ISTV 44

ISTV

Posted by Ali, Released on August 11, 2025

Seila spoke slowly.

“I can’t say for certain. Premonitions… sometimes I see visions without any control over them. There are rare times when I see something vivid and precise, like when I saw the drawing of Caliburn, but usually, it’s not that clear. More often, it’s like this—just a few words or hazy images.”

In the original setting notes, this event existed only as text. There was no record of exactly what conversation would take place.

All she knew was that it involved coming to request investment, and being refused.

It was better to keep things vague like this rather than go into unnecessary detail.

Seila walked over to the desk, picked up paper and a quill, and began to draw something.

“I saw something like this—a coin. And then it split apart, and pure gold poured out. After that, I saw the prosperity and peace of Quebec.”

Since the pharmaceutical business involved producing pills, the business proposal was bound to have similar imagery, so she figured this much explanation was enough.

Seila studied Rachel’s expression.

Rachel would be the one to decide.

Rachel spoke again, her face unreadable.

“Do you trust us… no, me? Why are you telling us all of this?”

Especially your ability to see the future—nothing good would come of letting the world know about it.

She didn’t say that part out loud.

“I wish for Quebec’s prosperity and peace. And, of course, I would like to gain much wealth.”

“And why is that?”

“Because the Quebec I have seen never betrays a kindness.”

“…So you’re saying that right now you’re doing us a kindness? That if we come to hold gold in our hands, some of the crumbs will fall to you? Is that what you mean?”

“Yes. Just like with Caliburn. In return for that, I am now learning the Winter Sword, am I not?”

“That’s true. Although that was the family head’s unilateral decision.”

Rachel shot Themanon a look, and Themanon subtly averted his eyes.

Then Rachel stared at Seila for a while.

Her expression revealed nothing of her thoughts.

In a low voice, she said,

“Child. Come here.”

Though she said that, Rachel rose from her seat herself and came toward Seila.

‘Why is she doing this?’

For some reason, Rachel felt a little frightening today.

Those emotionless eyes seemed to be peering deep into Seila’s very heart.

“Seila. Child of Dvernnon.”

And then, something happened that even Seila had never expected.

Rachel had an exceptional knack for reading people’s hearts.

Even without consciously trying, people’s actions, tones, and expressions all came together to deliver information to her.

Of course, there were times when she came across people whose inner thoughts were difficult to read. Those, Rachel had always treated with caution.

Seila was one of them.

She often acted as if her outer self and her inner self didn’t match.

‘Why am I like this?’

She didn’t know why, but listening to Seila speak made her feel strangely sad.

As if compelled by something, Rachel embraced her.

She felt Seila flinch.

“You may show me your true heart.”

“…”

“You say you wish to do Quebec a kindness, and that in doing so, you gain something yourself? Was that all there was to it?”

Seila could not answer for a long moment.

‘Why can’t I open my mouth?’

She wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t come.

From deep inside her chest, emotions too tangled to put into words welled up.

‘Are these Seila Dvernnon’s feelings?’

Seila had no mother.

She had been branded a cursed child—born by taking her mother’s life.

That was how people described her.

Lee Sohyun, too, had no mother.

Her mother had run away with another man when she was three.

When she returned after Lee Sohyun’s success, it was only to shamelessly demand spending money. That was all Seila remembered of her.

‘Being hugged by a woman my mother’s age… this is so unfamiliar.’

Lee Sohyun had longed for her mother’s arms.

Even though she had no memory of ever being held, she missed it dearly.

This hug now—it was the kind she had never once experienced in her life, and it felt utterly strange.

“I know that gain is not all that matters to you. In fact, I’ve known for a long time.”

But because it was difficult to read Seila’s true heart, Rachel had ignored it until now.

She had kept her guard up, fearing that someday Seila might become an enemy of Quebec.

After all, Seila was a direct blood relative of Dvernnon.

“Just once, speak to me with your true heart.”

Rachel needed at least a shred of justification—

As the mistress of Quebec, a reason why she could allow herself to care for the daughter of a rival house.

She was the kind of person who needed a reason to justify such things.

“I…”

Seila hesitated.

Her mind wanted to calculate and consider many things, but her body was swept up in a fierce storm of emotion she could not simply ignore.

“I like it… right now.”

Seila raised her arms and wrapped them around Rachel’s waist.

For some reason, it felt like being embraced by the sea.

“Looking back… this is also a first for me.”

“What is?”

“Being in the arms of someone like a mother.”

“…”

“I am a cursed child, born taking my mother’s life. She could never hold me, not even once.”

“…”

Seila gave up on thinking too much.

For now, she let her body speak for her.

“I may have resented her… my mother.”

“…”

“But when I think about it carefully, resentment and hatred don’t seem like the right words. In truth… I think it was longing.”

“…”

“I can’t even remember her face, but maybe, if she had lived, she might have held me like this.”

“…”

“This is my first time for so many things in Quebec. And I… don’t dislike these firsts.”

Rachel found it hard to speak.

She had been deliberately closing her heart to Seila.

Over the past year, she had seen that Seila was not a particularly sweet or fawning child, but one who always made the right choices.

She gave her all to everything, living desperately as if each day might be her last.

Like a child desperate to prove her worth, she tried her best.

Rachel saw Seila as a very smart child—

One whose wisdom might someday become a dagger pointed at Quebec’s heart.

But the Seila she held now felt so very small.

‘So small… such a small child.’

A young girl who had just reached adulthood.

‘What have I been so afraid and wary of?’

Today, she could feel it clearly—

Seila had peeled away a layer of her mask and was revealing her true heart.

She had laid herself bare, shown her sincerity.

And so, Rachel felt she too should be brave—
Braver even than Seila had been.

But the courage wouldn’t come easily.

Because if she let her heart overflow here, there would be no turning back.

If she accepted Seila, there would be no one left in Quebec to keep her in check. That was a frightening thought.

“I truly wish for Quebec to have prosperity and peace.”

“…”

“Because this is the place that taught me what spring feels like.”

Seila’s words were like a monologue—
Not only for Rachel, but also as a comfort from Lee Sohyun to Seila.

“A child who was dragged by her father to be forced into a paternity test had a winter that lasted far too long. Even when she worked hard to become useful, she was always cold. I thought being cold was normal, but here I learned it wasn’t. That there was a warmer world than I had known… and that world was spring.”

“…”

“I hope this spring lasts a long time.”

Rachel’s embrace was so warm—like spring.

If only she would hold her longer.

Like the mother she had dreamed of for so long.

Seila truly wished for it, and Rachel felt that sincerity.

She hugged Seila even tighter.

The lock on her heart finally broke.

“I haven’t been acting like an adult.”

The fear that Seila might someday be an enemy, the sense of duty that she alone in this house must keep her guard up—these had made Rachel dishonest with herself.

‘I have lived my whole life for Quebec.’

For its prosperity, and for that alone.

But right now, she wanted to forget that lifelong goal for a moment.

On the day they first met, Seila had called her not “Madam Quebec” but “Madam Rachel.”

From now on, she thought, it might be fine to simply be Rachel.

“I have not been honest.”

She had turned away from her true feelings all this time.

She patted Seila’s small back.

“You showed me your courage first. You bared your all to me. So I will bare my all to you.”

She couldn’t bring herself to say something empty like, I will be your mother.

To a child who had never once in her life had a mother, those words would be arrogance.

“I promise to be your spring.”