The Hidden Twin
Leveln had become the kingdom it was today by absorbing and unifying territories through conquest wars against four neighboring countries. After the wars, the original territory of Leveln became Levelhorn, serving as the capital under the direct rule of the king.
The absorbed neighboring countries were divided into four regions centered around Levelhorn, each governed by a single lord with vassals beneath them.
These fiefdoms were split into the Duchy of Zerkan in the east, the Duchy of Schaller in the west, the Duchy of Kalius in the south, and the Duchy of Grusewald in the north. Among them, the Grusewald Duchy held the largest territory.
Unlike the other lords of the east, west, and south, the northern Duke of Grusewald had not been defeated and absorbed. Instead, the Grusewald family, originally of royal blood, had voluntarily relinquished their royal lineage and submitted to the Leveln Kingdom.
In other words, before Leveln's absorption, the Grusewald ducal house had ruled an entire nation as its royal family. Now, it stood as one of the four great lords supporting the king, wielding immense influence. Far from an ordinary noble house, it was a prestigious lineage of ancient nobility whose name carried extraordinary renown and honor.
A carriage from this illustrious family came to a stop before the remote villa in the mountains.
The young man who stepped down from the carriage possessed the same snow-white skin, silver hair, and water-blue eyes as Orldette.
Blair von Grusewald……
He was indeed the second son of the Grusewald ducal house. As expected of the blood relative of Lady Orldette, whose beauty was legendary.
Lerusha withdrew her gaze from the man entering the villa and caught sight of her own pale, trembling fingertips. The knowledge that the blood relative of the mistress who had killed her was approaching made her body shake. Even knowing the unfortunate queen's body had already perished, the approaching footsteps felt like those of an executioner sent by Joslyn to claim her life.
“My beloved Odeliana!”
What shattered her tension, worry, and fear was the man's bright smile and fierce embrace as he approached.
Up close, his features were far clearer and more refined than they had appeared from a distance.
His eyebrows stretched cleanly, his eyes were neither too large nor too small, his nose was straight, and his teeth were even. The more she examined each feature, the more striking the impression of perfect harmony became.
He had the same warm presence as Joslyn, yet his expression was so open that anyone would immediately sense his good nature.
“I missed you so much that I came straight here without even stopping at the main house. Have you been well?”
“……”
“Were you surprised by the sudden visit?”
Nothing about this situation had been gradual, so one more unexpected element hardly mattered. What truly startled her was the fact that he belonged to the Grusewald ducal house.
“Why have you grown so thin?”
Because she had not eaten properly. Anyone forced to survive on hard bread and watery soup alone would become a skeleton within a month.
“Her condition has worsened, young master.”
“Ah, Adela. It has been a while.”
The middle-aged woman who had threatened Lerusha into silence was apparently named Adela.
“It is good to see you again, Lord Blair. You have grown even more distinguished in the time we have not met. It seems your studies abroad went well. You look far better than before.”
“And you look thinner than before. Odeliana does as well…… You must have had a difficult time.”
“It is the young lady I worry about more. She grows thinner by the day and has no strength. I fear something terrible may happen.”
Anyone locked in a room caked with filth and fed meager meals would either go mad or fall gravely ill and die.
A laugh escaped Lerusha at Adela's disgusting pretense. Even with a cursed body that struggled to lift a spoon and eat alone, these people had contributed at least eighty percent to her current state. With proper meals and regular exercise, her body would never have deteriorated to this extent.
“She needs to recover quickly so I can take her on a trip.”
“……”
“Odeliana, I have finished my studies and returned for good. I will visit often from now on.”
Lerusha, who had been listening indifferently to his words, suddenly froze. She had not known that Blair von Grusewald had studied abroad for a long time.
Studied abroad?
She clearly remembered that Blair von Grusewald had studied abroad since his teenage years and only returned home in his mid-twenties. That was long before Joslyn ascended the throne.
Lerusha had died after Joslyn's return to Leveln, after he had become a successful merchant. Therefore, the statement “I have finished my studies and returned” was chronologically impossible.
Don't tell me……
“……How old are you this year, brother?”
At her cautious question, Blair answered with a kind smile.
“Twenty-five.”
Lerusha's face darkened with shock as she calculated the timeline from his age.
That cannot be……
If Blair was currently twenty-five, then Lady Orldette was only twenty-two. When Lerusha had met her end, the Orldette watching her die had been twenty-nine.
This meant she had returned to a time seven years before her death, before Joslyn had even taken the throne. Lerusha covered her mouth, unable to believe the reality before her.
So I was born as the sister of the woman who drove me to my death……? And I have even returned seven years into the past?
Traveling through time was astonishing enough, but what she could not comprehend was the existence of the woman named Odeliana. The Duke of Grusewald had only three children: the eldest son Hermann, the second son Blair, and the cherished daughter Orldette.
Odeliana von Grusewald was a name that did not exist in this world.
Disability was considered a curse from the gods. Those born imperfect, bearing flaws, were thought to have received not divine blessing but divine curse.
Because of this, infants with disabilities were often abandoned immediately after birth. Their families could not bear the lifelong care required, or they lacked the strength to endure the contempt that came with raising a disabled child.
Yet among noble houses, there was generally only one reason to kill or abandon a disabled child.
Bloodline.
Nobles and royalty considered themselves chosen by the gods. They believed themselves sacred and noble, protected as divine agents. The existence of a disabled child bearing the gods' curse within such a bloodline could never be tolerated.
Of course, those with deep affection sometimes could not bring themselves to kill or abandon their child and instead hid and raised them in secret. Perhaps Odeliana von Grusewald, who had never appeared in her previous life, had been such a child—her birth concealed by the family and raised in complete isolation.
She needed more clues. So she poured questions upon Blair, the only person who could provide them.
As a result, she learned that this place was located at the western edge of Blaineskock in the Grusewald Duchy, within the Hirschberg Forest; that a small village lay nearby; and that Odeliana was Orldette's twin sister, raised separately in a distant land due to her leg disability.
“The physician mentioned last time that delusions, hallucinations, and even memory loss could occur. It seems there is a problem with her memory.”
“……Is that so?”
“Yes. Madness has no cure, and its symptoms vary widely. I believe memory loss may be one of them.”
Through the conversation between Blair and Adela, who had begun to sense something strange from her relentless questioning, she also learned that this body had suffered from madness.
Adela and Blair had concluded that her behavior, as if she had become an entirely different person, was due to memory issues caused by her madness. The physician who was summoned later also diagnosed her with memory loss resulting from madness.
She did not know whether this body had truly suffered from mental illness, but one thing was certain: Odeliana von Grusewald had been branded not only as physically disabled but also as mentally unsound.
Of course, it was understandable if she had developed a mental illness. Living under such treatment in such an environment would drive even a sane person to madness.
A patient whose mind was as broken as her body. That was the new life given to the woman who had been betrayed and killed by the husband she loved.
A hollow laugh escaped her at the miserable reality, which was worse than having no life at all.
She had risen from a mercenary with nothing but a healthy body to become a prince's knight, then a queen, playing a major role in Joslyn's rise to power. This frail body was a curse far greater than the brutal and wretched life she had lived before.
It would be better to lie back in a coffin and become a corpse than to live in this body. In a way, this unwanted second life was even harsher than the first. Her vision darkened.
How was she supposed to live from now on?
She wanted to cast aside this unbearable reality.