TINOT 4

Chapter: 4

“I didn’t realize you were injured—”

“Even if I weren’t injured, the proper order would be to apologize first for dragging someone down so violently. Not to state your business as if nothing happened.”

“……”

“And an even more basic principle would be that you shouldn’t be inflicting such ruthless violence on others in the first place.”

Celia screamed and raged inside the annex where Lysithea lived, until she finally collapsed and lost consciousness.

From the moment Edward heard that story, he could no longer think straight.

To pressure fragile Celia until she fainted—and then calmly go out as if nothing had happened?

The sheer audacity made his blood boil.

He could see nothing else but the thought that he had to stop Lysithea before she boarded the carriage.

He truly hadn’t expected her to be injured.

“Do I really have to teach you even the most basic manners?”

“I apologize for your injury caused by my carelessness. However, I have something I must say to my elder sister—”

“I have absolutely no desire to speak with you. Is there any reason I should tolerate you?”

“Celia suffered a seizure and fainted. It happened immediately after meeting you. And even then, you see no reason to speak with me?”

Where did that confidence come from—that Celia’s collapse would be a matter of great concern to Lysithea?

That unwavering belief that the entire world should tremble over his twin sister’s well-being was, at times, almost admirable.

“That’s a reason you want to talk to me, not a reason I need to talk to you. Why should I accept a deal that benefits only one side?”

“A deal? You speak of bargains when Celia has collapsed?”

Edward looked at Lysithea with an expression of utter revulsion, as if she were something less than human.

Well, if he found her that monstrous, she was more than happy to play along.

“Shall we start at 1,000 gold for ten minutes? Interested?”

Lysithea smiled brightly as she made the offer.

A thousand gold was roughly a year’s allowance for most noble ladies.

It wasn’t money Edward, the Marquess of Aster’s younger son, couldn’t afford—but it certainly wasn’t something he could toss away lightly.

And to spend it just to talk for ten minutes with a half-sister he loathed? It was an outrageous waste.

“Are you out of your mind?”

“I’m perfectly normal—by my usual standards. What my ‘usual’ is like isn’t for you to decide.”

If you pick a fight with a madwoman, you’d better be prepared to be dragged into madness.

Lysithea tapped her wrist with her index finger, urging him to decide.

After glaring at her as if he wanted to kill her, Edward removed the sapphire ring from his well-manicured finger and held it out.

“Even if sold immediately, this would fetch at least 3,000 gold. That means I’ve bought thirty minutes of your time, correct?”

Who decided it was thirty minutes?

He’d always believed the world followed his expectations.

“The base rate and extensions cost extra. Fifteen minutes. Finish within that.”

At her shameless reply, Edward let out a hollow laugh.

“Celia collapsed. What did you say to her?”

“She said that because I was foolishly taken advantage of by Joel Spencer, Aster became a laughingstock. So I told her it had nothing to do with you.”

“Did you really have to say it that way? Celia was only thinking of you—”

He had been the one insulted, and yet he still managed to find a way to defend Celia in her words.

Edward’s rose-colored glasses were as thick as ever.

Frankly, it would’ve been easier to deal with Celia when she exploded in rage and collapsed under the weight of her own emotions.

Edward’s polished contempt and indifference were like stiff paper cuts—casual, but vicious enough to sour one’s mood.

“I also told her to be happy, because I’d disappear from this house forever, since I’m apparently the only problem here.”

“What are you—”

Edward reflexively tried to deny it, but his words trailed off.

Yes. Of course.

He wasn’t like Celia, who had flown into a rage at the idea of her leaving.

The young Marquess of Aster couldn’t even bring himself to tell her—if only falsely—not to go.

“You should be happier, Edward. You’ve always been desperate to get rid of me.”

To erase Lysithea from Aster forever—

That was Edward’s most fervent wish.

“You were always wary of me, afraid I might borrow my maternal family’s power and do something to your precious Celia and to Aster.”

Born without the ability to use magic, and not even eligible to inherit Aster—who would ever take interest in Lysithea?

That Edward was the one who evaluated her capabilities the highest among all who knew her was deeply ironic.

Yet Lysithea despised both his vigilance and his appraisal.

“I’m telling you—I don’t covet your Aster in the slightest. That trash is precious only to you. To me, it’s nothing.”

Like a mother cat baring her claws to protect her kitten, Edward’s hostility—bristling the moment he saw her—was tiresome and irritating.

“But you keep acting like this, and it’s starting to annoy me. Makes me wonder… what if I tried tearing it all down?”

“……”

“Do you think I’d do a good job?”

“This is exactly why I can’t trust you.”

People believed Lysithea had no interest in Aster.

But Edward never believed that for a moment.

Since the winter when he was fourteen, Edward had never once forgotten that she was the greatest threat to his family’s peace.

“…Edward. Did you really think I wanted your trust?”

There had been a time when she had held something like trust toward him.

“Elder Sister, have you read this book?”

“I heard you were injured. I use this medicine myself—I wanted to give it to you…”

“Um… would it be alright if I came again?”

She had even felt the joy of taming a wary, bristling cat.

“It’s your fault! Because of you, our mother died!”

“You—you killed our mother!”

“I should’ve listened to Mother and kept my distance from you, the daughter of Lowen…”

Bloodshot eyes. Screams filled with hatred. A face twisted in pure hostility.

Lysithea endured Edward’s blade-like hatred with nothing but her bare body.

And the eyes watching it all—so many eyes.

Not a single person stopped Edward’s verbal assault.

As if it were only natural that Lysithea should bear it.

“Eddie, that’s enough.”

“Father…”

“Enough. Stop hurting yourself.”

“Father, Mother—Mother is—”

“Eddie, my child… what you’re saying is hurting you.”

That day, what the father showed was not a matter of loving one child more and the other less.

It was a desperate cry demanding that she finally understand—

That among the two children standing before him, only one was truly his child.

That day, Lysithea realized that she had already lost her mother and father long ago.

“Eddie, don’t provoke me anymore. Unless you’re curious how far I’m willing to go.”

Lysithea gently patted the wounded cheek of her once-close half-brother and climbed into the carriage.

A fight between an attacker and a defender is inherently unfair.

The attacker needs to succeed only once in a hundred attempts to win.

The defender, on the other hand, loses everything if they fail even once.

What is this affection that drives people to enter such an unfair battle?

It was likely a feeling Lysithea would never understand in her lifetime.

Inside the carriage, she collapsed face-first onto the seat.

Her head and heart felt like they were splitting apart.

“Mari… painkillers… please…”

She couldn’t afford to lose consciousness now.

After barely swallowing water and medicine, Lysithea forced herself upright.

But no matter how she steadied her mind, her awareness kept slipping.

At this rate, she felt certain she would dream—

A terrible dream.

One like that winter when she was sixteen.

***

Lysithea Aster’s first misfortune was her abnormally sharp memory.

She remembered nearly every moment of her life—starting from the instant she was born.

The despairing expression on her biological mother Julia’s face as she held her newborn, the scream of shock, the sound of crying—

From the moment she was born, Lysithea knew she was an unwelcome child.

A child no one welcomes does not cry or fuss.

As if she already understood that there was no one who would soothe her.

“She doesn’t seem like a baby… She doesn’t smile or cry.”

“It’s… unsettling.”

People found a baby who didn’t cry disturbing.

So too were the golden eyes that stared as though they knew everything.

“Aren’t those eyes ominous?”

“She’s not childlike at all. There’s nothing cute about her.”

A gloomy, uncanny child received no one’s love.

As abnormal as her memory was, her cognitive abilities matured just as rapidly.

Her unstable environment only hastened that abnormal development.

By the age of one, she had a rough grasp of her situation.

The greatest contributors to that understanding were her biological parents themselves.

“Is there proof that a child born without magic is a flaw of Lowen? Perhaps it’s Aster’s deficiency.”

“Does such petty blame even matter? Our union has failed, and that failure is irreversible.”

“If we keep trying until it succeeds, then it’s not a failure.”

“…Are you serious?”

“Do you still intend to indulge yourself? A child bearing the blood of both Lowen and Aster—Lowen isn’t the only one who needs that, is it? Are you planning to hand the Cullinan Mine over to Lowen?”

“You’d sell even your soul for the sake of your family’s prosperity.”

“Does saying that make you sound more noble? If your soul is more precious than your family’s rise, then choose it.”

“You go too far.”

“So by choosing nothing, sacrificing nothing, and blaming others, your noble soul grows richer?”

Through these endlessly repeated arguments, Lysithea absorbed information at an alarming pace.

The ducal House of Lowen and the marquessate of Aster—both high-ranking noble families of the Kairos Empire—had long been locked in a dispute over the Cullinan Mine.

Cullinan, first discovered in a mine straddling their borders, possessed extremely high magical resonance and was worth whatever price one demanded.

To control Cullinan was effectively to control the future magestone market—making it impossible for either side to yield.

To end the conflict, the two houses agreed to transfer ownership of the Cullinan Mine to a child bearing the blood of both families.

And thus, born entirely of calculation, necessity, and ironclad agreement—

Was Lysithea Aster.