Chapter 1
Anne staggered through the middle of a hazy desert, walking a path that seemed to lead to heaven.
Looking back, the fragments of her life had been as common and worthless as grains of sand.
Those born with precious gems among them were rare—only they could walk such paths.
Anne Perot, who was merely lucky not to be buried alive between the dunes, had led a very different life.
Now that she was dead, wasn’t that enough?
As she gazed at the dazzlingly blue sky and the endless landscape filled with yellow sand, the scent of ash and fire tickled her nose.
“Just take me anywhere—heaven, hell, whatever!”
Anne raised her hand boldly and shouted.
The wind grew fierce between the sand dunes. Anne, wrapped head to toe in white cloth, braced herself against the sand mound to avoid being swept away by the whirlwind.
Fwoosh.
The sand filled from her toes upward—calves, thighs, hips, waist, shoulders, arms.
“Wha—?!”
The swirling sand wrapped around her head, starting to bury her whole.
Death was not a world of new light. How could heaven be found in this suffocating, dust-filled place?
Longing to see her family, who had gone before her, Anne closed the eyes of her soul once more.
“Anne—”
“……?”
“If you’re awake, get up.”
A woman with light reddish hair and a mole on the right side of her lips was looking down at Anne. Even her clear voice sounded familiar.
“Cathy?”
“Yeah. It’s your turn to make breakfast today.”
“…What?”
“If you’re any later, the head maid might come and smack your behind.”
At the mention of the head maid, Anne shot up reflexively—an instinctive reaction before her brain could catch up.
Once up, she realized she was in a shabby, cramped room like a storage closet, with four beds crammed together.
One person was still sleeping in the corner, and another had likely already left. Cathy, seeing Anne awake, immediately laid back down and closed her eyes again.
Am I… not dead?
Relying on instinct, Anne hurriedly dressed in her maid uniform like she had in the past and ran to the kitchen in the servants’ hall.
Before the sun had even properly risen, the kitchen, shrouded in dull morning light, felt as silent and cold as night.
Thankfully, it seemed she wasn’t late.
“You’re on bread duty today, Anne.”
The head maid came in, assigned everyone their tasks briskly, then left. Anne searched for the water jug near the pile of flour in front of her.
Though countless questions floated in her mind and her eyes darted around, the suffocating atmosphere left no room for hesitation. Her hands and feet had to move first.
I died.
Is this a new kind of hell?
What did I do so wrong to be sent back over ten years into the past?
“The madam said she liked your rye bread. Make that again today.”
Telling her to make plenty, the head maid placed a sack of flour and left.
Even as she tore open the sack, Anne kept glancing around—at the familiar ceiling, the cooking utensils, and the kitchen that clearly bore her long-standing presence.
“Anne, stop dawdling and get to work. If you’re late, the madam will be furious.”
The kitchen was even busier and more chaotic than Anne remembered. Not just the maids, but even attendants and stewards bustled about.
It meant the ducal household was preparing for an event.
Even after all these years, Anne’s body remembered. She poured water into the flour and began kneading with hands softer and more delicate than she remembered.
“Who’s coming today?”
It wasn’t noisy enough to be a party, but the amount and variety of food were too much for an ordinary day.
The weather wasn’t freezing—maybe early winter. What had happened around this time?
Leaning on the only warmth in the dark basement kitchen—the brazier—Anne asked another maid.
“Didn’t you hear yesterday? The young duke is returning.”
The maids lit up with excitement as they chatted about the duke and the young duke.
They explained that today marked the first time in five years that the young duke, now an adult, was returning to the capital estate after completing a tour of the duchy.
The duke had been busy with royal affairs and had entrusted the family business to the young duke. Now that the tour was over, everything would officially be handed over to him.
Though the women managed the household, even the estate’s external affairs were substantial. Especially for one of the empire’s top noble families, like House Benton, the vast territory took over half a year to inspect.
“It’s been a year. I bet he looks even more dashing now.”
“I heard the duke wants him to marry someone from their homeland. He might bring a lady with him.”
“You think the madam will allow that? Nobles in the capital are lining up to win the young duke’s favor.”
“What time will he arrive? They got a letter saying he’ll be here this afternoon.”
As Anne shaped the dough into uniform balls on a wooden board, she wiped her trembling hands on her apron.
There was a reason why the young duke, age 23, had taken so long to return.
It hadn’t taken half a year—it had taken a full year. And the reason he’d be arriving not in the afternoon but much later in the evening, after seeing the duke in the capital?
Because today, someone the ducal household wasn’t thrilled to welcome would be arriving as well.
Anne also knew that the bread she worked so hard to make would cool on the table and end up in the mouths of servants and footmen.
Had she really returned?
She’d thought she was dead. But here she was, back in time.
Shaking her head, Anne looked down at her flour-covered fingers. Her ring finger, bare and unadorned, felt strangely empty.
But the smooth, unblemished skin pleased her.
These were her hands—hands with no scars, no memories.
“Hurry up! We’re busy today!”
The head maid snapped at the chatting maids, ready to kick their behinds.
“Yes, ma’am!!”
Biting her lip, Anne began kneading a fresh batch of dough, shaking off the distractions. Whether he came or not had nothing to do with her.
Now, and forevermore, she would not be connected to him again.
She was just a grain of sand in the desert, a single speck of flour in a vast pile. She was nothing like the man who, though once buried in dirt, had returned shining like a precious gem.
Grey Benton. He was the illegitimate son of Duke Benton.
And he was the only man Anne had ever loved with all her heart.
The only sweet, sparkling part of Anne’s life had been the time she spent with him—and the most painful memories were also from those days.
Having lost her parents early on, Anne had been sold off to the ducal estate as a maid while living under her aunt’s roof, raising her younger brother.
From the age of 15, she’d done every kind of menial labor. At 17, she met young Grey Benton.
Just 13 at the time, he had been brought into the duke’s residence by the young duke during a territorial inspection.
But he looked like someone who had nowhere to belong. Everyone around him was unfamiliar, distant, and cold.
The duke and young duke were too busy to care for him, and the duchess—rather than treating him like a son—actively despised and ignored him.
No one in the estate protected him. Even the attendants didn’t bother.
Though he wasn’t starved, he was never given fine food, nor did he have a governess or tutor to comfort him when he cried at night.
Only Anne, who thought of her younger brother still enduring at her aunt’s home, secretly extended her hand to help him.
She sneaked him expensive snacks meant for the duke and duchess, carried the frightened child back to bed when he ran out crying at night, and read him fairy tales until he fell asleep.
Naturally, the lonely boy quickly grew attached to her.
Like a mother, like a sister, like the only person who showed him kindness—his affection was inevitable.
Anne looked after him like a child. And after learning that her younger brother had died two years later, she poured all her affection into Grey.
It was only natural that a man and woman who filled each other’s emptiness would grow into lovers.
When Grey turned 19, Anne was 23—an age considered ripe for marriage.
No one in the ducal estate was unaware of the subtle atmosphere between them.
Especially Grey’s overwhelming affection—it poured from his eyes so clearly that even the attendants looked at Anne with a mix of concern and envy.
“You’re well past the age to marry, you know.”
But no matter how illegitimate he was, the duchess could not allow a maid to be with a child of ducal blood.
She believed it was time to sever Grey’s youthful attachment to Anne.
It just so happened that he was frequently away, attending the knight academy.
Taking advantage of this, the duchess decided it was time to get Anne out of the estate.
