Chapter 17
Chapter 17
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 17
Chapter Title: The Reason for Giving a Chance
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Lena stepped into the corridor and swallowed a bubbling laugh. She had finally met her father. It was the first time since that day, when she had been suddenly sold off as a sacrifice in the middle of a peaceful night. And the true nature of her father, revealed through this reunion, was far more cunning and ruthless than she had ever imagined from dredging up her memories.
‘Well, a normal person couldn’t do something like that.’
Six years after his daughter reappeared, he had tried to poison her right off the bat. Even thinking about it again, it was impressive. But the marquis seemed shocked instead. He couldn’t understand how Lena already knew about the poisoning attempt, or why she faced him so calmly despite it. Lena found that amusing too.
‘Why wouldn’t I know?’
Lena had known from the start. She had known there was a high chance the marquis would attack if she revealed her name and approached him, and that he would act quickly before strange rumors could spread.
“Really...”
Lena let out a chuckle as she recalled how her father had moved exactly as she predicted. She knew how the marquis would react. Or more precisely, she had no choice but to know. Because this wasn’t the first time.
‘Though he’d have no clue about that.’
Lena had already tried to return home once before. But she had failed, and no one knew about it. No one except Lena Rubel herself. ***
Six years ago, the young Lena stood alone on a dark street.
‘Am I back...?’
Lena gazed up at the deep night sky filled with stars, her eyes full of confusion.
‘I’m back.’
Spotting the familiar starlight, she bit her lip and burst into tears. She had gone through something terrifying. Something she couldn’t explain in words, something she wasn’t even sure was a dream or reality. She had thought she was trapped forever, but she was back. Back under the starlit sky, back in this ordinary world. Wiping away her sobs, Lena looked around. Only then did the unfamiliar surroundings come into focus.
‘Where am I?’
It was a filthy street. A so-called slum where crumbling houses were piled atop one another. Lena searched fearfully for somewhere to go. It was cold. She was tired and hungry. She needed a place to rest. So she picked the straightest-looking house and knocked on the door. She thought a kind but poor woman, like in her fairy tale books, would come out and help her. But reality was nothing like the stories. All she got in return was harsh curses, and stunned by the cold reception for the first time in her life, Lena fled. She wandered trembling for a while longer before curling up in a corner piled with trash.
“Hey, you all alone?”
As Lena sat there enduring the morning dew, a man approached and asked. His voice was kind. She nodded weakly, and he promised to help her make some money before taking her away. The place they arrived at was even deeper in the alleys than where she had been— a brothel by the docks.
“Look what you dragged in.”
A woman smoking a pipe handed the man some coins as she spoke. By then, Lena was trembling so hard she could barely breathe. She had read about places like this in novels. Places where lust-filled men would abuse desperate women for a few coins. Realizing where she was, Lena despaired in a daze. More than anything, she was bewildered at how quickly she had ended up here. Wasn’t this supposed to happen much later? She was still just a child. Only twelve years old now? Rolling her eyes in disbelief, Lena spotted something. A girl who looked about her age, wearing a backless dress in this chilly weather, soliciting customers. And beside her, a man old enough to be her father staggering over. Lena watched the scene with a suffocating feeling. When she came to her senses, she was clinging to the woman who had bought her, pleading desperately.
“I’m a noble!”
“What’s this bitch saying?”
“It’s true! I’m the daughter of Viscount Rubel. This is all a mistake. Please send me home.”
The street women didn’t believe Lena’s cries. The thugs cursed her, saying the brat was just playing tricks because she didn’t want to work. But the madam who had bought her didn’t dismiss it lightly. She dragged Lena under a lantern.
“Such white skin, and so clean... A bit tanned, but not from grime.”
“Sis, you buying this kid’s story?”
“Shut up and get me some paper and ink.”
The madam handed Lena paper and a pen and made her write. Trembling, Lena did her best to write a line of poetry prettily.
“You are the cold dream of midsummer. What does that mean?”
“It’s... it’s poetry. From the first page of Bitra’s poetry collection...”
“Oh my, poetry.”
The madam pretended to be impressed and asked Lena a few more questions. About upper-class etiquette and manners, the position of the Rubel viscount family, the number of servants, and so on.
“Oh dear! I’m so sorry, young lady!”
As Lena stammered her answers, the madam suddenly changed her attitude.
“This fool’s so uneducated, he must’ve gotten it wrong! You must have your reasons, but don’t worry. I’ll escort you home in grand style!”
The madam beamed and hugged Lena. Then she whispered to the thugs she commanded like limbs.
“Don’t lay a finger on her. Guard her well. We’re getting a ransom out of this.”
Elated by the unexpected windfall, the madam tried to make contact with the Rubel family. In the meantime, Lena spent her time locked in a shabby room, unsure if it was protection or imprisonment. It was a horrific time. Every sound came through the thin door—screams, sobs, curses she had never heard before. To endure it, Lena plugged her ears and recited poetry. But it did nothing to calm her. In truth, what terrified her wasn’t the noises from outside, but what was to come. What would her father do when he learned she was back? If the daughter he had discarded with his own hands returned, would he come fetch her? Would he apologize now, regret it?
‘How could you do that to me?’
Thinking of her father brought tears welling up as always. What did I do wrong? Liar. I’ll get revenge. You said you loved me. What’s the reason? Save me. I hate you. Am I bad? Save me. Forgive me. In that narrow room, Lena endured as her heart tore itself to pieces.
Days passed. Fortunately, the madam was fairly clever. Rather than contacting the viscount right away, she first investigated the family’s situation. That was how Lena learned some unexpected news.
“Sis, it’s not a viscount family—it’s a count now.”
“What?”
“Heard they got the count title from the Northern Duke recently. Must’ve slipped him some bribe money.”
The dukes of the empire held power greater than a king of any one nation. So it was entirely possible for them to grant titles to their vassals. But in a world already full of nobles, promoting someone was rare.
“No word about looking for a daughter?”
“Oh, they had a daughter alright, but...”
“But?”
“She died of some illness. Funeral’s already done.”
“What? Then what’s this?”
“Kid’s just delirious, damn it.”
The thug who brought the news spat phlegm as if it had all been for nothing. But the madam’s eyes gleamed with a strange intuition.
“When did she die?”
“A month ago.”
“And when did the viscount become a count?”
“Two weeks ago?”
“Find out what illness killed that count’s daughter.”
“Come on, sis! You’re not seriously believing this girl just because...”
“No, wait. Let’s just dig up the grave. Don’t you have friends who do grave robbing?”
In the end, the madam hounded the thugs into excavating Lena Rubel’s grave. That was how the Rubel family’s secret unraveled far too easily.
“Wahaha! What’s this! Sis, this is a total jackpot, right? Whoa!”
There was no body in the coffin of the girl whose funeral had been a month ago. It was filled only with clothes, books, dolls, and a violin. An empty grave, a living child. A viscount suddenly made count. None of it was ordinary.
“Yeah, this won’t end with just a reward.”
The madam grew excited too, realizing she had a noble’s weakness in her grasp. The weakness of a powerful noble on the rise, no less. What luck—to end this wretched life at last! The madam was clever, but not cautious enough. In her excitement, she cut a lock of Lena’s hair and sent it to the Rubel house. Then she requested a visit from Viscount Rubel—no, Count Rubel now.
“Hide the real one in the building next door. They might try to take her by force.”
Thinking she could resort to blackmail if needed, the madam stashed Lena in the attic of the next building. Instead, she prepared another girl as a stand-in and waited for the count. On the appointed day, Lena sat by the attic window, gazing anxiously at the street below. She wondered. Would he really come? Would he come to take me home? If he came for me now, even now... Clutching her chest, Lena stayed up all night staring wide-eyed. In the early dawn when the morning star was still visible, an unexpected guest arrived at the docks. A neat old gentleman who didn’t fit in with the rough, filthy streets. Lena recognized him at once.
‘The butler!’
He was the Rubel family butler who had always doted on her.
‘The butler’s here!’
Spotting him, Lena burst into tears again. Not from sadness or pain, but from relief melting her heart. She was happy. She felt freed from a long nightmare at last. She never doubted that the butler had come to fetch her. But that joy didn’t last. The butler entered the building where the madam waited, accompanied by servants. As Lena gazed longingly at the firmly shut door, a sudden loud noise rang out.
“Aaack!”
It was a woman’s scream, raw with fury and torn with agony. Lena stared down at the street, her blood running cold. The butler emerged again almost immediately, looking exactly as he had when he entered. But the servants were soaked in blood from head to toe. At the butler’s command, they scattered. Looking closer, Lena saw there were far more people than the few who had entered with him.
‘Why are there so many?’
To find me? Still innocent, Lena clung to faith and hope. He dealt with the madam—yes, because she was blackmailing Father. He did it to save me. It has to be. That’s what Lena told herself as she waited for the butler and servants to find her. But her wait was rewarded in a twisted way. Flames began to rise into the clear dawn sky. Someone had deliberately set the fire, melting the greedy madam’s corpse and burning the filth-stained streets. The women who had just fallen asleep and the snoring men beside them were engulfed in the blaze. The butler and servants stood by the docks, watching the brothel burn to the ground. If anyone came dashing out trailing flames, they shoved them back in. In that quiet dawn, the fire danced silently, devouring everything. As dawn broke and the flames that had razed the streets died down, the butler and servants hurried away. Their swift departure could only be seen as premeditated from the start. With that, the brothel that had pried into the count’s secrets was cleanly burned away. No one who had lived there survived, by someone’s command. No one except one girl, sitting in the ashes, weeping whiter than the cinders. ***
The marquis had done the same back then. After selling off his young daughter, he held a fake funeral, claiming she had died of illness. And when word came that his daughter was alive, he burned them all to death. So Lena wasn’t particularly surprised by the marquis’s actions this time. She had already learned down to her bones, from that pile of ashes, what kind of man her father was. But they wouldn’t know. That she had been there, that she had witnessed it all, that she still lived despite it.
‘It’s not like that’s the only thing they don’t know, though...’
Lena gave a bitter smile as she recalled the facets of her father, whom she had finally faced. Her cunning father knew far less than she thought. About the rebellion, about his own wife, and about his long-lost daughter—he knew almost nothing. So when Lena said she would give him a chance at forgiveness, he took it as a threat. How pitiful that misunderstanding was. The marquis was convinced. A child cast out by her own father could never turn out right. She might look fine on the outside, but inside she would be rotten, twisted, and broken. So he didn’t believe the word “forgiveness” from her lips. He believed she hid a dagger in her bosom, that she would never forgive him. That was the marquis’s greatest miscalculation. A girl cast aside and fallen to the abyss doesn’t have to be ruined. She might lash out in rage and grief, but she doesn’t have to. Lena could have become a broken girl consumed by hatred and vengeance. But she chose not to take that path. Instead, she chose what she would become. Lena paused her steps for a moment and glanced back toward the annex where her father was. Her gaze held not burning vengeance or resentment, but calm resolve. But the marquis never realized that. He probably never would.