Chapter 001
Borg, situated at the northwestern edge of the Empire.
The border lord, Ferdinand von Borg, stood by the window of the room he had used until recently, his thick silver hair catching the light as he peered into the obsidian night.
His dark, full lips drew in a breath from a cigar. As he exhaled, the pale smoke collided with the damp glass, blooming in white before vanishing completely.
Ferdinand finally turned, breaking the silence.
“There will be only one chance. The moment we reveal your identity, Your Highness, we must immediately secure proof of lineage.”
The elegant candelabras were all extinguished. Only the fireplace crackling in the corner cast a faint red glow across the darkened room.
Seated behind the desk was Caius von Borg—the man known to the public as Ferdinand’s adopted son.
Though their father-son bond was a fabrication meant to deceive the world, it held no weight when they were alone.
The proof lay in Ferdinand’s use of formal honorifics with Caius.
However, he addressed him as “Your Highness” with his voice alone; behind his eyes, there was no reverence—just as it had been since the day he took in that starving child twenty years ago.
“Your Highness’s appearance is an exact match for the Heidenberg family, and that actually makes things difficult.”
Pitch-black hair and golden eyes.
It went without saying that his thick eyebrows and high-bridged nose mirrored the late Emperor. Anyone who had seen a portrait of the late Emperor even once would find it impossible to deny that Caius was of his bloodline.
“The moment you meet the Emperor, he will do everything in his power to block the proof of lineage. Rumors say he hunted down and killed the descendants of the late Emperor Wilhelm, and we know the truth better than anyone else.”
Ferdinand repeated words they had exchanged dozens of times before.
“We need definitive evidence that will allow us to demand the priest perform the lineage verification the moment we enter the palace, but…”
Caius felt a surge of boredom, yet he replied coldly as if for the first time: “The lost Pearl of Albrecht; I have not found it yet.”
The Pearl of Albrecht—the heirloom passed down through generations to the eldest son of the Heidenberg Imperial family.
That treasure was currently missing, its location unknown.
“But it is certain that it hasn’t reached the Imperial Palace; the Emperor himself has been searching for it for years…”
In contrast to his voice, which seemed to trail off from a lack of confidence, his long golden eyes gleamed sharply.
In truth, Caius himself was the one who desired to find the pearl most of all.
He hadn’t truly lost it; he had simply entrusted it to someone.
He had been far too young then to realize that doing so was like entrusting a fish to a cat.
* * *
“Stay strong, Louisa.”
At Mrs. Smith’s words, Louisa lowered her tear-stained face. Her mother’s body, shrouded in white cloth, felt like a cruel, impossible lie.
“The living must survive. You know how exorbitant the church’s funeral costs are.”
Her mother had not been in her right mind for the last few years. She spent many days adrift in the distant past, carrying herself as if she were still a member of the nobility.
The people of Milk looked down on her mother, but Mrs. Smith was the sole exception. Even she, however, was wringing her hands in anxiety over the funeral.
It was all due to the suffocating reality Louisa endured.
When her father passed away, things hadn’t been this dire, but funeral costs had doubled over the last decade.
For that reason, another method practiced in secret had recently spread among the commoners: burning the bodies to conclude the funeral, known as ‘cremation.’
Cremation, which defied religious teachings, spread purely for pragmatic reasons; they said the lives of the living could not be dragged into the mud just to ensure the dead reached heaven.
But Louisa could not bring herself to agree; she did not want to burn her mother’s body.
However, Mrs. Smith remained firm.
“Anyway, the rich don’t go to heaven. Who knows whose blood they sucked to amass that wealth?”
As she reached into her pocket, the sound of metallic clinking echoed. She then placed two coins beside the mother’s body.
“There is someone who assists with these matters for a small fee. I will speak with him; let’s bid your mother farewell this way. Do we have an agreement?”
It turned out that silver coins were not only a necessity for living.
They were required even in death, and Louisa possessed none—or rather, she had far too few.
After the woman departed, Louisa lifted the cloth slightly to gaze upon her mother’s face.
Elizabeth Amalie Ermoli.
Wife of Stefan Rothschild Ermoli, the former Marquis of Ermoli.
Her mother had lived with pride even after losing that name entirely.
<Even if you wear a tattered cotton dress, you are a daughter of Ermoli, servants of Heidenberg. Never forget this name.>
That was how she had raised Louisa as well.
Of course, the proper family vault had vanished long ago.
But her mother deserved, at the very least, to be buried under the same sky as her father.
Otherwise, her mother would never reach heaven; she wouldn’t even be able to depart this world because of her lingering resentment. For this was the mother she knew, the former Marchioness Elizabeth.
Louisa carefully took her mother’s handkerchief from where it sat by the window and unfolded it. Nestled inside was a teardrop-shaped pearl, shimmering with a mysterious luster and a cold, white face.
As she stared at it, a desperate laugh escaped her. Her mother hadn’t even hinted at the existence of such a thing, even while standing at death’s door.
Perhaps she knew that if it had the slightest value, it would have been immediately sacrificed to pay for medicine.
The strange final instruction echoed in her ears—
<Keep it carefully, just as your mother did.>
Be happy, be healthy.
Why hadn’t her mother left a normal wish like that?
The pearl was so large that the possibility of it being a counterfeit was also high.
But the thought of her mother vanishing like this, without a proper grave or a headstone, was far too horrifying to bear.
In any case, Louisa needed the funds for a formal funeral.
There were no large pawnshops in Milk, so she had to take a shared carriage to the bustling Helden district.
Louisa found a respectable-looking pawnshop in the market area she had visited only once before. Even so, it took some time before she summoned the courage to approach.
— Ding, ding.
She finally pushed open the door.
The ring of the small bell announcing a customer’s arrival pierced her eardrums sharply, sounding like a rebuke from her mother.
Louisa squeezed her eyes shut. She entered with hesitant steps, and the shopkeeper lifted his head from the ledger.
“What brings a young girl like you here?”
He asked coldly, his gaze sweeping over Louisa’s mourning attire.
It was a solitary black dress her mother had worn long ago when her father died, and it hung a bit loose on Louisa.
She realized then that she must look like a callous person who had come to hawk a deceased relative’s belongings during the mourning period, but there was no turning back now.
And what she intended to do was not far from the man’s suspicion.
“I… I want to know the value of this.”
When she carefully produced the pearl wrapped in the handkerchief, the man’s eyes narrowed instantly.
He reached for his glasses with a slightly trembling hand and donned gloves that appeared clean. Then he stared at the pearl for a duration so long it became stifling.
Finally, he took out another pearl and rubbed it against her mother’s pearl to compare them.
Louisa watched the long appraisal process with a flicker of hope. Perhaps it wasn’t a fake?
The shopkeeper finally spoke.
“Hmm, it’s a Baroque pearl.”
“A Baroque pearl?”
“That’s the name for irregularly shaped pearls. It’s difficult to command a full price regardless of the size.”
His tone was slightly gentler than it had been at the start.
“Ah…”
Louisa’s lips parted in a daze. It meant it was likely a genuine pearl, even if it was a Baroque variety.
She swallowed nervously and asked again: “Then, if I pawn it, how much can I borrow?”
“Pawn it?”
The man furrowed his brows once more.
Louisa was flustered and glanced around the room.
There was everything of value; jewelry, silver ornaments, rifles, swords, shields, and furs. If you looked closely, you could even find items that didn’t appear expensive at all.
Didn’t others pawn those things to borrow money?
It certainly seemed that way, so Louisa spoke cautiously: “Excuse me, but isn’t that the primary business of a pawnshop…?”
At that, the shopkeeper let out a low, scoffing laugh.
“Of course it is. But, as I see it, your circumstances seem… difficult.”
His words trailed off in a strange manner.
She had never been ashamed of her poverty, but now, appearing as someone selling her mother’s keepsakes, she felt a wave of uncertainty. She swallowed the lump in her throat.
Since Louisa did not respond, the man continued: “You might not know, but look at the size of this pearl. If it weren’t a Baroque type, its value would have reached 100 Crowns.”
“… Pardon?”
The man laughed again.
“I said if it weren’t a Baroque pearl. But because it is… hmm, let me see.”
He moved the abacus beads with a flourish that seemed entirely unnecessary, then declared: “10 Crowns.”
Louisa gasped.
That was the exact amount needed to hold a funeral at the church. Perhaps this pearl was what her mother had provided to cover the costs of her own journey.
