An Unfamiliar Name
“Excuse me…? No, I—”
“Ciera, it’s Mom! Oh, my daughter! How long I’ve been searching for you!”
The countess reached toward me, unable to contain her joy. Labi, standing behind me, moved swiftly to intercept her. Blocked by his arm, the countess screamed in a shrill voice.
“How insolent! How dare you block me! Do you even know who I am!”
“It seems you’ve mistaken the person. This lady is not your daughter.”
“No!!!”
The countess suddenly let out a scream so piercing it felt as if it would tear through everyone’s ears.
Startled by the abrupt chaos, I froze where I stood. Tears flooded the countess’s hollow eyes in an instant. Her gaze remained locked on me, just beyond Labi’s shoulder.
“That child is my daughter! Give me back my daughter Ciera!”
Her relentless shrieking drew stares from everyone nearby and even from people at the edge of the square. Murmurs of confusion rippled through the crowd.
Yet the countess paid no attention to the onlookers and continued to wail.
“Look at the portrait on this necklace! It’s identical to that child! This picture, that woman standing over there—every one of them is my daughter Ciera!”
“Does this woman have no guardian? She needs to be taken away at once.”
Realizing the gravity of the situation, Labi scanned the surroundings. The countess turned to me with a voice raw with desperation.
“Ciera, say something! Tell them you’re Mother’s daughter, quickly!”
But no words would come. I knew I had to tell her I was not her daughter, yet the sight of her anguished, pleading face emptied my mind completely.
“What is happening here?”
Illid had left the counter upon hearing the disturbance and now approached. One glance at me under Labi’s protection told him something was seriously wrong.
“What is all this commotion? Who is this—”
His gaze, sliding past the middle-aged woman, met hers. In that fleeting moment Illid’s eyes widened in shock, while puzzlement flickered across the countess’s face.
“Why is she here…?”
Illid’s face drained of color as his voice trailed into silence. The countess, still wearing that bewildered expression, suddenly seemed to recognize something when she heard him speak. Her mouth fell open.
“Ill…id……”
The brief hush shattered beneath the countess’s next wail. Everyone around instinctively covered their ears.
Amid the frenzy, only Illid remained motionless. He stared at the woman before him with a completely dazed expression.
“Ciera, run away now! Mother will hold this person here, so flee somewhere no one can ever find you!”
Like a woman possessed, the countess slammed the locket in her hand against the sharp edge of the stall. A loud crack split the air as the necklace shattered. She raised her hand high.
“Die!”
With a scream that bordered on a shriek, the sunlight caught the broken fragment and made it flash. The jagged shard flew straight toward Illid’s face.
“Your Grace!”
The imperial knights rushed forward in alarm. One managed to seize the countess’s hem, yanking her backward. But the shard had already grazed Illid’s cheek.
“Die! Die already, you wretched man!”
Even while being restrained, the countess poured out curses without pause. When her struggles grew violent, the knights tightened their hold. One knight seized her head and slammed it roughly to the ground. She choked and gasped in pain.
“Release her.”
Illid’s voice cut through the uproar.
“Let her go.”
“Pardon?”
The knights questioned him, unable to believe what they had heard.
“This is treason against the imperial family! The crime is severe enough to justify immediate execution!”
“I said release her at once!”
Illid’s tone sharpened. He drew the sword at his hip and pressed the blade to the knight’s throat. The gleaming edge looked ready to strike.
“Y-Your Grace!”
The knight’s face turned ashen at Illid’s inexplicable command. Yet Illid’s resolve did not waver. With no alternative, the knight loosened his grip.
The countess rubbed her bruised neck and drew a ragged breath. At that moment a woman wearing a shawl over her face emerged from the stunned crowd.
“Forgive me, Your Grace! I swear this will never happen again, so please—at least spare her life!”
“You know this woman?”
“Yes. She has been staying at our home.”
“Take her away.”
“But Your Grace! We cannot simply release her without an investigation!”
The furious knights protested, but Illid offered no reply. The shawl-covered woman dragged the countess away, vanishing into the throng. Even as they left, the countess continued hurling deranged curses at Illid.
“That’s His Grace Archduke Illid. He’s the Emperor’s nephew from the South!”
“What? That madwoman attacks the Emperor’s nephew and they just let her leave?”
“It looked like the Archduke actually knew that crazy woman.”
Murmurs spread through the crowd. The knights quickly dispersed the spectators, yet small clusters continued whispering about the shocking scene.
“Illid.”
Finally regaining my composure, I pushed past Labi and walked toward him. He seemed not to hear me; his vacant eyes remained fixed on the ground.
Where he stared, the shattered fragments of the countess’s necklace lay scattered. Broken glass glittered over the portrait of me that had been sealed inside.
“Illid?”
“……”
“Illid, are you all right? You’re bleeding.”
He remained lost in a trance, unaware of the blood trickling down his cheek. The cut did not look deep, but the vivid red against his pale skin suggested it would leave a mark for some time.
I took out a handkerchief and stepped closer. As I reached to wipe the blood away, his unfocused gaze shifted to me and he murmured.
“Ci…era……”
The name the countess had cried out with such longing now fell from Illid’s own lips. Looking at me, he repeated it once more, his voice heavy with sorrow.
“Ciera……”
“Illid, what are you saying…?”
Why was even Illid behaving this way? Why was he calling me by a stranger’s name?
The strangeness of it sent an eerie chill through me, as though my heart had frozen. I moved nearer, wanting to study his condition more closely.
When my silver-gray eyes met his hazy blue ones, he jolted awake as if emerging from a long dream.
“Ishtel.”
He brushed my hand from his cheek. The blood-stained handkerchief slipped from my fingers and fell to the ground.
“Return to the palace first.”
“You should come with me.”
“No. I will follow later.”
“Then I’ll wait and go later too. Stay with me for now.”
“I told you to go ahead.”
“How can I possibly leave you when you’re trembling like this!”
Ever since the moment he had seen the countess, Illid’s body had been shaking. I reached out and took his hand.
The next instant he yanked free and shoved me away with surprising force. Already drained of strength, I stumbled backward. If Labi had not caught me in time, I would have fallen to the floor.
“Your Grace, what are you doing?!”
Labi’s anger erupted in my place, since I was too stunned to speak.
“Ah……”
As though the rebuke had restored his reason, Illid spoke to me quickly.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t myself. Sir Telia, escort the Duchess back to the palace first.”
His eyes still refused to meet mine.
Illid had hoped to let the square incident fade quietly, but the imperial palace knights had no intention of allowing that.
Yulian, who oversaw the capital’s security, launched an immediate investigation the moment he learned of the daytime disturbance. Regardless of Illid’s opinion, an attack on a member of the imperial family could not be overlooked. Labi Telia, who had been present, was summoned by Yulian to give his account.
“Just what on earth happened…”
I waited anxiously for Labi to return. A short while later came a knock at the door, and he stepped inside.
“Welcome back, Sir Telia. Who exactly was that countess?”
I guided him to a chair and went straight to the heart of the matter. Labi’s face clouded with discomfort.
“Sir Lilche instructed that we keep silent toward the Duchess for the time being…”
“What? Why would he tell you not to speak to me about it?”
The fact that Yulian had given such an order only sharpened my curiosity. Who was that middle-aged woman? Why had she attacked Illid? And why had she mistaken me for her own daughter?
The expression on Illid’s face in the square rose in my memory—an expression filled with shock, bewilderment, sorrow, and despair.
And the way he had looked at me. That empty, hollow gaze, as though he had awakened from a long dream, refused to leave my thoughts.
“She is the Huerton Countess. Mother of Ciera Huerton.”
After long hesitation, Labi finally spoke.
“Ciera Huerton?”
“She was His Grace Archduke Illid’s former fiancée.”
“Fiancée…?”
The words struck me like a blow. A story I had heard long ago resurfaced in my reeling mind.
The tale Baroness Touren and Rose had once told me—that Illid’s fiancée had died several years earlier.
I had already known the story, yet I never imagined I would be forced to remember her like this, through an encounter with her mother whose mind had clearly fractured.
“If she was to become the Archduchess, I understood her to be from a great southern house. How could her mother be in the capital in such a state?”
“Sir Lilche must have wondered the same thing. He summoned several southern retainers and questioned them. Yet every one of them claimed they knew nothing. They all insisted they had never had any dealings with the Huerton family.”
“What does that mean? How can anyone not know the family of the woman who was meant to be Archduchess?”
“That is what they said… Perhaps there is another secret we have not yet uncovered.”
Labi’s green eyes gleamed with a strange, knowing light.