Chapter 76
Alesia had just left the office when she stopped on her way up the stairs. She didn’t want to take Nia to her room.
Her room held every trace of the life she had built in Ferdinand—along with Phili, the small, clever bird who was probably fast asleep by now.
Once an empty, barren dressing room now brimmed with dresses and coats for every season, and everywhere her gaze landed, there were things steeped in memory.
It was the first space she could truly call her own. She didn’t want to let anyone of Engelos’ blood into it—even if that someone was her own sibling.
“Follow me.”
Alesia clenched her teeth to keep from shouting and turned her back without so much as a glance at Nia. Behind her came the sound of sluggish, reluctant footsteps.
She headed straight for the branch keep. The castle was eerily silent, as no one ever set foot there except on cleaning days. Alesia led Nia into a secluded room and locked the door so no one could enter.
“Tell me why you’re here. Did Richard think one of me wasn’t enough and send you as well? Are you here to spy on me?”
“No! Richard and our parents don’t know anything. I came on my own.”
Nia hastily protested. She didn’t look like she was making it up.
“Really. You know how it is… if it’s not about you, they don’t really care if I go out or not…”
The hesitant addition to her words made it clear this was her own doing.
In truth, Engelos never really restricted its mages from leaving. There weren’t many who wanted to leave the castle anyway—fear of falling behind, whether in research or magical skill, kept them in line.
Alesia had been the only exception. Until she left for Ferdinand, she had never once stepped beyond Engelos’ walls.
She was the duke’s daughter. If she had been a branch family member with her own separate quarters, it might have been different. But for the duke’s daughter to be unable to use magic—that was a devastating problem for Engelos. If word ever reached another mage family or the royal court, Engelos’ reputation would suffer. So they hid her away completely.
And as for Nia Engelos…
“How is that one Richard’s sibling?”
“Well, at least that one can use magic.”
“True enough.”
She was the third “result” of the Engelos duke and his wife’s experiments—and the second failure. Unlike Alesia, Nia could use magic, but not well. Compared to her peers, even the cousins, she was far from exceptional.
If Richard had sent someone to Ferdinand to watch her, it would never have been Nia. To him, Alesia and Nia were equally useless.
“I kept waiting, but you never wrote back. I didn’t plan to come all of a sudden like this…”
Nia, sensing the icy atmosphere, spoke timidly. Alesia’s face hardened even more.
“That letter asking me to make a place for you in Ferdinand?”
“Yes! If you’d just said yes, I wouldn’t have done this. It was so hard getting here. Those worthless people ignored me, they wouldn’t even give my money back…”
Nia looked genuinely aggrieved as she rattled off her struggles getting from Engelos to Ferdinand. Alesia watched her coldly, lips curling into a bitter smile.
“Why should I have answered you?”
“Huh?”
“Why should I do anything for you?”
To Nia Engelos, Alesia Engelos had always been a shield. No matter how inadequate she was, she was worse off than Nia—a mage, however mediocre. So all the scorn and abuse had fallen on Alesia instead of Nia.
If Alesia hadn’t been there, Nia would never have had the life she did. She would have endured all those countless days of suffering that Alesia bore alone.
“I can’t live there anymore. Pascal keeps picking fights with me every time he sees me. No one stops him. I even told our parents, and they just said, ‘Can’t you handle that much?’…”
The one everyone used to torment was gone. Did that mean the bullying would vanish too? Of course not—it just changed targets.
Nia Engelos was mediocre, but by society’s standards, she was still a mage. There were several mages in the Engelos keep who were less skilled than Nia.
But only two were called young lord: Richard and Nia, the duke and duchess’s direct bloodline. Richard was too powerful to touch. Nia was not.
Their parents, naturally, wouldn’t care. And Richard wasn’t the type to bother with a pathetic little brother. Whatever his reason for granting Alesia this opportunity, it had been a whim—normally, he paid no mind.
“I heard you were doing well. So I thought…”
“Who told you that?”
Her voice dropped without her intending it. She hated that anyone in Engelos was even talking about her.
“Stella. She went to the court ball and said… she said you looked like you were living the good life, and it made her furious…”
Nia shrank under her icy stare, fumbling through her words. A chill gleamed in Alesia’s crimson eyes.
On her second day in Vellium, Alesia had indeed seen Stella at a court ball. They hadn’t acknowledged each other—not that they were on those terms, nor had Alesia any desire to.
Stella, however, had looked at her with malice and tried to approach, but Alesia walked right past her. With so many eyes on them in the middle of the ballroom, Stella hadn’t dared make a scene. No doubt she had thrown a tantrum once back in Engelos. Alesia didn’t even need to see it to know.
“I want to live here too. They say there are lots of monsters here. I’m a mage, so I can help. That ring—that’s the one, isn’t it? The one Richard made by improving a magic stone! They said you can only cast one spell with it! I can help!”
Nia’s gaze landed on the ring on Alesia’s finger. Every word she babbled, full of misplaced hope, was laughably wrong.
So that’s what they think in Engelos.
Even that must be fragmentary information. There was no one there who would bother to explain it to Nia.
When the magicless Alesia was sent to Ferdinand, some in the family must have questioned it. Richard must have spun some excuse.
Even among kin, no one had the right to pry into every personal research project. Some projects were joint efforts, but others were locked away until results were ready to be revealed.
Richard’s work fell in the latter category, so he had probably shared only the bare minimum. No one in Engelos had the authority—or the ability—to challenge him.
Even if someone leaked that much, it wouldn’t matter. Without knowing the principles, it was useless. A perfectly reasonable measure.
“Wouldn’t it be better than being alone? You can’t keep using that thing forever, can you? If you have to go back to Engelos, you’ll need a mage. I could be—”
“Go back.”
Alesia cut her off sharply. She had no intention of ever returning to Engelos. Nor did she want Nia taking her place.
Even if Engelos truly didn’t care about Nia, Alesia didn’t want her to gain any information about her. Nia wasn’t clever and she was still young, but she was Engelos all the same.
“Look—look at this.”
Just as Alesia was about to turn away without hesitation, Nia suddenly bowed her head and fumbled through her hair. White scalp showed through where clumps of hair were missing. Alesia’s face froze.
“Here—here too…”
Nia frantically pulled up her bangs, revealing her forehead. The marks there were clearly from beatings. Alesia had scars just like those scattered across her own body.
“I want to live here. Please let me stay. You can do that, can’t you? Please…”
Now Nia clung to her waist, begging.
Alesia bit her lip until it bled. That tone, that voice, that desperate gesture—everything was just like her past self.
When you’re desperate to live, you become pathetic. She had been like that as a child—begging and pleading, over and over. Pride was a luxury, and even a penny’s worth of pity was precious.
But no one had ever helped her. So Alesia never learned how to help others.
She could only judge—whether keeping Nia Engelos by her side would do her any good.
“You never once thought of me as family.”
Nia Engelos would be no help at all. Only a burden.
“I never did either. So go back. Before I tell Richard.”
With those final words, Alesia left Nia crying in the locked room. The pitiful sobbing behind her made her steps unbearably heavy.
“Phili.”
As soon as she entered her room, the parrot flew to her shoulder with a flutter. Alesia never kept Phili in a cage—the windows were shut, and the bird never left her side.
“You’re back? You’re back?”
“Yes, I’m back.”
Phili, so different now from when she had first seen him with Kaon, was clever and deeply attached to Alesia. He repeated words twice, but his memory was excellent, and he could hold a real conversation.
“Talk to him if you get lonely. If you don’t do it right, I’ll just set you free, you hear?”
Kaon Ferdinand had given her the parrot as a “friend.” Even threatening it in words it couldn’t possibly understand.
But as she later learned from the maids, Phili was no ordinary bird—he was rare and hard to come by. Even among his kind, there was wide variation, and the intelligent ones fetched astronomical prices. Not that money alone could buy them anytime you wanted.
She didn’t care about the cost, but one look was enough to see Phili had a brilliant mind. Kaon must have gone to great trouble to get him.
