TSHF 02

On the day of Mother’s funeral, rain fell from the early morning.

Her coffin was laid to rest in the imperial family cemetery at the very back of the palace grounds.

As the coffin was lowered into the earth, the Emperor knelt without even holding an umbrella, wailing openly.

“Aaaah! Tilia! My Tilia!”

When the supreme ruler of the nation was like that, how could anyone dare remain standing?

Everyone attending the funeral knelt behind the Emperor.

My younger brother, Moren, and I did the same.

“Tilia!”

The Emperor sobbed as if he had lost his mind.

Because he stood in the way, Mother’s grave was hard to see.

Suddenly, I felt a tight grip on my hand.

“Hh….”

When I turned, I saw Moren staring straight ahead, desperately swallowing his tears.

Since the Emperor was crying, we couldn’t even grieve more loudly.

And so the young Moren shook all over, holding back his sobs—

clutching my hand with all the strength he had.

I squeezed his hand back and looked at the Emperor.

He was a greedy man who had always wanted to consume everything about Mother.

‘Is that why he wants to monopolize even her final moments?’

Not even allowing her own children to share them.

‘Mother….’

That night—she hadn’t been alone.

I should have kept Modway by her side the whole time. No, I should have gone to her myself.

‘I knew better than anyone that I must never let my guard down.’

So why now…?

That single moment of carelessness led to an irreversible result.

‘Why did I do that?’

Why did I fail to protect Mother, just because of people’s gazes?

Regret, sorrow, and deep self-reproach crashed into my chest.

It hurt so badly that I barely managed to lift my eyes to the sky.

Raindrops fell endlessly from the thick, dark clouds.

Standing there, unable to even open an umbrella as I followed the Emperor, I felt the rain soak into me—when Marin appeared and whispered.

[Master, I gathered all the rain clouds nearby~. It’ll keep raining until this evening~.]

‘…Good work.’

[Don’t be in too much pain, Master~. Death is nothing more than a new beginning in the end.]

After rubbing her head against my cheek in comfort, Marin disappeared.

I stared blankly up at the sky.

Raindrops pattered against my eyelids.

‘It’s a relief that rain was forecast to come in a few days.’

Thanks to that, I could move Marin and bring the rain forward.

The reason I did this was simple.

‘Under the rain, even tears I can’t fully hide can be concealed.’

“Ugh… Mother….”

For Moren, who kept his head bowed the entire time—

and for myself, whose tears had been flowing without pause—

this rain was, in the end, for the living.

‘Yes. Maybe this is exactly why I failed to protect Mother.’

A small realization brushed past my mind.

Even at a moment like this, I couldn’t grieve purely—I was already thinking ahead, wary of being blamed later.

For years I had acted like a sunlit child for Mother’s sake, but one’s innate nature can’t be changed.

‘So….’

I slowly lifted my gaze.

Mother’s burial had been fully completed, and the Emperor—who had been sobbing—had risen from his knees.

He stared at her grave, then stiffly turned his head to look behind him.

In that instant, my eyes met the Emperor’s blood-red gaze.

Half-turned, he stared straight through me, something boiling in his eyes.

‘Hostility.’

Faced with that vivid emotion, I lowered my eyes.

Once more, a spirit’s voice rang in my ears.

It was Modway.

[Master, I remember what poison your mom took!]

As I listened to the whisper that followed, my hand clenched into a fist on its own.

My eyes must have been burning with hatred.

But I couldn’t let that show—not yet—so all I could do was bow my head, pretending to be obedient.

‘This can’t end like this.’

No matter how firmly the Emperor declared it a suicide, he couldn’t escape my eyes—or the spirits who stood with me.

‘I’m certain. Mother was murdered.’

And so, to the one who killed you, I will make them pay—no matter what.

Whether you want it or not.

‘This is who I’ve always been, Mother.’

The sunlight was gone.

My first memory.

It was when I was very young, playing alone, when the spirits appeared before me for the first time.

[Wow! A new master! Hi hi! I’m Modway!]

[Oh my~ what a cute little girl~? I’m Marin~ nice to meet you~.]

[My name is Nesgalio. But for the three of us to appear at once…! This master must possess tremendous power!]

A semi-transparent bird fluttering around me, a fish glowing with an enigmatic blue light, and a lizard marked with flame-like patterns—

I quietly observed them, then whispered to my nanny.

“Nanny, look. Those animals are talking.”

“…Pardon?”

“They’re talking to each other. Can’t you hear them?”

The nanny grew deeply worried that day.

Because she could see nothing, and hear nothing, at all.

She immediately reported my condition to Mother.

“It seems the Princess is showing symptoms of madness.”

Mother bristled with displeasure at those words.

“How is that madness? Neroli just has a vivid imagination! Any child could be like that!”

The nanny couldn’t understand Mother either.

Mother disliked her, saying she was overly sensitive, while the nanny looked down on Mother for being uneducated.

Especially disapproving of Mother, the nanny later called me aside and emphasized this repeatedly.

“Princess Neroli, do you remember what I told you?”

“Yes. The royal family of Lornod inherited the blood of dragons and possesses immense power. But great power comes with great responsibility.”

“Exactly. That responsibility manifests in various symptoms—hallucinations or hearing voices, like you’re experiencing now.”

“So if your condition worsens, you must tell me immediately. Understood?”

I nodded at her final words, but after that, I never again spoke of seeing spirits.

Instinctively, I knew they weren’t hallucinations, voices, or figments of my imagination.

“Where did you come from?”

When I asked them in secret, the spirits always answered the same way.

[We were sleeping all along!]

[Until we met our master, we were nothing more than nature itself~.]

[Only one chosen human can form a contract with us!]

As time passed and I was granted access to the central imperial library, I began researching spirits.

Strangely, there were hardly any books about them. The only information I managed to uncover was this:

“The dragon’s blood, which holds immense magic, and the power of spirits imbued with divinity are fundamentally incompatible.”

It was a sentence shared by all books related to divine power—each sealed away as forbidden texts.

The shock I felt upon learning this is still vivid.

‘The royal family of Lornod are, beyond doubt, descendants of dragons.’

Because dragon blood flowed through them, they possessed bodies so extraordinary that no poison or illness could bring them down—and even a blessing that caused would-be assassins to die instead.

With these transcendent abilities, Lornod had held the title of the strongest nation on the continent for centuries.

Which meant that I—of the Emperor’s bloodline—should never have been able to see spirits, nor hear their voices.

The fact that I could meant only one thing…

‘That I might not be the Emperor’s biological daughter.’

Only after that suspicion arose did I recall Mother’s unusual behavior.

A mother who never let me do anything dangerous, fearing I might get even the smallest injury.

A mother who would turn pale and berate the physicians if I so much as tripped.

A mother who, when the time came, gathered precious medicinal ingredients and fed them to me endlessly.

‘A mother who was unusually sensitive about me being unwell.’

History held no shortage of overzealous empresses who forced healthy remedies on their children.

So everyone simply believed Mother cherished me deeply—and thanks to that devotion, I grew up healthy like my other siblings.

‘But in truth, it was all to hide the fact that I wasn’t born with Lornod’s body or its blessings.’

After that, I contracted with the spirits to gather more information, even conducting experiments—inflicting various wounds on myself and timing how long they took to heal.

Those efforts gradually hardened into certainty.

‘That I was Mother’s illegitimate child.’

I tried to understand her.

A woman forced to become Empress because of the Emperor would have had nowhere to run.

If it was to keep me alive, perhaps that was the best choice she had.

Yet alongside that understanding came an unavoidable sense of betrayal.

Because somewhere deep down, I believed Mother would never deceive me.

Her unpredictability exhausted me, but—

‘I thought Mother was the only one in this palace who was on my side.’

But what could I do?

I could suppress my emotions, but I couldn’t deny the truth before my eyes.

Digging deeper and unsettling Mother would have been dangerous, so I lived with my nerves constantly on edge.

‘So that no one would ever doubt my birth, I always acted bright.’

More lovable, pretending to know nothing—innocent, cheerful, and just a little oblivious.

The more transparent I acted, the more Mother smiled, and the less anyone suspected me—so I wore that mask with everything I had.

‘Come to think of it, I really did everything I could to play the role of sunlight.’

Even taking up gardening was part of that act.