Yellow Eyes
The words struck like a curse.
Yellow Eyes.
The Marchioness of Lilche had always referred to Melanie Regentera and her descendants that way.
Melanie Regentera was Faviel’s birth mother and the second Duchess of Regentera. She had torn the family apart, pushing aside the children of the previous duchess so that her own son could become duke.
Her eyes had shone like the sun itself, a brilliant gold, and it was said that her son possessed the exact same golden irises.
The Marchioness of Lilche—Belona Regentera—had spent her entire life consumed by hatred for Melanie, the woman who had ruined her life and dragged the empire into war. She had scorned that symbolic golden gaze by calling it yellow eyes.
Born long after the war, I had only ever heard the term from my grandmother’s lips. I had never actually seen yellow eyes. But the day Karina came to find me, I finally understood what the words meant.
Her golden eyes were so striking, so breathtaking, that I instantly comprehended the depth of hatred Belona Regentera had carried for a lifetime.
Yet that had not been the first time.
The very first time I saw yellow eyes was three years earlier, at the Count of Silanda’s estate.
It was a hundred days after Rubia’s birth. The Count of Silanda had invited both the Regentera and Lilche families to a lavish celebration.
That day, when my eyes first met the tiny infant’s, I had thought her gaze was impossibly mysterious.
“Does one of her parents possess such beautiful eyes?”
I had asked the question as a compliment. At that moment, the countess had grown strangely flustered. The count had laughed and said that since she was only a newborn, it was natural for her eyes to change; she would surely grow to resemble her mother’s warm brown.
“Of course she will.”
The Marchioness of Lilche, who had been staring intently at Rubia, spoke in a voice laced with bone-deep venom.
Belona Regentera, who had lived with the single-minded obsession of destroying Melanie and her child, was already a white-haired old woman. Yet in that moment, the elderly lady’s face as she gazed at the baby’s golden eyes still burned with the same vengeful fire of her youth.
At the time, I had simply assumed the eccentric old woman was in one of her foul moods.
Only now did I realize the truth. My grandmother had seen Melanie Regentera’s eyes in Rubia.
The official records state that all of Faviel Regentera’s family were executed. But if Grandmother learns that Karina is alive, she will try to kill her.
Karina knew this as well. That was why she had revealed her identity only to me.
Did the Count of Silanda also know that the dead dancer was Faviel’s descendant?
If so, he could easily brand Karina—her younger sister—as a remnant of the traitors. The entire situation would flip in an instant.
Public opinion would turn toward the surviving descendant of Faviel, and the count would use that to overturn the trial in his favor.
I cannot fathom what the Count of Silanda is thinking.
I lifted my head and looked out the window. The sun had already set; deep night had fallen.
“Yulian, take me to the Count of Silanda.”
I met the Count of Silanda again inside a prison located a short distance from the Imperial Palace.
So this is what a noble-exclusive prison looks like.
It was far too bright and clean to be called a dungeon. A vague sense of unease settled over me as I quickened my steps deeper inside.
When the guard led me to the cell, the Count of Silanda came into view. His solitary confinement was furnished with a plush bed, a comfortable armchair, and even a wardrobe filled with fine clothing. If not for the iron bars, one might have mistaken it for an ordinary room.
“Count Silanda.”
“Ah, Duchess of Wintera.”
The count closed the book he had been reading and approached the bars. I ordered the guards to withdraw, pulled over a chair, and sat facing him.
“What on earth is going on?”
“Indeed. To think I would end up imprisoned in the very prison my father ordered built.”
The Count of Silanda gave a small, mocking laugh.
“Still, thanks to all the care that went into its construction, my body suffers no discomfort. It’s more comfortable than most private homes.”
“Even so, your heart must not be at ease.”
“That… is true enough.”
His expression and tone were unnervingly calm. It was hard to believe he stood accused of murder.
His reaction only deepened my confusion. If he had been falsely accused, he should have been raging with fury. He ought to have been storming about how he would never forgive Karina and Count Vladin for framing him.
There were so many questions I wanted to ask. Whether he had truly poisoned the dancer named Esmeralda. Whether Rubia was not the countess’s child. And…
Whether he had known that both Esmeralda and Karina were Melanie’s descendants.
Yet none of the questions came easily to my lips. In the end, I could not speak first.
“You must have far too many things you wish to ask me. That must be why you remain silent.”
As if he had read my mind, the Count of Silanda spoke first.
“Then may I ask a question of my own?”
“Go ahead.”
When I nodded, the count asked,
“The woman named Karina who accused me. I hear the Duchess of Wintera took in the emperor’s tea-serving maid and gave her a position in your household. Why did you do that?”
My heart, which had been pounding, plummeted to the floor. My lips trembled violently, and cold sweat broke out across my palms.
I could not read the count’s intentions. Was he simply rebuking me for bringing the maid who had caused his imprisonment? Or was he testing how much I truly knew about Karina?
I organized my thoughts for a moment before answering.
“I felt pity for a young woman with nowhere to go, so I offered her a position. She had no notable surname and her background was unclear, so she could never have become a palace maid on her own strength. That is why I took her in.”
“Is that truly all?”
“It is. Even when I brought the maid into my household, I never imagined something like this would happen.”
I answered in a firm voice, then turned the question back on him.
“What do you intend to do from now on?”
“Well… I have been thinking about that very thing the entire time I’ve been locked in this room.”
“The first trial will be held soon. If you make a swift decision, our Regentera and Lilche families will still have time to intervene.”
“In that case, Duchess, may I ask you for one favor?”
“Of course. Speak.”
The count beckoned me closer. I rose from the chair and approached the bars. He lowered his voice to a whisper beside my ear.
“Tell that tea-serving maid this: if she backs down now, I will stay quiet as well. Tell her to stop. Otherwise, I will reveal her secret to the entire world and ensure she dies too.”
His voice, thick with murderous intent, proved it. He knew the true identities of the two sisters.
My mind went blank and my body froze; for a long moment I could not react at all. Then the Count of Silanda burst into loud laughter.
“I knew it! You knew everything, Ishtel! That’s why you haven’t asked me a single question! You haven’t even asked what the secret is—you’re just sitting there with that look of sudden understanding on your face!”
His normally calm gray eyes now glittered like those of a madman. He grabbed the iron bars and shook them violently as if he might break free at any moment, his voice sharp and piercing.
“Ishtel. I have watched you since you were very small. I know you far better than that foolish older brother of yours ever did. You are clever, but you lack ruthlessness. You always wear that cold, rational expression, yet in the end you always act according to your heart!”
In the count’s crazed gaze, clear reproach toward me burned brightly.
“You know it too, Ishtel! The Yellow Eyes that the Marchioness of Lilche drilled into our ears since we were children! Those two sisters are exactly the Yellow Eyes she spoke of!”
“Count Silanda! Calm yourself—someone might hear!”
“Yes, I knew it all! But I never expected things to turn out like this. It’s just like when you first took in that maid!”
“Count!”
“But do you know what the biggest difference between you and me is, Ishtel? In the end, I eliminated those Yellow Eyes, while you could not!”
“……So it really is true that you killed someone.”
“No. I killed a remnant of the traitors.”
There was not a trace of regret in the Count of Silanda’s decisive words. He was utterly convinced of his own righteousness. He seemed capable only of rage at the current situation, feeling no other emotion whatsoever.
“When I first met Esmeralda in Pleco Square and saw those eyes, I found them utterly fascinating. So this is the golden gaze the Marchioness of Lilche always spoke of, I thought. At the time, I had no idea. I never dreamed that the blood of the Regentera family—the same blood that flows in you—ran through her veins.”
“……”
“Since our relationship could not be made public, I hid my identity when I met her. She probably thought I came from some insignificant household. Then one day, she came to see me beautifully adorned, wanting to look good for me. She was truly lovely. Even now, I have never seen anyone more beautiful in this world. Do you know what I discovered then?”
The Count of Silanda reached his fingers through the bars and pointed at the area near my neck.
“The golden rose necklace. The very same one now hanging around your neck.”
Golden eyes and the Regentera Rose Necklace. What I had realized upon seeing Karina, the Count of Silanda had understood three years earlier.
“Esmeralda probably never imagined I would recognize the necklace. Ishtel, I was so shocked. To think that a descendant of Faviel—who we all believed had been wiped out—would appear alive before my eyes.”
“……”
“I agonized terribly. But since we had already shared affection, I decided that if I simply kept my mouth shut, everything would be fine, and I stopped seeing her. However, a far greater problem arose after that. She became pregnant with my child.”
In the end, everything Karina had said was true. Rubia was not the countess’s child.