‘Don’t come here again! Why is Claudel your daughter? On the subject of a miserable commoner!'
The Duke of Vermont left a dark blue bruise deep inside Madame Cronach's chest.
On the day that the village of Flogne was burned down, Evan took Claudel and Hannah down to the castle located at the bottom of the mountain. This was because it was the day when a large cruise ship touring the Kingdom of Oberon arrived.
In a small village deep in the mountains, there were only about twenty or less than thirty people in total.
However, the village of Flogne, deep in the mountains, was a place that held a secret known only to those who knew.
This is because there was a sacred tree, Arbor, called the navel of the continent.
Everyone living in the village of Plogne has worshiped the sacred tree and offered prayers and offerings for generations.
Arbor caused trouble every time a major disaster occurred on the continent, so even as time passed and his existence was forgotten like a legend in an old story in most people's memories, the royal families of countries located on other continents, including the Kingdom of Oberon, contacted him periodically.
Now called Madame Cronach, her original name was Leonie.
Leonie was like the chief of Plogne Village and a fortune teller in Arbor.
The sudden loss of leaves and withering of the sacred tree was the beginning of the village's tragic fate.
A fateful day.
When Leonie came to her senses after collapsing with sword wounds, her hair and clothes were on fire.
Leonie crawled out of the fire with a dagger still stuck in her body with the sole thought that she must live.
But what greeted her as she emerged from the fire was another fire pit.
The sacred tree was burning.
Alas, heavenly punishment will fall.
Who dared set fire to the tree that was said to have been planted first by God when he created the continent?
The children of Plogne Village were born as children of Arbor and lived their whole lives as relatives of trees.
As soon as the baby's belly button falls off, the ritual is performed by holding a gourd and watering the sacred tree with the help of their parents.
Until his death, he will live under the shade of the huge tree, praying for nothing to happen and taking care of Arbor every day.
The sight of Arbor, which was so huge and dense that the sky was invisible, catching fire and burning seemed to set Leonie's heart and her soul on fire.
It was by sheer luck that she survived while the entire village, the size of her palm, was burning.
She couldn't remember how she escaped, but Leonie escaped to a spring of underground water that she would climb into a tree.
Perhaps because she was built along a natural waterway, the surrounding bay was spared the fire.
However, Leonie was slowly dying in the middle of the burning village for several days from her wounds.
'... There appears to be one person alive.'
The voice of a stranger brought her to her senses.
'What should I do?'
When she narrowed her eyes, she saw the sword and the knight with the lion and a family's crest engraved on his armor, surrounding her and looking down at her.
'Taking her life...'
The person who spoke as if the knight was his superior was wearing silver armor and a red cape.
Leonie could recognize that family at a glance.
Indomitable Sword Temnes.
A family crest that her husband, Evan of Vermont, would hate.
'Please save me.'
The knights flinched when she let out her low voice, which they thought was almost dead.
'If you let me live, you will be my owner for life... I will serve you.'
To live.
To save her life, Leonie offered her soul, which was tied to the sacred tree, Arbor, for a price.
But it didn't matter.
Her mission to protect and watch has been lost in flames.
Then the one wearing the silver armor raised his hand and took off his helmet.
The boy with black hair and red eyes had the physique of an adult, but his face was very pure.
A lion's cub is also a lion.
She had heard a story about the succession of the family, which became more powerful in this generation due to the Duke of Temnes, who became the King's sire.
The first Kaian she saw was a perfect lion cub.
In the red eyes looking down at Leonie, she could feel that he was weighing her life without any sympathy.
Could that have been possible with just the intelligence of a fifteen-year-old boy?
'Let her live.'
Anyway, with that one word, Leonie was able to save her life.
However, her life was thinner and more difficult than expected.
The sword wounds below her shoulder and above her chest were fatal, but the fire caused the blood to clot and stop the bleeding, so she may have survived.
The burns were much more serious.
The skin, which had been left injured for several days, had developed necrosis and inflammation, and even if it was scraped off, new skin could not grow in the large area of the wound.
She suffered from a high fever due to the infection, and when she wasn't, she writhed in pain, her skin pulling as if her body had ceased to be human.
From below the left cheek to the neck, shoulder, arm, and part of the left thigh.
It was fortunate that she passed out and had no memory of her body being burned alive.
While she was sick with a fever, her mind wandered in search of Evan and Claudel.
'I'm glad he's out of town with the kid.'
If it weren't for that, Leonie wouldn't have been able to endure this misfortune.
Evan would be with Claudel, but now that her life had been saved with the help of Temnes, she couldn't move.
The knights, under orders from his householder, moved her to a quiet place like a villa, but she was in such a state that she could not even sit up in her bed by herself, let alone get out of there.
So, it was important for her to somehow focus on treatment and survive.
After more than half a year of cutting and piecing together her body, Leonie had finally recovered her body to the point where she could walk around in her clothes over her bandaged body.
'Do you have a family?'
'No.'
Leonie lied.
This was because she could not tell the heirs of Temnes that her husband was the second son of the Duke of Vermont.
Moreover, in the Kingdom of Oberon, marriage was not established between nobles and commoners of different statuses, so Evan and Leonie were not officially married. In any case, Evan was legally unmarried.
'Is there somewhere to go?'
'For now, I'm going to try to find my distant relatives.'
When she answered cautiously, Kaian put down a bag of gold coins in front of her.
'You will have to keep the oath you made to me. Your life is mine.'
'Yes.'
'No one should know that only one of Arbor's children survived. Did you understand?'
'... Of course.'
Leonie found it hard to bear the waves of her sadness, but she felt that she did not deserve her sadness.
She survived alone in the village.
The small village burned quietly without any screams or shouts.
She knew what it meant.
All the villagers would have died before the fire was set.
Finding Evan and Claudel was more important than the past, which cannot be undone now.
'I'll keep that in mind.'
With the money that Kaian gave her, Leonie went to the castle of Valmonde, which was a bit over the top.
Her skin, which had just recovered from burns, hardened and turned into bark in the cold Valmonde weather, and she was in great pain.
At the Castle of Valmonde, which she managed to find, Leonie heard a sound like a thunderbolt.
‘Please let me see the Duke of Vermont. Please tell him that I'm from the village of Plogne. Please.'
When she complained to the doorkeeper, the man who at first treated her like a crazy woman told her what to do, and she was able to meet Evan's older brother, the Duke of Vermont, whom she had only occasionally heard of.
'Evan is dead. What kind of idiot is he going to kill himself after his beloved wife?
'No, that's ridiculous.'
Her husband was not that kind of person.
No way that would happen.
To Leonie's shock, the Duke of Vermont spoke coldly, his complexion not changing at all.
'He is buried in the castle catacombs, so if you want, you can open the coffin and say your final goodbyes. With my special permission.'
'Alright.'
Leonie screamed in her grief.
However, she finally came to her senses and appealed to the Duke of Vermont.
'My daughter. I'll take Claudel.'
The Duke of Vermont spoke out before the tears on her cheeks dried.
‘Don’t even come here again! Claudel, Why are you saying she is your daughter? On the subject of a miserable commoner!'
'...I beg your pardon?'
'My younger brother has never been married in his life. How could my niece be someone like you? Is there any evidence that you were Evan's wife?'
Only then did Leonie understand what the Duke of Vermont had said.
Evan and Leonie were a couple who swore loyalty to each other, but their relationship could not be recognized in the Kingdom of Oberon.
Evan always used to say that his older brother was a very strict person.
She never thought she would feel it this way.
Unless Evan came back alive, there was no evidence that Leonie, a commoner, was his wife.
'Please. Please let me take Claudel. That child is my life.'
Leonie, who was shocked and crying over her husband's death, was struck by another shock: her daughter might be taken from her.
‘Claudel will know when she sees me. She'll think I'm her mom. I wonder how much she will find her mother.'
What if her father died suddenly like that?
Leonie was very afraid of the injuries Claudel would receive during that time.
'You're going to raise the child like that?'
The cold eyes of the Duke of Vermont were fixed on her as if they were made of ground ice from her frozen soil.
'...Ah.'
She was speechless.
‘Get out now. Don't even think about setting foot in Valmonde again.'
'Wait! Wait for a second!'
The Duke of Vermont threw Leonie, who did not want to be kicked out of the castle, into a cage that resembled an animal cage.
In that state, only a few sips of water and a few pieces of hard bread were put through the grate until she was put on a cart and arrived outside the estate, a four-day trip away. She was literally treated worse than animals.
Leonie, who was driven out of the estate, never set foot on Valmonde's land again.
No matter what the Duke of Vermont said, she couldn't get a travel permit.
However, the Duke of Vermont, whom she hated so much that she wanted to kill him, had a point.
Even if Claudel was brought home injured, sick, and penniless, the child would have to work odd jobs to support her mother.
‘I need to make money and gain strength. So, when I can meet Claudel, I will do anything.'
With that thought in mind, Leonie opened a salon in the capital with the help of Kaian and lived tenaciously.
She hated Temnes, something she would not have dared to do if her husband, who had Vermont blood, were still alive.
However, it was better that she could live as an informant for Temnes while cursing the Duke of Vermont. This was because she could occasionally hear rumors of Claudel's well-being through news flowing from Valmonde.
However, as if by heaven's help, Claudel became Kaian's bride by a sudden royal order.
Leonie was so happy that she literally went crazy.
It was a time when she longed for a glimpse of Claudel, who was held in the hands of the Duke of Vermont, even from afar.
Moreover, contrary to the widespread rumors, Kaian was a much nicer guy.
He was at least as dignified and faithful as the Duke of Vermont. As promised when saving her life, Leonie, who has kept quiet about the town of Plogne, is being kept alive.
Her blood almost boiled when she heard that her daughter was on the verge of death from herzole.
She remembered that Evan had left a prescription at the apothecary below the mountain to get medicine for Claudel, who had not received the baptism of ice, in case she got herzole.
She sent someone to interrogate the herbalist, and fortunately, she still had what her husband had entrusted to her, so she was able to send it to Temnes territory.
Cronach Delmore.
The ten years she lived under a fake name with her daughter's name in the middle found meaning.
***
The next day, Madame Cronach put on her makeup with excitement and dressed with care.
“That kid grew up nicely. I don’t think she really wants to see opera.”
Nevertheless, the reason she pushed ahead with her sales was because she wanted to see Claudel at least once more. After all, she had come to hand over tickets to the opera in person.
However, upon seeing Claudel getting out of the carriage in front of the theater where the performance was being held, Madame Cronach dropped the ticket she was holding in her hand.
Claudel's face, which had been as pretty as a flower about to bloom just yesterday, had become half-faced.
“Duchess! What happened to this?”
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