Chapter 5
The child who should have inherited the brightest glory of both houses had, from birth, a grave defect.
There was no trace of the Blessing of the Stars—something every mage was expected to have.
Both the Loen and Aster families were part of the Mage Alliance, and the head of such a house was required to be a mage.
Lysithea, being no mage, could never be the heir.
Her father, who had disliked the political marriage from the beginning, planned to adopt a child from a cadet branch and pass the position of Aster’s successor to them.
But the Loen family refused to accept this.
How could the daughter of Loen be mistress of Aster, yet a cadet branch child be named heir? It was an insult.
The quarrel between the two houses seemed endless—until it ended abruptly when her already frail mother died.
Lysithea remembered everything from her mother’s funeral with vivid clarity.
“Is that the child? The one without the Blessing of the Stars?”
“To think she carries the blood of Loen and Aster… Could it be that some other blood was mixed in…?”
She remembered the curious stares that questioned her lineage.
“My sister’s death is the result of your arrogant selfishness. I will never forgive you.”
“Her passing is tragic, but can you truly claim the duke’s greed had no part in it?”
Her father and the Duke of Loen traded accusations over her mother’s death.
“This child… is Julia’s?”
“Strange how she bears not a single resemblance to her mother. She’s the spitting image of that petty Aster.”
Even her mother’s siblings, who could plainly see Julia’s likeness in her face, insisted on finding only her father’s features.
But what struck her most was her father’s expression as he looked at her mother’s coffin—exhausted, weary, with a faint guilt mingled with the smallest relief at being freed from a burden. That expression remained etched in her mind, unsettling her for years.
For a long while afterward, his face knew neither joy nor pleasure. Then, one day, something changed—he began smiling idly, acting absentminded.
Before the year was over, a new mistress entered Aster House: Emma, daughter of the fallen Baron Dawson, and the daughter of a man her father had revered as a mentor.
One more resident in the household was enough to fill the once-silent home with laughter.
The next year, Emma bore twins who seemed the very incarnation of Aster’s guardian star—glorious golden hair like distilled starlight, and eyes the deep blue of the first dawn.
Most importantly, unlike Lysithea, they were gifted mages.
“What a relief. I worried what would happen if these children weren’t mages either…”
Emma sighed in relief, having feared whispers that the Aster bloodline itself was flawed.
“It is a joy they are mages, but even if they weren’t, what of it? They are our children. We would simply love them all the more.”
Perhaps her father could say such words only because the twins were mages.
No one had ever said such things to Lysithea, who had been treated as defective all her life.
It was then she realized—her father could look so gentle, so warm.
From her room, she would often gaze down at the garden. Whenever she saw that perfect picture of a happy family, a strange feeling welled up—an urge to tear the picture apart, to smash it into pieces.
When she later understood that it was deprivation, jealousy, and desire, she grew angry again—angry that she could not simply ignore it, angry that such a small thing could shake her so deeply.
Yet she could never look away.
Each time she longed for what she could not have, she drove herself harder—pushing her body and mind to their limits. Only then did she feel stable, useful, fulfilled.
Her fragile peace shattered again in the winter of her sixteenth year, when a fever swept through the household. It began with frail Celia, then Edward, and even Lysithea herself—who had never been prone to illness—was struck with a burning fever.
In the haze of pain, she heard the sound of hurried, heavy footsteps—a grown man’s anxious stride.
It could only be her father.
Perhaps because she was delirious, she believed, for a moment, those steps were for her. But the sound passed her door without stopping and faded away.
Ah… the twins’ room is in the west wing.
Of course—he had rushed to the twins, not even knowing she was ill.
For days afterward, she heard his footsteps pass her door.
I hate this… I wish I could just melt away. No… I wish everyone would die. I’m so tired. Just…
She wanted to kill the part of herself that still hoped for his affection, and to destroy everyone who had made her so wretched.
One day, a maid entered.
“My lady, the Duke of Spencer has sent a gift, wishing you a swift recovery.”
It was from the family of Joel Spencer, to whom she had been betrothed four years earlier.
Ah… two days ago was the day I was supposed to meet Joel Spencer.
She stared blankly at the basket of golden roses—arranged to match the color of her eyes.
In the Empire, it was tradition to send flowers matching the patient’s eye color as a get-well gift. Golden roses were rare; even for the Duke of Spencer, they must have been hard to procure.
She didn’t truly believe Joel had chosen them himself, but her weakened mind wavered between hope and despair.
She reached out and crushed the blossoms in her fist.
How will you disappoint me, Joel Spencer? What obstacles lie between you and Lysithea Aster? I must know. I’ll remove them all. If I can’t have you, no one will.
Perhaps in answer to that desperate wish, she dreamed that night of a book—
a story in which Joel Spencer and Lilian Rose were the protagonists.
In learning the world’s secret, she also learned why she had never been loved.
Villains, after all, were those twisted by a lifetime without love.
She looked around her wide, cold room, and thought—what a fitting environment for a villain to grow in. No one to cherish her, destined to live unloved, to fill with anger and inferiority until she threw herself into ruin. That was her fate.
“Ah… it hurts…”
Trying to get out of bed, she collapsed to the floor. Her fever had broken, yet her bones ached as if stabbed with knives.
In that moment, she knew—something in her body had been irreparably damaged. She believed it was the price for glimpsing the world’s story.
While Lysithea was losing her health, death came again to Aster House. Emma, her father’s beloved wife and the twins’ mother, passed away.
Lysithea awoke fully on the day of Emma’s funeral.
As she watched her father weeping with his whole body, she recalled another scene—her own mother’s funeral, and his face then: no tears, only weariness and faint relief.
She was staring at him in a daze when Edward, his face streaked with tears, screamed at her.
“It’s your fault! You killed my mother! You—YOU killed her!”
“Edward, let go of her…”
“Mother was right—we should have stayed away from Loen’s daughter!”
Still weak from illness, Lysithea swayed as Edward shook her.
She had thought they got along better than she did with Celia, who picked fights constantly. So why now?
She looked around. The funeral hall was full, but no one stopped him. They only whispered and watched.
Why? It was unfair. Even if his grief had driven him to lash out at her, shouldn’t someone intervene?
Then her father came—drawn by the commotion. He pulled Edward into his arms.
“Eddie, that’s enough.”
“Father…”
“Enough. No more. Don’t wound your heart any further.”
“Father, Mother… Mother…”
“Eddie, my dear, your words are hurting you now.”
Her father’s back trembled as he cradled his son, soothing him through his grief.
It was then Lysithea understood why her own injustice had been ignored.
She was an orphan no one would protect—destined, in any conflict, to lose to Edward, the son loved by the Marquess of Aster.
