Chapter 1
Erika realized it when she was only four years old.
That there wasn’t a single person on her side in this vast count’s mansion.
Even when she was scolded by the Countess and left to cry curled up in her room, no one came to comfort her.
‘It hurts…’
Not even the nanny or the maids came.
There wasn’t a single servant brave enough to hold and comfort the hated illegitimate child. Everyone watched the Countess’s mood carefully.
At that young age, Erika couldn’t tell the difference between blood and tears.
Weren’t they the same? Both were hot. Both hurt.
Whenever she faced the Countess, the two flowed together.
If she bled, she would wipe it away with the back of her small hand.
The tears that dripped down, she would let fall silently while sitting by the window, not even understanding why.
Her only friend was the moon in the night sky, who never answered her.
When she was five, she overheard where this aching loneliness had come from.
Her mother, a lowly maid, had conceived her with the Count, and died in childbirth.
The Countess despised Erika.
After having a proper son, Erika’s sudden appearance was like a curse, and the Countess grew more unhinged by the day.
Her father, the head of the prestigious House of Héraise and a righteous knight, lived in the Imperial Palace to serve the Emperor and had no time to look after his family.
Erika.
He had given the lowborn illegitimate daughter a name so similar to his son’s—Erik—without thinking, and this had enraged the Countess to no end. But the Count of Héraise never knew.
Still, indifference was no different from complicity in abuse.
Even so, Erika perceived her father differently from the Countess—at least he didn’t seem to hate her.
Whenever the Count came home, Erika would cling to the high attic window to watch him from afar.
She could only look at her father from a distance.
If she got too close, she would be severely beaten by the Countess after he left.
The Count’s golden hair was like the sun—beautiful, but out of reach.
Unfortunately, Erika had not inherited that golden hair.
She was born with plain brown hair, unbefitting of a high noble’s child. Maybe that was why she wasn’t recognized as a daughter?
Perhaps the Count had simply forgotten she existed.
At six years old, Erika learned how to forget loneliness. It was like a magic spell from a fairy tale.
“It’s okay…”
It’s okay. It’s okay. It was the same yesterday. This much doesn’t matter. This much is nothing.
After whispering “it’s okay” ten times, her heart felt mysteriously calmer.
“What? How long have you been watching me?”
“I-I just…”
“Ugh, annoying! Get lost, will you?!”
The day she was harshly scolded for secretly watching Erik’s sword practice, ten times wasn’t enough.
“…It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay… It’s over now, it’s okay…”
Her whole body was covered in wounds.
She sweated like she had a fever from the shock. Even her eyelashes were damp like they’d been caught in the rain.
Erika curled up under the bed, muttering “it’s okay, it’s okay” over and over, endlessly comforting herself, hundreds of times.
And she endured.
If she kept telling herself it was okay, it really did feel okay. It was voluntary forgetting.
Most of Erika’s memories before age seven were fragmented and unclear.
* * *
It was on her seventh birthday.
In truth, no one celebrated Erika’s birthday, so she didn’t even know her real birth date.
She had simply picked a day herself last year and secretly decided it was her birthday.
It was a lovely summer day.
Of course, there was no grand party like Erik’s birthday, no mountains of presents piled up.
But she had secretly observed and learned a few things.
She had sneaked a small candle and stuck it into a bread roll, and she could blow it out by herself.
She had made a wish for the first time last year: “Please let Erik get accepted into the Academy.” And that wish had actually come true.
After Erik entered the Imperial Academy and left home, one less person bullied her. It was an amazing result.
‘This year’s wish is…’
Erika remembered how the birthday wish had worked last year.
So she’d been waiting all year for this day.
This time, she would wish for something even better.
She had even secured a little candle and stolen a plump egg tart from the kitchen to hide away.
To blow out the candle, she had to wait until sunset, so she waited for the evening to come.
But the house was suddenly bustling.
“Hurry up!”
“Ugh, no notice at all! Nobles, so selfish as always.”
Peeking into the hallway from her room, she saw maids running about.
“Where’s the head maid? Is she in the kitchen?”
“She went to Madam. The steward is there too.”
Something was clearly going on.
The maids were scurrying around in a frenzy, but no one told her what was happening.
Erika just stood there scratching her arm absentmindedly.
“Ugh, don’t stand in the middle of the hallway! You’re in the way—get back inside!”
A maid pushed Erika roughly back into her room.
Thud. Erika fell back onto the floor but sighed quietly.
Then, as usual, she brushed herself off and stood back up. She was used to this kind of treatment.
After a while, she heard the loud sound of carriages outside the window.
The clatter of hooves and neighing of horses were a welcome sound to Erika.
‘Is Father home?’
She ran to the window.
Her pale forehead and small palms pressed against the glass.
But her shoulders soon drooped.
The carriage outside wasn’t the Count’s.
It bore the crest of an unfamiliar family.
And there wasn’t just one—there were several.
“One, two, three, four… five.”
Five?
Erika tried to remember if she had ever seen that many carriages before.
Then she remembered Erik’s birthday party. There had been a line of carriages then too.
‘Is it Erik’s birthday?’
No. It wasn’t.
Today was a different day. A day only Erika knew about—
“…Today is my birthday.”
The day Erika had chosen and kept to herself.
“Could it be…”
Seven-year-old Erika had a small dream.
A thin, tiny hope. It was too unrealistic to call an expectation, so she called it a dream.
‘Maybe they know it’s my birthday and came to celebrate?’
Erika hugged her faded, worn teddy bear and buried her face in it.
She did it to hide her blushing face.
It was such a foolish thought. Even she found herself laughable.
Even if someone mocked her for the silly fantasy, she wouldn’t be able to say anything back.
