Chapter – 03
“Then you must know that today is my birthday, and you are still saying such things?”
“……”
Only then did Cedric and the Marquis realize that today was Rafine’s birthday. Both of them looked embarrassed.
“…Ahem. Didn’t we already decide to celebrate your birthday together later, once Elizabeth’s condition improves?”
It was clear that the Marquis did not consider Rafine’s birthday important. In the first place, he probably never thought it needed to be celebrated.
The worst birthday.
Rafine swallowed a sigh.
She had never expected anyone to do something special for her birthday anyway.
But not even a single word of congratulations? And they were trying to pass it by like this. From the very people who should have been the closest to her.
A strange tension filled the room, but Cedric quickly broke it.
“Oh, are you sulking because we didn’t know it was your birthday?”
“Sulking?”
Rafine laughed in disbelief.
How could he describe her feelings so simply as sulking? His attitude of trying to treat her like a child was almost ridiculous.
Cedric answered calmly as if it were nothing.
“Still, breaking the engagement… that’s going too far.”
He clearly did not believe her words.
After all, the woman who had followed him every day saying she liked him had suddenly changed overnight.
“Think of it as a birthday gift from me.”
No matter how much Rafine wished for it, Cedric had always delayed their marriage with one excuse after another. Asking for a broken engagement as a birthday gift might sound absurd, but she was serious.
When Rafine answered coldly, Cedric looked genuinely flustered for once.
“What?”
“Ugh… Father, my head hurts so much!”
At that moment, Elizabeth suddenly whined like a child.
The Marquis looked troubled and hurried over to her.
“Rafine, I’m sorry your birthday is passing like this, but Beth is sick. As her older sister, you should understand.”
Once again, he demanded sacrifice from her simply because she was the older sister.
Elizabeth’s whining pain mattered more to him than Rafine’s forgotten birthday.
“Yes, I understand perfectly. I was only saying that I will break my engagement with Cedric.”
“Ugh, sob… My head, my head hurts!”
Every time Rafine tried to speak, Elizabeth flailed her arms and legs and shouted.
The dishes on the table rattled loudly and some fell to the floor.
A servant nearby rushed forward in alarm.
“Miss, please be careful!”
“So annoying! My head hurts!”
Elizabeth was completely unreasonable. But since this was not the first time something like this had happened, Rafine calmly cut the meat in front of her with a knife and said,
“Beth, you’re an adult now. How long are you going to keep acting like a spoiled child?”
The Marquis exploded in anger when Rafine spoke in such a cold tone.
“You! How can an older sister speak to her younger sister like that!”
“I can’t keep taking care of her forever. I can’t live Elizabeth’s life for her.”
Rafine replied without hesitation.
The Marquis froze with his mouth open, clearly shocked.
“And from now on, don’t think about leaving Elizabeth’s nursing to me.”
Rafine swallowed a piece of meat and then lifted her gaze to look directly at Elizabeth, who was sitting far away.
“Elizabeth, you’ll be fine without your sister, right? Your doctor will take much better care of you than I can. You must have been annoyed that I was always stuck beside you while nursing you.”
“I’m sick… Why are you acting strange too, sister? Waaah!”
Elizabeth cried even louder on purpose. It was hard to believe she was an adult.
The two men immediately turned on Rafine together.
“Rafine, have you gone mad? How can you say that to your sick sister!”
“What kind of things are you saying?”
The Marquis and Cedric both shouted angrily.
Rafine did not change her expression at all. She calmly cut another piece of meat and put it into her mouth.
Now that her heart felt lighter, the food tasted surprisingly good.
“You can still swallow food at a time like this? How selfish!”
“You just called me selfish?”
Rafine looked at the Marquis in disbelief.
“Even on my birthday, while I’m taking care of my sister, I’m called selfish? I know it’s hard for anything I do to please you, Father. So from now on, stop forcing me to nurse her or take care of her.”
She then lifted her glass and drank some water.
Just then, Cedric’s aide hurried over.
“His Majesty has summoned you back to the Imperial Palace.”
Cedric stood up irritably.
“Damn.”
While muttering a curse, he prepared to leave. Then he walked over to Elizabeth and spoke gently.
“Elizabeth, I’ll take you to your room. Let’s go.”
“Waaah… Brother, my head really feels like it’s going to split.”
Even now, Cedric was only worried about Elizabeth.
Rafine spoke again, firmly sealing the matter of the broken engagement.
“I will prepare everything needed for the annulment. You only need to agree.”
“What are you talking about? A broken engagement?”
Cedric shouted angrily while putting on his jacket halfway.
In this room, Rafine was the only one who remained calm.
She set down her glass and wiped her mouth with a napkin.
“You said His Majesty called for you. You should hurry and go. I still have something to say to Father.”
Cedric stood there staring at her in disbelief.
Can a person really change this much overnight?
That was what he thought.
He did not even consider the things he had done to her all this time.
He did not realize that all the cruel things from the past had piled up and led to this result today.
Foolishly.
Rafine did not even look at Cedric anymore. She turned to the Marquis instead.
“And Father.”
The Marquis frowned and sighed deeply, as if asking what else she had to say.
“What is it?”
“I was sixteen. That was when my special ability first appeared.”
Rafine spoke calmly without blinking.
“…Rafine, that story—!”
“Yes. We decided to keep it secret until Elizabeth recovered.”
At those words, Elizabeth, who had been crying loudly, suddenly became quiet as if nothing had happened.
The word “ability” drew everyone’s attention.
Cedric, who had been about to leave, also stopped walking.
“Ability?”
“Yes. The ability of our family.”
A mysterious power that bloomed only in those who were chosen.
In the Empire, the imperial family and the three founding noble houses had inherited special powers for generations.
The imperial family possessed Calypso, the Sun’s Flame.
Rafine’s family possessed Robru, the Wind of the Sky.
Another house held Playten, the Abyssal Sea, said to be the most powerful.
And the family guarding the border possessed Shilean, the Earth of Strength.
As the names suggested, those who inherited these powers could freely control the forces of nature.
The ability was passed down to only one person in a generation, and the strength varied from person to person.
The current Emperor possessed an extremely powerful ability, while the power of the Playten family had become very weak.
This strange power was considered a blessing from the gods.
If someone from a side branch of the family awakened the ability, even the heir of the house could be replaced.
That was also why the current Emperor had been able to quickly silence the nobles’ opposition after ascending the throne.
Of course, he was also an excellent ruler—but his Sun’s Flame ability was stronger than anyone else’s.
And that great power had appeared in Rafine as well when she turned sixteen.
“Good heavens! This is definitely the Wind of the Sky!”
“Congratulations! And Lady Rafine is the Marquis’s legitimate daughter!”
The vassals had been celebrating wildly when her ability awakened.
But the Marquis alone quietly watched Rafine.
She could never forget his terrifyingly calm gaze as he looked at her standing there awkwardly.
And she also remembered what he said next.
“Congratulations. However.”
The Marquis immediately suppressed the excited atmosphere of the vassals.
“Abilities that appear before adulthood sometimes disappear quickly. It would be better to keep this a secret.”
The vassals looked shocked, but the Marquis’s words were absolute.
It was true that such abilities sometimes vanished.
After sending away the disappointed vassals, he spoke to Rafine alone.
“Rafi, congratulations. But think about it.”
His eyes were so dry that not even a trace of joy could be found in them.
From that gaze, Rafine instinctively realized that her father was not happy at all.
She had thought he would be.
It should have been something to celebrate.
“Your younger sister is sick. If people celebrate good news about the older sister, how painful would that be for the younger one, even if she doesn’t show it?”
“….”
Young Rafine silently nodded.
“Let’s keep your ability a secret until our Elizabeth recovers.”
Rafine felt hurt by those words.
Her sister being sick was sad, but celebrating her own achievement was another matter.
Yet her father always tied every situation back to Elizabeth.
Still, that day Rafine forced herself to smile and play the role of the good older sister.
Because she wanted to make her father happy.
“Alright, Father. I will.”
Tears leaked from the corners of her smiling eyes, but she pretended nothing was wrong.
A few days later, a rumor began spreading among the vassals that Rafine’s ability had completely disappeared.
Even without asking, Rafine knew.
The source of that rumor was her own father.
Rafine folded away the hollow memories of the past and deliberately smiled brightly.
“I would like to tell His Majesty that my ability has awakened.”
