The Brother I Never Knew
He first pointed to the cocoa in the mug and the golden scone beside it.
“Please, have some, Pay.”
“Wow, thank you. I’ll enjoy it.”
Ever since Cassel returned to the capital, the drink he found most incomprehensible was this cocoa. Thick, murky, and carrying an unbearably sweet scent that clung to the nose, it gave no hint of what lay inside.
He disliked it, yet when he heard that young noble ladies had taken to it after its introduction to the capital, he prepared it without a second thought.
Pay drank the unfamiliar beverage in small, steady sips without even asking what it was. Some young ladies who had seen the dark, opaque liquid for the first time had burst into tears, yet she finished every drop with quiet courage.
His mood softened.
After a while, Pay set down the empty mug and flushed.
“Oh, I ate and drank everything by myself. Have you been well, Sir Leon? It’s nice to see you like this.”
Cassel shifted to a spot where the light fell more clearly and asked,
“Lady Pay, do you happen to recognize the emblem on my uniform?”
Pay leaned closer, tilting her head.
“Pardon? Hmm… It’s not an eagle or a lion. Is it a rose?”
“Correct. It is a blue rose crafted from finely worked sapphires. The Blue Rose Knights. They once guarded the capital, but after being reassigned to the Logia border region, few people recognize the emblem anymore.”
“Blue… Rose…”
She had heard the name somewhere before. The Blue Rose Knights and the Logia border region meant…
“The Blue Rose Knights have been recalled to the capital. As a result of the reorganization, I have been appointed their commander.”
At his calm confession, one piece of information she had tucked away in her memories rose sharply to the surface. Pay sensed that something astonishing was about to follow.
“Sir Leon…?”
“This is no simple matter of a single knight order coming and going. It is… a very significant event.”
She held her breath and focused on his next words.
“The reason you were hired by His Highness the Crown Prince to carry out ‘that task’ was to facilitate the return of the Blue Rose Knights. Of course, that was not the only reason, but it was certainly one of the major objectives.”
“…What?”
Cassel’s red eyes wavered with intense emotion.
“The name Leon that I gave you was not my only name.”
“Then…?”
Her lips trembled as she asked what his real name was.
“My name is Cassel Deuphlion Klein. Until recently, I served as vice-commander of the Blue Rose Knights. The day you attended the Harvest Festival, I was there as well. I was deeply worried about how things would unfold.”
“Ca…ssel… Deup…hlion… Kl…ein…”
As Pay slowly repeated his name, her mind went blank. Sir Leon? Sir Leon the knight… was actually Cassel Deuphlion Klein, the young duke she had only known by name?
The one the duchess constantly complained of missing, the one Morris had never even mentioned—the very person she had never met…!
The final mysterious figure of the Klein ducal house. The one and only person she had never encountered…!
You are… my…
My…!!!
Her throat tightened. What could she possibly say? That he was her brother, that they shared blood—something that must remain an eternal secret.
Yet Pay clutched her pounding chest and forced herself to calm down. She had no desire to dredge up the bond she had severed with her own hands. Even if Cassel had hidden his identity, it had not been wrong of him to do so.
If he had declared himself the young duke of the Klein family while she stood before the broken carriage wheel, would she have so readily climbed onto his horse? Would she have dared to speak to him so easily, asking where he was going? Would she have watched the festival with him in the ice warehouse, accepted the mirror gift without hesitation, or agreed to meet him today as if it were nothing?
No…
She would not have. She would have struggled to minimize any contact with him, perhaps even fled to the Magic Tower or somewhere even farther away.
Neither she nor Sir Leon—nor Duke Cassel—had done anything wrong. They had simply done their best given the circumstances.
She desperately tried to draw a line between herself and Leon, between herself and Cassel.
“Lady Pay?”
Cassel immediately noticed how Pay had withdrawn into herself after his confession. This was not what he had wanted. He rose at once, approached her, and knelt so their eyes met. The gesture was so perfectly knightly and respectful that Pay’s heart gave a sudden lurch.
This feeling was strange. Facing someone who was family—someone she had never known—yet feeling her emotions surge so violently… what was this?
She did not resent him at all. Only… only…
She forced a smile.
“I had no idea. I never even suspected. When we first headed to the Magic Tower, I did overhear another knight call you vice-commander.”
“We were stationed at the border, so it was regulation not to reveal our names or identities. Spies were everywhere, so it was unavoidable. Now that we are officially protecting the capital, that will no longer be necessary.”
“Ah…”
“After hearing that His Highness the Crown Prince had hired you and learning the full story, I knew I had to meet you. You may feel uncomfortable now that you know my true identity, but please remember this: I never intended to deceive you on purpose.”
A trace of quiet regret lingered in Cassel’s crimson eyes.
“If the Blue Rose Knights and I had remained in the capital, I would have given you my real name the very first time we met.”
She could feel the sincerity in his long explanation. It was nothing like the arrogant behavior typical of high-ranking nobles.
Pay shook her head, deeply moved by the way he had treated her—especially during the coachman incident.
“I’m not disappointed. I was only surprised to learn you were the young duke of the Klein family.”
Honestly, anyone would have been surprised. Pay simply had more reason than most to feel the shock so keenly. After all, she was someone who avoided even speaking the name Klein aloud.
“Lady Pay.”
“So you won’t be returning to the border. You’ll be staying here from now on. That’s something worth celebrating, isn’t it? I truly congratulate you. The knight Leon I met was the finest knight I’ve ever known. This is wonderful news for everyone in the capital—including me…”
With trembling lips, she offered her congratulations, then could not even remember how she had parted from Cassel.
That evening.
Pay threw herself onto her bed in her room at the Magic Tower and wept with all her heart. She had no choice but to cry. Even as silent tears soaked her face and chilled her pillow, the sorrowful sobs would not stop.
When her blocked nose forced muffled cries past her lips, Momo, who had been sleeping, flicked his ears and promptly fell back into a deep slumber. Pay’s weeping was not loud wailing but a stifled, gasping sound, so Momo simply closed his ears and slept on. Had Lucius been present, he would never have allowed such a thing.
If Lucius learned of this, he would be furious enough to hang the lazy Drakan upside down from the top of the tower and bombard him with magic.
“Hic…”
She cried and cried. The mage Pay, who had lived so resolutely these past months, became once more the powerless, pitiful girl named Morgana that night. She could not help it.
Cassel. My elder brother. If you had remained at the Klein estate… even if the strict duke and duchess, Morris, and Dot had been exactly as they always were, if only you had been there in the same space…
Would my weary life have been any different? Would the past me, who was constantly wounded and exhausted by endless study and cold encounters, have smiled a little more? Perhaps the end I met, knowing nothing, would not have been such a miserable death, but something else entirely.
I believe that if it had been you, you would have found another way somehow. Even if we had lived our entire lives unaware that we were blood relatives.
She clung to the pillow as though it were Cassel’s broad back and continued to cry until exhaustion finally pulled her into sleep. The ceaseless tears from her eyes unearthed the buried wounds of Morgana’s painful past.
I… I always thought you would be completely different from them. I strongly sensed it!
If I had known what kind of person you were, I probably would have longed for you the moment I returned to the past. I would have wanted to meet you again, even after vowing never to become entangled with them.
That thought alone was enough to drive her mad…
A sharp sting settled over her swollen eyes. Only then could Pay finally rest.
By the time Pay, lost in quiet sorrow, managed to fall asleep, the faint light of dawn was already beginning to rise.
* * *
‘How irritating.’
That single phrase summed up Dot’s current mood. The truly cold days had arrived, as if winter had only just begun. The new year would soon dawn, yet she was still merely an Eina candidate at the Klein estate—still only a candidate. It was truly wretched.
Nothing was going smoothly as she wished, and the frustration was suffocating. Unlike the past when living at the estate had been comfortable, they now pressured her at every turn. It was less severe than what they had done to the foolish Morgana, but it was still happening.
‘If I hadn’t barely managed to drive Porchette out, things would have become much harder.’
It was already difficult enough to stand alone, and she could feel that the political situation in the capital had changed drastically from before.
What difference did it make that Morgana had not come to the estate with her? Why did the past situation keep shifting?
The young duke Cassel, who openly disliked her, had not only refused to return to the border but had settled in the capital and been promoted to knight commander. Something about their policy must have changed after the explosion at the Harvest Festival.
‘Why is the world turning into such a mess? And that Barbara Gahel, who’s supposed to die soon, keeps wandering around in front of me—it’s driving me insane.’
During the incident, Dot had been with the duchess, seated quite far from those participating in the mock battle. Since the Klein family’s tournament matches had just ended, she had been pushed even farther back. That was why she had only heard the explosion faintly. Later, she had merely heard rumors that the empress and prince had fled and that the two families were blaming each other for the event.
If the past and the future were changing, she would have to adapt somehow. Was she not Dotricia Caris, someone fundamentally different from Morgana, who would grit her teeth and endure unpleasant things?
‘Yes, that’s it!’
Dot shot to her feet. With neither the duke nor Morris showing her any particular favor—only the duchess—she needed an intangible stepping stone bearing someone’s name, whether for long-term use or a temporary foothold. To do that, she had to create a social pretext based on the current situation.