Chapter 01
1. The Dream I See Again and Again
On the road at the edge of the village, something small and gray had fallen.
On my way back from selling finished embroidery in town, I noticed that small thing.
When I went closer, I realized it was a child, collapsed face-down, curled up.
The boy’s upper body was bare, his lower body clothed only in undergarments. He was barefoot, covered in wounds, and grimy.
“Hey, are you all right?”
I gently called out. The small body moved faintly.
“…ter…”
“Hm?”
“W… water…”
His voice was so faint it seemed about to vanish. I poured some water from my canteen into a cup and held it to his lips. Though he spilled some, he drank it all.
His large eyes, too dried out to even produce tears, were red like garnets.
“What’s your name?”
“…”
“You don’t know? Where’s your father? Your mother?”
“…”
The little boy only shook his head in silence.
I judged that he must have been attacked by bandits, lost his parents, and somehow escaped. He hadn’t eaten in days—it was clear he needed help.
“I’ll help you find your parents. For now, come to my home.”
I took him back to my family’s place, where we ran a small eatery. My parents were sympathetic to him.
“Lately, countries under the Empire’s rule have been rebelling, stirring up unrest. He may have fled from there.”
“So small, and yet covered in wounds… how pitiful. Let’s give him a bath and a meal.”
My mother bathed the boy and dressed him in clothes I had worn when I was little—a shirt and trousers, the chair padded with cushions so he could reach. He ate soup desperately, smearing it around his mouth, and I almost cried watching him.
“I hope you can see your parents again soon.”
“Big sister… Mister, Missus, thank you.”
He was such a polite child, I thought warmly, and asked him:
“How old are you?”
“Six.”
“Six years old? Then I’m ten years older than you.”
I had just turned sixteen that year, exactly ten years his senior.
I helped at the eatery when it was busy, and at other times I embroidered in my room to sell. I was training to become a seamstress someday. But at sixteen, my parents thought it too soon for me to leave for a city where such work could be found.
Since the boy didn’t know his name, I decided to call him Garne, after garnet.
“Garne, I’ll make you some clothes.”
“Clothes? Big sister, you’ll make them?”
“Yes. I’m good at sewing.”
Children’s clothes usually carried protective embroidery. In our region, a design of blue vine-motifs was fashionable.
I made Garne a set of age-appropriate clothes—a shirt and short trousers—with blue vine embroidery, even on his undergarments.
“Clothes… that big sister made for me…”
Garne looked delighted.
No information about his parents reached us. His hair, at first so filthy no soap would lather, turned out to be silky silver when thoroughly washed. That, along with his bearing, made it clear he was someone’s young master—but from where, no one knew.
He had been stripped down to his underclothes, as if someone wanted to erase all traces of his identity, even removing his shoes.
We heard rumors of noble carriages being attacked nearby, but no one came searching for Garne.
Half a month after Garne came to live with us, armed men burst into our home.
When I tried to summon the guards, they spotted Garne and rushed to seize him.
“Run, Garne!”
“Big sister!”
As I moved to protect him, a hot red haze filled my vision. I had been cut down, pain searing through me.
“Run… Garne…”
As my consciousness faded, all I prayed for was his safety.
When I awoke, my heart was pounding like a drum.
This was a dream I had seen many times since childhood.
In the dream, I was a common village girl, my parents ran an eatery, and I practiced embroidery, hoping to become a seamstress. Because I had seen this dream since I was small, I had grown skilled at embroidery in real life, even mastering the blue vine motif I saw there.
I sold my finished embroidery to merchants in town to help my family’s finances.
My name is Lacey Dian—eldest daughter of the Dian viscountcy.
My parents got along well, and I was close with my younger sister. But the Dian family had no money.
Generations ago, before gaining the title, the Dians were a wealthy merchant house. When the Empire faced financial crisis, the Dian family sacrificed their fortune to save it, and were granted the title of viscount in gratitude.
That was long ago. Now, we couldn’t even afford tuition for the noble academy that most children of rank attended.
I grew vegetables in the garden to cut food costs and sold my embroidery for income. At the academy, tuition was waived for the top ten students. So I worked to always hold first place in my year, while helping Sophia, my sister, stay within the top ten.
I had my father’s black hair and my mother’s violet eyes—plain in comparison. Sophia, on the other hand, had our mother’s golden hair and violet-blue eyes, and was admired for her beauty.
With only two daughters, our house could not survive unless one of us took a husband into the family. I disliked the thought of a political marriage, but had resigned myself to being engaged to the third son of a wealthy baron. For Sophia, however, I wanted a happy match.
Suitors flocked to Sophia. We needed to choose carefully. Meanwhile, I was about to graduate from the noble academy.
Graduation would be followed by a grand party, hosted by the Emperor himself.
His Imperial Majesty of the Valen Empire was twenty-eight years old, yet unmarried. For reasons unknown, he had declared he would never wed, and indeed had taken no consorts.
When he was a child, one of the Empire’s subject states rebelled, and the previous Emperor—his father—was assassinated. The young heir was too small to ascend, so the late Emperor’s younger brother ruled as regent, crushed the rebellion, and governed until the prince came of age at eighteen. Upon that day, the regent installed him as Emperor and became Chancellor.
That uncle had renounced succession rights for himself and his children, but with the Emperor remaining unmarried and childless, that plan was stalled.
Sophia was only sixteen, but I wondered if perhaps His Majesty might notice her. Until then, I too indulged in such girlish dreams.
I never imagined disaster would strike at the graduation party.
As I packed my things to leave the dormitory, I set aside anything Sophia could use. Being poor nobles, the dormitory had been our only option. Even there, I continued embroidery work, wholesaling pieces to shops in the capital.
