Chapter 11
‘Like a final banquet or something?’
Aria looked down at the note that said she should leave once she recovered.
No matter how she thought about it, it felt like a kind of consideration—telling her to enjoy desserts of every kind before being kicked out, since she wouldn’t even get to taste them afterward.
“If you want to try all the desserts, you should get better quickly,” Dana said, suddenly holding out a pill.
Aria swallowed it before she even realized what she was doing.
“You take medicine well. How commendable,” Dana said, placing a small bottle into Aria’s arms.
‘…What is this?’
Inside the bottle were tiny, sharp-looking, multicolored pellets.
They sparkled like jewels. Translucent, almost like uncut gemstones.
“Do you like sugar candy?” Dana asked.
Sugar candy? This is candy?
Aria suspiciously looked into the bottle, then opened the cork and crunched one piece.
A sweet taste spread across her tongue.
‘I want another one.’
It wasn’t painfully sweet enough to make her tongue sting.
But it melted so quickly, leaving behind a sweetness that made her want more.
Aria smacked her lips and carefully decided to store the bottle in her drawer.
It felt too precious to eat, like it was made of jewels.
‘Like a squirrel hiding acorns…’
The servants in the room clenched their teeth with all their strength. The urge to call her cute was almost unbearable.
But only the head maid had been permitted to gently pat her head.
‘We mustn’t startle the young lady.’
Otherwise, she might again hold up a sulky card saying [I’m not a baby].
The servants silently stole glances at the child-like fairy they all hoped would someday be their turn to dote on.
Each time the servants visited Aria, they brought armfuls of flowers.
“This is called dahlia,” one said.
“This is primula,” said another.
“This one is muscari. Its flower language is…”
Before long, the guest room where Aria stayed was filled with vases and pots of flowers.
The scent of blossoms filled the room.
‘I’ve never seen these flowers before.’
So spring flowers had so many kinds.
Aria stretched her neck like a meerkat, looking around curiously. Dana placed a bouquet into her arms and said,
“Please don’t stand by the window for a while—be satisfied with these instead.”
Aria obediently nodded.
“And from today, knights will be assigned to temporarily guard you.”
Knights lined up and introduced themselves.
Because Aria had once gone out alone in the rain and fallen ill afterward, Dana had urgently requested protection from higher authorities.
Most knights treated Aria with great respect, but one of them looked displeased.
‘Knight Anjou, was it?’
Maybe he was unhappy because he had been forced to abandon his usual duties.
He had a clearly dissatisfied expression.
As she observed him carefully, something suddenly tickled her nose.
“…Chu.”
At once, everyone turned toward the sound in confusion.
“Chu!”
“….”
“…Chut!”
When the sneezing stopped, Aria quietly rubbed her nose with her sleeve. It wasn’t quite an allergy, but sometimes it happened when she inhaled strong scents.
Her cheeks turned slightly red from embarrassment.
“Ah, Head Maid!”
At that moment, Betty rushed over.
She was holding a small booklet titled “Visiting Etiquette.”
“Look at this! It says flowers are prohibited items for visits from outside!”
“What? Why?”
“Because of allergies or risk of infection.”
“That’s terrible!”
Outside?
Aria wiped her itchy nose with her sleeve and looked up.
Dana and Betty leaned in and discussed.
“But Madam is also from outside, isn’t she? I change the flowers in her vase every morning.”
“Even within the territory, some people are weak and others are strong.”
“Wait, does that mean the young lady is even more fragile than Madam…?”
“Remove all the flowers immediately.”
At Dana’s order, the maids quickly carried all the flowers out of the room.
Aria stared helplessly at the taken bouquets when Dana sighed in relief.
“Phew… that was close. It’s my first time caring for someone from beyond the boundary, so I made a mistake.”
[Beyond the boundary?]
She had heard it a few times before.
But this time, she couldn’t help asking.
“They mean outside the Valentine territory. The ‘boundary’ refers to the Ingo Mountains surrounding Valentine.”
[Am I very weak?]
At the question, Dana smiled gently.
“People from the Grand Duchy are just strong. Everyone is confident in their health and sturdy.”
That made sense.
Even the wolves she had seen here were gigantic monsters.
Humans probably weren’t normal either.
‘Everyone is physically strong here.’
In contrast to Aria, whose body was weak but senses were sharp.
She looked ordinary on the outside, though. Aria looked up at Dana curiously.
“Well, no matter how strong they are, they can’t compare to the Valentine bloodline.”
A hint of reverence flickered in Dana’s eyes.
She then rubbed her neck, getting goosebumps, and looked back at Aria worriedly.
“Why is the fever not going down…?”
It had only been one day.
Aria thought this internally, but the maids began arguing among themselves.
“The book says when you have a fever, you should wrap yourself in blankets and sweat it out!”
“If you raise her temperature more, she’ll die! You should use cold water!”
“You’re trying to freeze the young lady to death! You should increase the room temperature instead…”
They were debating how to treat the fever of a delicate young lady from outside.
She had already taken medicine, and the fever would go down eventually anyway.
“Miss, I brought ginger tea.”
“What if the spiciness of ginger hurts her stomach?”
“I didn’t think of that!”
It was better not to think further.
Their imagination was too rich.
“Fufu, I anticipated this and prepared something,” Betty said proudly, holding out a steaming cup.
In her hand was a booklet titled “Foods Good for Colds.”
“I made it by mixing raw egg yolk with honey, then foaming it with milk and butter.”
She said it was a special remedy from beyond the boundary, looking quite proud.
One maid hesitantly asked,
“But Head Maid, isn’t raw egg dangerous in terms of infection?”
“In-infection?”
“Food poisoning, maybe…”
Betty quickly pulled the drink away.
“Then what should we do? Just sit and watch?”
The maids huddled together, whispering so Aria wouldn’t hear.
Of course, with a siren’s hearing, she could hear everything.
“Listen, people from outside are weak. And the young lady is even weaker among them. Think of her as a newborn baby by our standards.”
…I’m not a baby.
But Aria no longer felt like running away in embarrassment.
Because she understood they were truly worried about her.
‘I don’t dislike this.’
The way they treated her so carefully, as if she might break if touched or blown away by wind.
‘It feels precious.’
Aria was being treated as a person.
Regardless of status, regardless of her siren abilities.
She hadn’t meant to smile, but the corners of her lips slowly curled upward.
She grabbed Dana’s sleeve tightly and held out a card she had been fiddling with.
[Thank you always.]
A card she had made in advance, thinking she might use it someday.
It felt like the right time to show it now.
“Ha, so weak… People from outside really are useless…”
At that moment,
a foreign voice slipped through the emotional voices of the servants.
‘Knight Anjou.’
It was the knight assigned to guard her temporarily.
None of the other servants seemed to hear him. He had muttered it almost under his breath.
But Aria, whose senses had become extremely sharp due to her fever, heard it clearly.
“Such a difference in class. I wonder if she can even bear heirs like that.”
Aria stared at the knight.
He met her gaze and looked slightly startled.
‘Don’t tell me she heard that.’
No, impossible. There was no way she could hear a mutter from this far away.
As proof, neither the other knights nor the servants were looking at Anjou.
Only Aria was staring directly at him with an unsettlingly precise gaze.
‘…So what if she heard it?’
The knight lifted his chin arrogantly.
He disliked being forced to babysit a troublesome child.
And especially someone of unclear origin.
‘Not even a proper duchess.’
She had entered the castle as a candidate for the Grand Duchess, but she wasn’t anything yet.
No marriage contract had been signed, no dowry exchanged.
Only her father’s renunciation of parental rights existed.
That was why she was still called “young lady” among the servants.
‘I heard the Grand Duke even injured her neck.’
The knight glanced at the bandage around Aria’s neck and smiled faintly.
Even if noble marriages were political transactions, consent was still required.
And yet the Grand Duke had drawn a sword against a fragile girl who looked like she could collapse with a touch.
It meant she had displeased him greatly.
‘If she isn’t even officially married and gets expelled, that would be no surprise.’
It was obvious she would be cast out without even completing the marriage.
That was why he could act so boldly toward a supposed duchess candidate.
‘Class.’
Aria repeated the word internally and let out a quiet scoff.
Dividing people by class.
‘Stupid judgment.’
Whether it was Valentine, the Emperor, or the Pope—no matter their power, they were still humans who bled when cut.
If the Valentine lineage were truly so absolute and different, then why did the “Valentine Incident” happen?
Why did Lloyd go mad?
Aria believed all humans were imperfect, including herself.
There was no such thing as a perfect human.
No—humans were all the same.
‘Does it really matter whether I was born a noble, a commoner, or a slave in a gutter?’
Her mood turned unpleasant.
It felt as though the knight had thrown the servants’ precious feelings into the trash.
Aria took out paper and a fountain pen and wrote on several cards.
Then she beckoned the knight with her finger. Though reluctant, he approached.
“Speak. Ah, you cannot speak. Forgive my rudeness…”
He said mockingly, openly insulting her.
