Chapter 70
The Secret Revealed (2)
“Ignes Ducal House…”
Retina murmured the familiar name. A family with the same silver hair as the royal family. Descendants blessed by the goddess. And a house known as the tragic lineage of a war hero whose body was never found after going missing on the battlefield.
Retina tightly clasped her sweat-dampened hands. The Ignes ducal house… The truth she’d been searching for all her life pressed heavily upon her chest.
Since meeting Noden, she had begun to suspect that she might carry northern blood, so the shock at the debutante had not been too great.
Still, she had believed her silver hair was simply a rare trait that sometimes appeared in those unrelated to the royal family. Even in Ludenheim, silver-haired children were occasionally born, so she assumed it was the same for her and her mother.
But a ducal house?
Retina wiped her sweat-soaked palms on her dress. No one could have predicted that the fallen northern hero’s bloodline had continued in an enemy nation. Yet the North, silver hair, a foreigner, the pendant… All the clues pointed to her being their descendant.
“Where did you get this pendant? Did the duke buy it at an auction? No… are they alive?!”
Noden sprang to his feet, slamming a hand on the table. Retina looked up at him. He pleaded desperately—if she knew who had sold the pendant, he might find the people he had long been searching for.
“…It was not bought at an auction.”
Her answer was not what he hoped for. Strength drained from Noden’s legs as he collapsed weakly onto the sofa. If it hadn’t come from an auction… then—
Had the Ignes family really been annihilated?
Noden lowered his head. The Dneuve ducal house, long the emperor’s loyal hound, had gained enormous power after their wartime exploits. If they hadn’t bought the pendant, that meant they had kept the Goddess’s Tear as war spoils.
If the Ignes had died in war, their bodies cremated without care, and only this unburned symbol remained…
What meaning would that even hold?
If Lord Karsha in our homeland were to hear of this…
For generations, Ragrath had long awaited the day they could rebuild the Ignes line. Believing the descendants must still be alive somewhere. Thinking of Karsha, who waited more eagerly than anyone for news of the Ignes, Noden rubbed his dry, ashen face in despair.
At least we’ve found the pendant… that much is a blessing from the goddess.
“Will you give this pendant to me? I’ll pay any price.”
He couldn’t return empty-handed after coming this far. At the very least, he could bring the pendant back to Karsha. Regaining his composure, Noden spoke earnestly.
“That won’t be possible. Now that I know what it means, I can’t give it away.”
“It is something I—no, something Ragrath desperately needs. I will give you anything you want… Please?”
“No.”
Even with his persuasion, Retina refused firmly. Noden clenched his trembling hands, suppressing the emotions threatening to burst.
“May I… ask why?”
He spoke each word carefully. He believed in Retina; he trusted there must be a reason.
But Retina said nothing. The longer her silence stretched, the more nervous Noden became. He pressed his shaking leg down, waiting tensely for her answer.
“….”
Instead of speaking, Retina slowly raised her hands toward her head. She removed the pins holding her hair ornament in place and laid them on the table. Then she slipped her fingertips beneath the wig that had been tightly secured and lifted it off.
Noden watched every movement without blinking. His body stiffened as if frozen in shock.
“…Because it’s the only keepsake my mother left me.”
The real hair beneath the wig was the same color as Noden’s.
“May I… ask why?”
He had asked why she could not give up the pendant. Retina brushed her fingers over the pendant Noden had returned to her. Her mother’s final keepsake. How could she possibly sell it?
“….”
She stayed silent. She had come here intending to reveal her secret to Noden, yet the words wouldn’t come easily. She had never taken the initiative to reveal it before.
She took a deep breath and steadied her heart. One by one, she removed the hairpins and placed them on the table. Her long morning-updo fell apart, and she loosened the pins holding her wig.
“It’s the only keepsake my mother left me.”
Her wig came off smoothly. Retina dropped it onto her lap—a wig she had worn her whole life to hide her identity. The plain brown hair everyone believed she had vanished, replaced by her true hair that fell down past her chest.
“My mother’s mother… and her mother before her, they all passed this down to their children.”
Only now did she understand—she was the final surviving descendant of the vanished Ignes family. Retina lifted her head and met Noden’s gaze directly. Telling him firmly that she could never give away her mother’s last trace.
Noden’s shocked face slowly shifted as he tried to speak.
“Y-Your… your hair. That is… I mean…”
He stuttered. He had believed he knew Retina, at least somewhat. She had been the first person in the Empire to tell him his silver hair was beautiful—and she herself had silver hair. The revelation devastated him; he had thought she was merely a young lady with ordinary brown hair.
“As you know, silver hair signifies a curse in the Empire. So I’ve had to hide my bloodline my entire life.”
Retina began her long story. The fate of silver-haired people in Ludenheim. Her mother’s life—losing her parents before she could learn how to hide her hair, wandering the streets persecuted. Her own life, spent in hiding.
“That curse is nonsense. That silver-haired people bring misfortune to everyone around them? What power could we possibly have? It wasn’t us destroying lives— it was people’s fear, prejudice, and cruelty.”
Her mother had never hidden her identity. Her grandmother had been a proud woman, she said. Even when persecuted as a cursed one, she walked with her head held high.
But when a plague struck their village, her grandmother became the target. They claimed the plague came because of her silver hair. Across Ludenheim, the fading witch-hunts of the postwar era were rekindled.
“…I only learned later how many died during that time. Mother told me nothing except how Grandmother died.”
Her mother had simply insisted: hide your hair from others. Even at home she wore hats, never removing them. As a child, Retina obeyed without question. As she grew older, the hostility toward silver hair made wearing a wig the natural choice.
“…Such things happened… in Ludenheim?”
Noden covered his mouth in shock. That innocent people had died simply for having silver hair… Even if it happened decades before his birth, it was a shameful history his homeland carried.
“Witch-hunting was later banned by imperial law, but the resentment remains. No one reveals their silver hair anymore.”
Retina lifted her silver hair. She had intended to hide forever in a remote village. But then her father summoned her to the capital—where she saw Noden. A man with silver hair who dared to reveal it proudly at social gatherings.
“And then… to hear silver hair is not a curse but a blessing of the goddess… When I first saw you, my heart trembled at the thought that I might be from the North.”
It felt like reclaiming her stolen identity. She wondered endlessly—if she went North, would she no longer need to hide? Could she abandon everything in the Empire and start over?
The grand duchess had been right: someday she would face this problem head-on. If her wig fell off in public, perhaps some would defend her. But those people might become pariahs like her.
Even with their protection, nothing would truly change. She would remain a weakness dragging her precious people down with her.
Then there was only one path left—to ensure her secret was no longer a weakness. To become someone no one could dare to touch.
