Chapter: 2
“Rudi, Rudi Rudiana!”
“Hah—!”
“Oh my, are you all right?”
In the afternoon, sunlight streamed through the gaps in the curtains as Rudiana opened her eyes to a voice she had longed to hear.
“M… Mom?”
Eyes that looked just like her own curved gently. The moment Rudiana saw that face, tears spilled down her cheeks.
“It’s all right, Rudi. It was just a dream. Mommy’s here.”
“Sniff… h-hic….”
So this is heaven. That’s why I can see Mom.
If that was the case, then dying hadn’t been so bad after all. Thinking that, Rudiana burrowed into her mother’s arms.
“Kyaa—!”
“Young master! Are you all right?!”
At that moment, a sound far too vivid and sharp to belong in heaven rang out from beyond the door. Startled by the noise and the creeping sense of déjà vu, Rudiana stopped crying and hurried outside.
“You—! You—! How dare you!!”
There, young Nartas and Irene were sprawled on the floor.
As people began to gather, Nartas’s face flushed red and blue. He raised his hand and struck Irene’s left cheek—she was barely a handspan shorter than him.
Smack.
The sound was far too loud and brutal for a child’s slap.
“Irene!”
Roselyn, Rudiana’s mother, who had followed her outside, rushed forward in alarm. Wrapping her arms around the trembling Irene, Roselyn spoke in a heated voice.
“Nartas, Irene is your sister.”
Her voice was pressed down tightly as she struggled to suppress her anger.
“Hah, sister? I have no sister, Lady Roselyn.”
Nartas emphasized the last words, folding his arms with an arrogant expression.
That familiar sense of déjà vu—an unforgettable incident from the past—unfolded right before Rudiana’s eyes. Unlike the three women who had been banished to the annex, Nartas, the heir of Nuremberg, lived in the main estate. They rarely crossed paths. But that day, Nartas’s curiosity had gotten the better of him.
“Nartas.”
As Roselyn carefully helped Irene to her feet, she spoke again in a lowered voice.
This is about where I lost control and lunged at Nartas.
Because of the scratches Nartas received from her nails that day, Rudiana had been dragged to the main estate and subjected to cruel punishment.
“How dare a mere woman injure the body of Nuremberg’s heir.”
Lea—Nartas’s biological mother and Rudiana’s stepmother—had beaten Rudiana’s calves until they swelled. Jonas, her biological father, hadn’t stopped it. From that day on, Rudiana never dared to stand up to Nartas again.
“What? Why?”
Back then, Rudiana hadn’t been able to hold back her anger—at Nartas for striking Irene, and for belittling her mother.
“M-Mom… I’m okay….”
Irene’s trembling hand clutched the hem of Roselyn’s skirt.
Roselyn’s dress was worn thin from years of use, while Irene’s clothes were far too short for her growing body, the sleeves riding awkwardly up her arms. In contrast, Nartas’s garments were spotless, adorned with glittering decorations.
“Irene….”
Seeing Irene shake as she tried to stop her, Roselyn’s heart throbbed painfully.
Knowing that even Roselyn—an adult and the legal wife—could do nothing, Nartas lifted his chin even higher.
“Hah, honestly. The annex is really pathetic. Let’s go!”
“Indeed. Our Irene was at fault. Lord Nartas Berter.”
At that moment, Rudiana stepped forward and bowed deeply, putting emphasis on the last words.
“What?”
Nartas, who had been turning away with his maids, flushed and whipped his head back around. It was as though she had struck a forbidden nerve—one vein in the center of his forehead visibly bulged.
“I offered my apology, Lord Nartas.”
Rudiana bowed again, perfectly polite, as if it had all been an innocent mistake. Notably, she did not use the name Nuremberg.
“Y-You—!”
Berter was the surname of Lea, Nartas’s mother. After Nartas’s birth, Lea had sought to become Jonas’s legal wife, but Jonas had yet to grant permission. Thus, she remained “Berter.”
Although Nartas, as Jonas’s legitimate son, bore the name Nuremberg, he had always been ashamed of his mother’s inability to take that name.
She does become a Nuremberg eventually.
But for now, she was still Berter.
“What’s wrong, Lord Nartas?”
Rudiana smiled brightly at him.
Breathing harshly, Nartas glared at her for a moment before finally giving up and storming down the corridor. The instant he turned away, Rudiana’s expression hardened as she stared after him.
You piece of trash.
This was only the beginning. A few months later, her mother would grow steadily weaker for no apparent reason and die before the year was out. Though her death was riddled with unanswered questions, Jonas never investigated it seriously.
It has to be connected to Lea or Jonas.
Roselyn’s funeral was brief. Soon after, Lea became the lady of House Nuremberg. Still, the label of “second wife” followed her everywhere, and Nartas’s inferiority complex only deepened with each passing year.
“Rudi.”
Behind her, Roselyn called out in a trembling voice.
Rudiana smoothed her expression and turned back with an innocent smile.
“Yes, Mother.”
Her pitiful mother, pushed aside by a mistress and exiled to the annex.
“Why did you do that…?”
Roselyn didn’t finish her sentence, but she knew Rudiana had deliberately humiliated Nartas.
“Hm? What do you mean?”
Rudiana feigned ignorance, lifting her chubby thirteen-year-old cheeks into a wide smile. Anyone who saw it would never suspect she’d done it on purpose.
“…Never mind.”
Thinking it impossible that young Rudiana could have acted intentionally, Roselyn let the matter drop.
“Anyway, Mother. Irene looks like she’ll be in a lot of pain. I’ll go get something for her cheek.”
“All right, thank you.”
“Thank you, Sister.”
Rudiana smiled gently at the still-sniffling Irene and headed for the kitchen.
Unlike the main estate bustling with servants, the annex was little more than an abandoned building. Poorly maintained and devoid of staff, Rudiana, her mother, and her sister had always taken care of themselves.
She hurriedly filled a bucket with water.
“So you really came back?”
Staring at her reflection in the water, her amethyst-purple eyes darted in disbelief.
Long black hair, dry from lack of nourishment. Cheeks still round with baby fat, yet thin all the same. Lips tinged blue from the cold annex despite it being spring. It was exactly how she remembered herself at thirteen.
“Hah!”
After a moment of thought, Rudiana suddenly turned her head and laughed. The sound carried a mix of emptiness, relief, and something more.
Yet above all those tangled emotions, she was happy.
I can save Mom. I can save Irene!
A few years from now, she would lose them both. Roselyn, her body ruined by repeated childbirth and never properly cared for, would waste away day by day. Irene, married off like merchandise, would despair over her fate and choose death.
Both were among the cruelest endings an imperial woman could face.
If I really have returned….
This time, she would save them all. A sharp light gleamed in Rudiana’s purple eyes.
But only briefly. Soon, she let out another sigh as she stared at her reflection again.
First, I have to get out of here.
But how?
Even if she left the estate like this, she’d only die on the streets. She needed someone’s help—
Ah.
A man who had truly raged for her until the moment of her execution. A man who had genuinely wept at her mother’s funeral. His face came to mind.
Allen Pianus. She had to go to him.
After delivering the bucket and a clean cloth to Irene’s room, Rudiana returned to her own.
There’s no time.
Allen Pianus would one day become the center of the Eastern faction—and the only man capable of restraining Nuremberg. But around this time, there was only one occasion when he came west.
“The Emperor’s Coronation!”
The day Casimir de Calatos, crown prince and successor to Leopold de Calatos—the hero who turned the western kingdom of Calatos into an empire—would ascend the throne.
Every noble in the empire would gather for the coronation. Especially those from the East, eager to demonstrate their unwavering loyalty.
The ceremony was three days away. No matter what, she had to meet Duke Pianus that day.
Though the chilly air stung her nose and her breath came out in white puffs, Rudiana gazed up at the sky beyond the window, her expression burning with resolve.
