TINOT 5

Chapter: 5

However, the child who was meant to inherit the most brilliant glory of both houses was born with a grave flaw.

There was no sign of the Star’s Blessing—something every mage was supposed to possess.

Both Rowen and Aster were families belonging to the Mage Alliance, and the heir who succeeded the house was required to be a mage.

Lysithea, who was not a mage, could never become the family’s successor.

From the beginning, her father—who had never favored this political marriage—sought to adopt a child from a collateral branch and pass the Aster succession to them.

But the House of Rowen could not accept this.

Rowen’s daughter was to become the lady of Aster, and yet they intended to name a collateral child as heir?

It was an outright insult to Rowen.

The conflict between the two families, which seemed as though it would never end, came to a hollow conclusion when Lysithea’s mother—frail to begin with—passed away.

Lysithea vividly remembered everything that happened at her mother’s funeral.

“So that child is the one? The one who didn’t receive the Star’s Blessing?”

“To think someone born of Rowen and Aster blood could lack it. Hm… perhaps there’s another bloodline mixed in?”

The curious gazes of those who dared to question her lineage.

“My sister was killed by your arrogant selfishness. I will never forgive you.”

“My wife’s death is tragic, yes—but can you truly claim that the duke’s greed played no part in it?”

The Duke of Rowen and her father hurling accusations at one another over her mother’s death.

“And this child is… Julia’s…?”

“I can’t see a trace of her mother in her. She’s the very image of that petty Aster face.”

Even Julia’s siblings, who somehow managed to find only her father’s features in Lysithea’s face—one that clearly resembled her mother to anyone else.

Yet the most unforgettable image from that day was her father’s expression as he looked at her mother’s coffin.

A face worn down by exhaustion and fatigue, tinged with faint guilt—and a subtle sense of relief, as though he had been freed from a burden.

That expression etched itself deeply into Lysithea’s mind, troubling her for years to come.

For some time afterward, her father’s face knew neither joy nor pleasure.

And then, at some point, he began to smile foolishly, to behave as if his mind had drifted elsewhere.

Before even a full year had passed since her mother’s death, a new lady entered the Marquessate of Aster.

Emma, the new marchioness, was the daughter of the fallen Baron Dawson.

She was said to be the daughter of the man her father had once revered as a mentor.

With just one more person living in the house, laughter overflowed through what had once been a silent estate.

The following year, the twins Emma bore looked as though the guardian star of House Aster itself had descended in human form.

Lustrous golden hair, as though woven from radiant starlight, and blue eyes that held the pure blue of the first dawn.

Above all, unlike Lysithea, the twins were exceptionally gifted mages.

“Thank goodness. I was worried—what if even these children weren’t mages…?”

Emma, who had lived in constant fear that rumors might spread of flaws in the Aster bloodline, finally let out a sigh of relief.

“Of course, it’s wonderful that they’re mages. But even if they weren’t, what would it matter? They’re our children. We would simply love them all the more.”

Perhaps her father could say such words only because the twins had indeed been born as mages.

Why, then, had no one ever said the same for Lysithea—who had been treated as defective her entire life simply because she wasn’t one?

Watching the expression on her father’s face as he looked at the twins, Lysithea realized something for the first time.

That man was capable of looking gentle. Warm.

From her bedroom window, the young Lysithea would sometimes look down at the garden.

Whenever she saw the beautiful, harmonious Aster family below, strange emotions boiled inside her.

She wanted to tear that perfect picture apart.

To hurl something—anything—and shatter it to pieces.

When she later learned that those feelings were called deprivation, jealousy, and desire, she grew angry all over again.

Angry at herself for being unable to contain such petty longing, for not understanding why she couldn’t simply ignore it all.

And yet, the fact that she couldn’t look away from their happiness made her feel like a worm crawling along the ground.

Each time Lysithea desired something she could not have, she punished herself even more harshly.

Exhausting her body and mind brought a sense of stability.

Stuffing her head with knowledge, honing her body—doing so gave her a sense of fulfillment, as though she had finally found some use for herself.

Just as Lysithea’s world was settling into a fragile peace, it shattered once again during the winter she turned sixteen, when a fever epidemic spread.

It began with frail Celia, then Edward—and even Lysithea, who had never been prone to illness, fell gravely ill with a raging fever.

Burning with heat so intense her ears rang, Lysithea suddenly heard approaching footsteps.

Heavy, hurried steps—those of an anxious adult man.

No servant in the estate would make such a sound. The owner of those footsteps could only be her father.

Under normal circumstances, she would never have thought so—but perhaps the pain had clouded her mind.

Lysithea mistook the rushing footsteps as coming for her.

So much so that even after the sound passed her door and faded into the distance, she couldn’t bring herself to believe it.

‘Ah… right. The twins’ room is on the west wing.’

Her father had been rushing in concern for the sick twins, as always.

He probably didn’t even know that she herself was ill.

For several days afterward, the sound of her father’s footsteps continued to pass by her room.

‘I’m sick of this. I’d rather just melt away and disappear. No—better yet, I wish everyone would just die. I’m tired. I’m so tired…’

She wanted to kill the part of herself that still longed for such paltry affection.

And she wanted to kill everyone who had made her so miserable.

“Miss, the Duke of Spencer’s household has sent a gift, wishing you a swift recovery.”

It was a gift from the House of Spencer, to which she had been betrothed four years earlier.

‘Ah… the day I was supposed to meet Joel Spencer was two days ago.’

Lysithea stared blankly at the basket woven skillfully from golden roses.

‘Did they choose it to match my eye color…?’

In the Empire, it was customary to send flowers matching the patient’s eye color as a wish for recovery.

Not yellow roses—but golden ones.

Even for the Duke of Spencer’s house, acquiring them must have taken considerable effort.

Though she knew it was foolish to imagine Joel himself had chosen them, her weakened mind wandered endlessly between hope and despair.

Lysithea reached out and grasped the flowers.

The beautifully blooming roses crumpled mercilessly in her hand.

‘How will you shatter my expectations? What stands in the way of Joel Spencer and Lysithea Aster? I need to know. I’ll destroy it all. If I can’t have it, no one will.’

Perhaps her desperate wish was answered.

That night, Lysithea dreamed of reading a book.

A story of the world, with Joel Spencer and Lillian Rose as its protagonists.

Only then—after learning the secret of the world—did Lysithea understand why she had never been loved by anyone.

Wasn’t it always the unloved who were cast as villains?

Looking around her vast, cold room, devoid of even the slightest warmth, Lysithea thought it was a fitting environment for the growth of a villain.

A fool who, never cherished by anyone, never loved throughout her life, would be twisted by rage and inferiority and walk into her own ruin.

That was the fate given to her.

“Ah… it hurts…”

As Lysithea climbed out of bed, she collapsed straight onto the floor.

Though the fever had broken, her bones ached as though pierced by knives.

In that moment, she realized that something inside her body had been irrevocably broken.

She believed it was the price she had paid for glimpsing the story of the world.

As Lysithea lost her healthy body, death visited Aster once more.

Emma—the Marchioness of Aster, the twins’ birth mother, the woman her father loved so dearly—had passed away.

Lysithea regained consciousness, coincidentally, on the day of Emma’s funeral.

Watching her father sob with his entire being at his wife’s funeral, Lysithea recalled a scene long buried in the depths of her memory.

Her father’s face at Julia’s funeral—marked only by exhaustion and faint relief.

She stared blankly at her father when Edward noticed her and screamed at her through a face drenched in tears.

“It’s your fault! Because of you, my mother died! You—you killed my mother!”

“Edward, let go of this—”

“Mother said we should have kept our distance from you, you Rowen brat!”

Still weak from her illness, Lysithea staggered as Edward shook her.

They hadn’t been close, but she had thought he was better than Celia, who constantly picked fights with her…

What had gone wrong this time?

Trying to understand the situation, Lysithea looked around.

The mourners filling the hall merely whispered among themselves, watching without intervening.

Why?

This was unjust.

Even if Edward was venting misplaced anger in his grief, shouldn’t at least one person have stopped him?

Then, sensing the disturbance, her father grabbed Edward’s thrashing body.

Only then was Lysithea finally freed.

“Eddie, that’s enough.”

“Father…”

“Enough, enough. Don’t wound your own heart any further.”

“Father, Mother… Mother…”

“Eddie, my child—your words are hurting you.”

Her father’s back trembled as he held Edward in his arms.

He wept while soothing his wounded child.

Only then did Lysithea understand why her injustice had been ignored.

Because she was an orphan no one protected—
and in any conflict with Edward, whom the Marquess of Aster loved, she was destined to lose forever.