Chapter 1
“You will become the empress — and at the tender age of ten.”
Had someone spoken of the future like that, they might have been arrested for lèse-majesté. And executed immediately.
“You will save the world. You are the only hope to prevent humanity’s destruction.”
If someone had addressed me from the start as if I were some great savior, I would have burst into tears. “Save the world,” “humanity’s destruction” — such terrifying words.
“The people of the duke’s household who hated you will come to love you in the end.”
Even if they’d told me that, I probably wouldn’t have understood the meaning. I never imagined that if I ever gained a family, it would be an aristocratic one. So if I ever got a chance to meet the child-version of myself, the only thing I could tell her would be one sentence.
“Survive.”
Survive — somehow, some way. Even if you bloom alone like a noble lotus in a pool of blood. Even if everyone around you dies protecting you. Even if the stench of corpses buried in the mud clings to you. Still — survive.
I was an orphan.
From the moment I had memories, my mother and father were gone. Whenever someone asked me to make a wish, I always prayed, “Please give me a family.”
But until I turned eight, no one came to adopt me.
“They say it’s an era where even one’s own children get eaten — what adoption? Be grateful you’re allowed to stay in the orphanage,” the matron would say.
She wasn’t wrong.
It was a time of war. People died in droves on the battlefields, and the streets filled daily with starving corpses.
Still, I never gave up. I dreamed of being loved by a mother and father, of having siblings to play with. I dreamed of living a warm, happy life.
“The matron is calling you to her office.”
“Me?”
So when, for the first time in my life, the matron said she wanted to see me, my heart pounded. Could this be about adoption?
I hurried to the matron’s office. But waiting there was not a couple hoping to adopt — it was an aristocratic man.
‘An aristocrat?’
I was secretly disappointed. Aristocrats don’t adopt commoners.
But that disappointment vanished when I saw the matron’s pitiful state. It looked like the aristocrat had threatened her with a sword.
“You must be the one—”
The noble approached me. In the cage he held, a bird made of water blinked its eyes.
“…There is something about water. Do you happen to hear what the ‘water spirit’ says?”
I looked at the bird.
I had never seen a bird made of water before, but I wasn’t surprised. I could hear the voices of fire, earth, and wind as well.
<It’s you. I’ve heard much about you.>
The bird spoke to me.
I nodded.
“Yes, I can hear it.”
“My goodness — the ‘prophesied child’ we’ve been searching for hundreds of years is really in an orphanage.”
Suddenly, miraculously, a light shone from the sword; the aristocrat wept when he saw it. His gaze shifted to the matron, who trembled in a corner, terrified. It looked like the aristocrat had even grabbed her by the collar earlier — her shirt was rumpled and her face pale. Not only that, her coat had been slashed by the sword and she was left wearing just a shirt.
The matron’s thigh showed a semicircle of dampness. She had wet herself.
At the aristocrat’s mere look, the matron blurted out in panic.
“I-I’m sorry for not reporting it! I really thought it was a child’s lie!”
“How dare you! That was an imperial command.”
“Eek!”
Like a warlord’s thunderous roar, the aristocrat’s voice bent the room into submission. I stiffened along with everyone else.
<This one will not harm you.>
The ‘water spirit’ in the cage said. Aside from me, no one seemed to have heard the spirit. There were only three people in the room anyway.
The aristocrat raised his sword and looked at me again.
“This child — no, this person — does not belong here.”
He ground his teeth.
For a moment I saw my reflection in the aristocrat’s eyes. I was small and thin, my face streaked with grime, wearing the shabby clothes I’d inherited from the orphanage’s older girls.
A flash of pity crossed the aristocrat’s face, but he swallowed his anger and assumed a posture I’d never seen before.
“Forgive my rudeness in not introducing myself sooner. I am Count Daruan, loyal to the great Haspelt imperial house.”
I stayed still. The whole situation felt unreal.
I was bewildered. I had never been spoken to with honorifics before. Yet the first person to address me politely was an adult far older than me, and — an aristocrat.
Even without proper education, I knew the strictness of the class system.
“May I ask your name?”
The noble tried to smile kindly, though a smile didn’t suit his large frame.
“Adele… Adele,” I said.
“Adele. That’s a fine name. A family name will be coming soon.”
A family name?
Did that mean I would have a family?
I wanted to ask so many questions, but I held back. Quiet, well-behaved children received praise. And I was too young to judge the situation.
‘Will this person become my family?’
I blinked calmly, and the noble looked at me with a hint of surprise.
“Please bear with it just one more day. It will be an unbearably shabby place, but I received orders that secrecy is paramount.”
Bear with it?
‘I’ve lived here for eight years.’
But the noble looked genuinely regretful.
“…Will I have a family too?”
Ah — I couldn’t hold it in.
As soon as I spoke, I regretted it, but the noble paused. He still looked kind.
My face reflected in the noble’s eyes: pink hair, blue eyes, a body far too small for an eight-year-old.
He spoke slowly but firmly.
“Yes. Tomorrow. No, at sunrise. I shall come for you.”
<You can trust him.>
The spirit beside him added gently. I met the noble’s eyes and nodded.
‘I always had to watch the matron’s moods.’
All the children in the orphanage did.
Whoever angered the matron would be locked in solitary confinement all day. Except for the matron’s office, there was no clean room in the orphanage. The solitary cell was especially filthy and full of bugs.
I’d been locked up a few times — for little things, like failing to avoid the matron’s gaze.
I was always hungry. We were barely given moldy bread. Still, everyone tried to be in the matron’s favor.
‘Her word mattered if you wanted good adoptive parents.’
But after the aristocrat’s visit, things changed.
I was excused from the usual orphanage chores, I didn’t have to bake cookies and sell them in the streets anymore. That evening, every child in the orphanage ate meat soup.
Meat soup! Except for one day three years ago when the matron’s late marriage put her in a good mood, I’d never eaten anything like it.
[Reward for keeping the secret, reward for keeping the secret.]
The matron kept muttering. She kept checking on me periodically.
But I suspected it was all a dream. It felt too unreal.
‘A noble cried and used honorifics on me for no reason? That can’t be real.’
Until the next day’s morning, I felt dazed, as if I were dreaming. That’s why I hadn’t said goodbye to my best friend, Madeleine.
“Look — someone’s here.”
“They’re here to adopt someone!”
“It’s the register! The matron always takes the register to the gate whenever one of us is adopted!”
At the sudden commotion, I raised my head. On the day I first saw my father, I was sheltering from the sun in the shade of a tree. The orphanage’s shabby gate slowly creaked open.
Creak.
For the first time I saw a great, ornate carriage enter.
A black eagle clutching a pearl was embroidered on its panels.
The carriage stopped. A very noble-looking man in a jet-black uniform stepped down. The matron hurried forward. I briefly couldn’t breathe.
‘What’s happening?’
The matron bowed and babbled something, then looked around anxiously. Her eyes met mine. I hurriedly averted my gaze.
Previously, I’d been locked in solitary just for meeting the matron’s eyes.
But soon the whole place fell silent.
“…?”
The strange atmosphere pressed down; children who would usually chatter were quiet. I mustered the courage and decided to peek.
I slowly raised my head. And I saw him.
The man standing before me.
An older girl from the orphanage muttered, dazed.
“…He’s really handsome.”
I blinked as I looked at him.
“Is this the one?”
“Yes, yes, Your Grace, the Duke.”
A strange stranger.
Jet-black hair, blood-red eyes so vivid you couldn’t forget them once seen. A face that would be unforgettable.
He gave off a terrifying aura.
I had prayed “Please give me a family,” but I’d never imagined a man this deadly-looking as a father.
“This will be my daughter, is it?”
He said “this” just then.
The man called a duke was arrogant and confident. His tall stature was imposing and charismatic.
He looked far too young to be someone’s father, and there was no lady beside him to be a mother.
There were no peers who could be siblings; instead, five knights with swords stood behind him, guarding the place.
“You intend to make a daughter of an unmarried man? Do you plan to ruin someone’s marriage prospects?”
Children’s gazes clung to my cheeks. Madeleine stood a little away, eyes wide in surprise.
A sudden surge of reality hit me.
‘Daughter.’
My heart raced.
But I couldn’t just be happy.
This visit was unlike any other adoption. For one, he was an aristocrat; for another, he had many knights; and most of all, there was no mother… and there was a cold murderous intent emanating from him — aimed at me. He must have seen me for the first time just now.
‘He wants to kill me.’
But what had I done wrong?
In the next moment, the man who would probably become my father pressed a knife to my neck.
