𖹭 Chapter 10 𖹭
After his father Urania left the Duke’s estate, Eurpel came to carry the duty of managing the territory after Calliope.
He had to endure strict heir training from childhood, but Eurpel never complained.
He simply thought that his duty had come a little earlier than expected.
Calliope sat across from him with his back straight.
He picked up the report Eurpel had prepared neatly on the table and began to read it slowly.
With every page he turned, Esid’s crimes were revealed line by line, and even the written words recording those cruel acts seemed to give off pain and anger.
After some time, Calliope spoke.
“Keep an eye on Pieria.”
Eurpel, who had been waiting calmly for his opinion, widened his eyes.
It was a rare reaction for someone who was usually so composed.
He quickly fixed his briefly shaken expression and thought,
Pieria? And so suddenly? She is not even confirmed to be the granddaughter yet…
‘Is it because of what happened today?’
He had heard that there had been a conflict between Pieria and Esid.
He thought Calliope probably meant that he should pay attention to Pieria so that no bad rumors about the Duke family would spread.
But the next words made Eurpel doubt his own ears.
“If the child needs anything, help her sincerely.”
Eurpel blinked and looked at Calliope.
When had he last felt this surprised?
His grandfather’s eyes calmly moved over the paper, and that made it even harder to believe.
That he was paying attention to one little girl.
After a short silence, Eurpel moved his lips.
“……Understood.”
Calliope gave Eurpel a brief glance, then returned his eyes to the report.
He was clearly reading the letters, but the meaning would not enter his mind at all.
It was not because the report was poor.
It was because that bold and clever little girl kept stirring his thoughts.
The real Pieria was very different from what Esid had described.
That child was extremely smart.
Not just a little beyond expectations—
Far beyond them.
‘Until now, all the granddaughter candidates who came to the Duke’s estate only cared about their own safety and rights.’
But Pieria was different.
She consistently spoke from the position of thinking about the Duke family first, while still cleverly getting what she wanted.
Honestly, even that alone could have been brushed aside with a simple thought—
She is smart.
The problem was that it was not only that.
Surprisingly, Pieria had noticed all of Calliope’s thoughts.
And she neither felt embarrassed by that fact nor tried to hide it.
It was more like she was saying,
If you want to understand me, then go ahead.
That was what drew Calliope’s attention.
It had been a very long time since he had felt the need not to be pushed back by someone.
At first, he had simply thought that, as the head of the family, he should speak with Pieria privately.
But as they talked, he felt as though he had been drawn in.
‘No. That is only an excuse.’
Calliope quickly realized that his judgment of Pieria was only a rational excuse made afterward.
That was the power of the sharp insight he had honed over many years.
He threw away that false judgment.
Instead, he chose to be honest with himself, at least in his own heart.
The truth was—
His heart had already been shaken from the first moment he met Pieria.
“Even if I win the concours?”
The firm eyes with which she had clearly looked at him and insisted on her position.
Her voice had shaken, yet it had also been strong.
It was the desperation that only someone pushed onto the steep slope of life could show.
In that moment, Calliope could guess what kind of life Pieria had grown up in.
“I want to win fairly and confidently. Always.”
Pieria had been desperate.
Even then, she had not directly said, Please save me, only because there was still some pride she could not fully throw away.
And even in the middle of that—
“I don’t want a result like that. One that harms the honor of the Trache Duke family, or makes people suspect I lied to avoid the concours result.”
From beginning to end, Pieria had put the dignity of the family first.
She had not even mentioned her own suffering.
Because she thought Calliope, the one judging the matter, would not care about such things.
A child only ten years old.
Once he realized that, it felt as though his heart slowly sank.
That was why—
“Come if you need to practice.”
He had given her the key to the main estate music room, a place no one had been allowed to enter.
And why—
“……I pray your dream comes true.”
He had spoken his true feelings without meaning to.
And the child—
“……Thank you.”
…had accepted the heart of an old man so easily.
Realizing that he had fallen into a sentimental mood, Calliope gathered his thoughts again.
It had been such a long time since he felt this kind of emotion that it had surprised him for a moment, but showing it was a different matter.
Even to Eurpel, the person closest to him.
Calliope forced himself to slowly read the report, word by word, even though he usually would have understood it in seconds, and then said casually, as if it meant nothing.
“I gave her the key to the main estate music room. Keep that in mind.”
A look of surprise crossed Eurpel’s face once again.
The main estate music room had been the favorite place of his only younger sister, Delphi.
Delphi loved music.
No—
It would be more correct to say she adored it.
For that youngest child, Calliope had built the largest and most splendid music room in the empire.
Even a man as cold and sharp as a blade had one moment of weakness—
And that was in front of Delphi.
Even though there was a small piano made for children, Delphi always climbed up with effort onto the high seat and played the grand piano.
How many times had they told her to eat first and then play?
The music room, once filled only with laughter and piano sound, became a ruin the day Delphi suddenly disappeared.
Those memories were gone now.
The time when the family gathered together and listened to the youngest child play.
The applause that followed every performance.
The little bow she gave while holding her skirt politely.
After the youngest disappeared, the Trache Duke family had frozen cold.
The youngest was no longer by their side.
And yet—
He had handed the key to that music room to Pieria.
This was not a simple matter.
It meant Pieria had moved Calliope’s heart.
Touching his eyebrow, Eurpel organized his thoughts.
‘……Why did Grandfather’s feelings change?’
Eurpel’s first impression of Pieria had not been good.
When he first met her, she had been too busy looking around with restless eyes.
As if she had been chased there.
He had already realized that she had not come to confirm whether she was the youngest granddaughter.
And when he investigated, he found that she was a drifter from a traveling troupe.
Taking in someone like that, someone who might cause trouble, was dangerous.
And yet they had accepted her purely because of how much she resembled Calliope in appearance.
But today, everything had changed.
His grandfather had changed.
Just from having a short conversation with Pieria.
He did not know what they had talked about, but if Calliope had spoken like that, then something important had clearly happened.
Eurpel quietly turned his eyes toward the window.
At that moment, Pieria was entering the main estate.
Below her round little head, her sky-blue hair swayed like waves.
Suddenly—
He began to feel curious.
I was heading to the meeting room with Clarine to attend the trial that would decide Esid’s punishment.
“Where do we need to go?”
“The first floor. There is also a door that leads in from the second floor, but—”
Clarine suddenly stopped speaking.
Her lips moved, and then she covered her mouth with both hands.
Her gaze stayed fixed on one spot.
Her eyes trembled little by little, full of fear.
“Clarine?”
I followed her gaze and saw a tall young man walking toward us.
Blue-silver hair covering his neat forehead.
Red eyes shining like rubies.
I already knew who he was.
Eurpel Trache.
The eldest brother of the missing granddaughter, and the young duke whom Pieria had briefly met when she first came to the Duke’s estate.
‘His hair and eyes…’
For a moment, I stared at Eurpel in a daze.
The sharp contrast between his blue-silver hair and red eyes suited him strangely well.
Maybe because of that, Eurpel gave off a mysterious feeling, almost as if he were not human.
Even the clear features on his small face added to that feeling.
“Hello.”
Before I realized it, Eurpel had already walked close enough to greet me.
