Chapter 5

Sienna couldn’t help but accept it. She had never once in her life—not even for a single moment—received love. Lorena’s feelings hadn’t suddenly changed toward the end. She had hated Sienna from the very first moment they met up and had only ever thought of how to use her until she could toss her away.

I was a fool.

Even just admitting that truth made her chest feel like it would go up in flames. As she abandoned her better judgment, she became more and more desperate for affection, and the fact that she had died because of that was more humiliating than sad.

She began to doubt if she could ever love anyone else ever again. That was just how broken she was. Even so, at least she would never be that miserable again. That truth alone brought her a bit of comfort.

“What are you thinking about, Sienna?”

“Miss Lisa...” She was wondering if things would have been different if she had known all this from the start. But it was meaningless to think about that after the fact. “Thank you for... helping me when the grand duke came.”

“Oh! Of course.”

For Sienna, it was a sentiment that came from the bottom of her heart, but since Lisa didn’t know about her situation, the teacher didn’t feel the least bit at ease. In fact, she felt Sienna was completely in the dark about just how big of a chance she had chased away. Won’t she come to regret it? She had been so flustered that she simply hurried to soothe the child, but she wondered if a truly good teacher would have at least clung to the grand duke’s leg and made him take her once she was calmer. But how could I do that when the child was crying so woefully?

Of the three guardian houses, House Nacht had the darkest reputation due to the Army of Hades’ ruthless methods of quelling even the smallest problems with the demons or the Otherland.

Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now.

Either way, thanks to the grand duke, Principal Kendall could no longer hold the orphanage in his vice-like iron grip. For the time being, the remaining teachers would be able to raise the children with a little more flexibility. Unfortunately, that small flicker of hope didn’t last long.

“Where is that idiot of a girl?”

Kendall hadn’t been dismissed after all. According to imperial law, the magician orphanages in the capital were all owned by the emperor. To be specific, the “oversight authority” was the emperor’s alone. Therefore, the grand duke couldn’t directly remove Marian Kendall since the crooked principal had bought the right to manage one of the emperor’s properties himself. Essentially, such an order exceeded the duke’s authority.

Thanks to that, Kendall managed to circumvent the grand duke by going before a judge who he was able to bribe. He had avoided persecution by the skin of his teeth, then made his way back to his orphanage. Of course, the fact still remained that he was a criminal who the grand duke himself had reported. He needed to come up with an even larger bribe than normal in order to avoid imprisonment. Thus, the former principal had to forfeit roughly ninety percent of the wealth he had painstakingly hoarded over the years.

But that still meant he would retain a hearty ten percent, no? To his dismay, that wasn’t the case either. He had been forced to use the rest of his wealth to pay off his indictment fines. He had become a pauper without a single coin to his name virtually overnight, and that fact had driven him mad.

“You little brat! I lost my entire fortune because of you!”

As soon as he barged into the orphanage, Kendall went after Sienna and grabbed her by the hair.

“Sir! Please stop!”

Lisa tried to stop him, but the former principal shoved her away. “Aaargh! Move!”

Sienna let out a strangled scream.

Kendall’s mouth widened into an oily grin as he saw that the little girl couldn’t even scream properly. “You tiny, idiotic scrap of a girl! If I can’t sell you into the slave trade by the end of the day, then my name isn’t Marian Kendall!”

“Agh!” Sienna’s eyes began to water as she yelped and glared up at the evil man. Of course, he wasn’t afraid of her dirty looks. He even snickered.

“Your face isn’t half-bad, so you should fetch me a fairly decent price. Now—”

“That hand...” A voice that sounded more like a beast growling from deep within its belly came from the doorway. “Remove that hand this instant!” The voice demanded the former principal to release the girl, but before he even had the chance, he was brutally kicked in the head.

The impact made a clear cracking sound as the wind was knocked out of him. The sound was so loud that it made Kendall wonder if his head had been split open. His body rolled to the end of the hallway until it slammed into the wall at the end of the corridor with a crash.

Sienna blinked several times at the unbelievable sight. A fair-skinned boy without a single hair out of place and dressed in all red clothing stood over her. His jaw was clenched shut as if he was trying his hardest to quiet his rage-filled huffing. Blue veins pulsating with red blood like writhing snakes bulged on his pale, elegant neck and forehead as if he was a beautiful sculpture. His red eyes made him look somewhat like an evil spirit.

Wait... Red eyes? It took her a moment to recognize him because she had never seen him look so angry before, but she knew the boy. His Lordship!

He was Lord Aciel. Grand Duke Nacht’s eldest son.

* * *

Lord Aciel hadn’t come there alone, his father was also with him. They had evidently come back as soon as they learned that Kendall had weaseled his way out of prison. Just their presence alone was able to resolve the situation.

The unconscious Kendall (well, the man was bleeding profusely and at risk of heart and lung failure, so “unconscious” was putting it lightly) was dragged out of the orphanage without making so much as a peep.

Even so, Sienna didn’t feel in any way relieved. Rather, she felt helpless. After all, she had almost been subjected to unimaginable suffering at the former principal’s hands, not at Lorena’s, even though it was Lorena who had stolen everything from her. Considering that, it seemed like simply avoiding her sister was not enough.

Just what is this accursed life?

But as soon as the grand duke arrived, the situation was resolved like magic. She couldn’t help snorting to herself as she finally seemed to understand what it meant to be “a child under the protection of House Nacht.” She had been able to survive without starving, getting sold off, or encountering danger right up until her sister had betrayed her, hadn’t she?

“Sienna...” She hadn’t noticed Miss Lisa fussing over her rumpled clothes. The teacher had started straightening them out while Sienna just sat there in shock. Although she was doing her best to kindly correct the child’s disheveled appearance, the girl looked completely out of sorts. “It’s okay to cry…” Lisa felt terrible seeing Sienna cry, but watching her just sitting frozen in shock wrenched her heart painfully.

The grand duke looked uncomfortable as he remained silent. Once Aciel appeared to have cooled off, he also stood in the room with his arms crossed with a confused look on his face.

“Ahem.” At that moment, the grand duke’s guard Devon politely cleared his throat. “The child seems to be in great shock. I think it will prove difficult for her to stay here.”

“Sienna...” the grand duke called to her. She flinched before reflexively looking up at him. She had not expected him to remember her name. There was some kind of expression on his face, even though she had known him to be an insensitive person. Or rather than an expression, she wondered if he might be experiencing some sort of discomfort in his face from trying to suppress a small, unknown, pulsating pain. Either way, there was a shadow of emotion of some kind on his face, which was something she had never seen before.

“I’ll ask you again.” Sienna felt her body go rigid. “Will you come with me to the underworld?”

Why does this man keep offering to take me? It was apparent that her natural talents were far more incredible than she had ever known. She could think of no other reason than that. Maybe he sensed my talents back then too, so took me with him... But then he became disappointed, and eventually neglected me.

No one had treated a commoner orphan like her kindly after she had dared to become Grand Duke Nacht’s beneficiary. Even the servants had been against her, but the grand duke had taken no interest in any of that. But despite it all, she had been fine.

People back then staunchly believed she had stolen her sister’s mana and tricked the grand duke to take her in, so she had simply been grateful that he hadn’t immediately kicked her out. I had felt so guilty about deceiving everyone.

Sienna tried her best to think of what she could do, no matter how trivial it might be. Still, the fact remained that the grand duke had remained silent about everything. He had even become irritated one day and said, “Sienna... I know you’re trying hard, but your efforts are worthless.”

Which was true. She had been useless and had done useless things. She had everything stolen from her and thus had no right to remain a child of House Nacht.

I have to make use of it now. Back then, I didn’t.

When Lorena framed her, the grand duke didn’t hesitate for even a moment to imprison her. That was how it all came to an end.

She had learned yet another lesson from what had just happened. She could only change the future in tiny increments. If she diverged from the greater flow too drastically, things became far more difficult for her to deal with. Just like what had happened with Principal Kendall.

What would happen if I refused the grand duke’s offer again? A new principal would eventually replace Kendall at the orphanage, but there was no way to know if that person would also purchase the oversight rights from the emperor. Since magician orphanages receive funding from the empire and donations from the aristocracy, the more they tighten their grip on the orphans, the faster they can “break even” on their investment. Thus, there was no guarantee that the new person would be any better than Kendall. It was rare, but there were even principals and matrons who dipped their toes into the human trafficking market.

On the other hand, if I agree to go to House Nacht… She was certain she would meet Lorena in six months. Her so-called sister was hell-bent on betraying her.

Lorena...

Right. She knew that the angelic girl would eventually betray her later, but what about the present? Sienna’s cold, expressionless eyes suddenly flashed with life.

I still don’t know much right now, but I can at least avoid getting betrayed again.