courage to take her away while watching my expression.
As I stood there trying to calm my breathing, the butler hurried toward me.
His appearance had been so unlike his usual composed self that even in the middle of my anger, I had been startled into silence.
Just like now, he had been utterly disheveled.
Wearing the exact same expression as then, he paused to steady his breathing before speaking.
I already knew what he was about to say.
“My lady has passed away!”
As though watching a play unfold before me, I became a mere spectator to my own life.
It was the past I had lived as Vionne.
It was the present I was living now.
And it was the future that still awaited me.
