The Villainess’s Daughter

Chapter 1

A year after I was born, the memories of my previous life suddenly returned to me. I found myself inside a novel that I had read upon my friend’s recommendation. It had the perfect happy ending wherein the main character from the first part, Eunice, defeated a bully of a villainess and married the handsome duke. In the end, the villainess met her end. The duke and Eunice then had a daughter and a son and lived happily ever after.

I was reincarnated not as their daughter, but as the villainess’s. My mother committed acts of unforgivable wickedness, and so the duke confined her to a tall tower. The details of her crimes were never expanded upon.

So here I was, the daughter of a villainess in a lousy novel. Thanks to the memories of my past life, I came to understand the bleak situation I found myself in. Even though my mother was a criminal, they couldn’t separate a woman from her newborn child. This was probably why they had locked me away with her.

I sighed, glancing over at the weeping woman.

“I miss you, Your Grace. Could you really have forgotten about me?”

Except for the time she spent breastfeeding me, the villainess—my mother, I should say—sat staring out the window, pining for her ex-husband.

The depressing tower wasn’t exactly a homey nursery, but I knew that I was stuck here until I’d grown some.

I was sure that being locked away in this place was my fate.

* * *

The story’s happy ending was deeply mired in irony. The villainess actually started out as the duke’s wife. They had been married for three years—a happy couple who were respectful of one another.

After Eunice appeared, however, my mother began to feel threatened as the duke slowly fell in love with the new woman. She simply couldn’t bring herself to sit back and watch as her husband abandoned her.

Apparently, she had done all she could to try and secure her position as his true wife. Nevertheless, fate did not side with my mother, but with Eunice. The duke thought my mother’s actions wicked. He accused her of committing unforgivable crimes and locked her up in the tower after labeling her a sinner. This was the current point of the story.

In an amusing twist of fate, their marriage had bore fruit. That fruit was me—a child conceived of the villainess and the duke. But the duke did not care for me, and my mother spent her days crying and aching for him.

If this was to be my fate, then so be it. All that was happening was just the setup of a story. This pretense made reality seem less menacing. Believing all this to be just a story at least made it easier for my heart to accept everything.

* * *

Time passed, and I turned two years old.

I no longer needed to breastfeed, and so I was separated from my mother. I don’t think she even spared a glance at me the day I left, as she was still too busy yearning for her husband. I don’t remember much, to be honest, as it happened such a long time ago. I’d like to think that she was at least a little sad to see me go—or maybe I was just being sentimental.

After being separated from my mother, I was sent to an orphanage run by the empire. Barely past infanthood, all I could do was squirm my little limbs. Despite this, I was still regarded with nothing but sinister glares or utter apathy.

“Like mother, like daughter. She’ll grow to be as spiteful as her mother, believe me.”

“An empty stomach won’t kill her.”

“You know what? I think the duke would prefer it if she died.”

My rumbling stomach did nothing to stop such utterances. Things were not so different from the tower—bleak, dull, desolate, and loveless.

I might have become quite the crybaby if I didn’t already have all my memories from my past life. It was fortunate that I had them. Tears would only have made their treatment of me worse. I began to grow accustomed to their malice, even if I sometimes felt a tiny ache in my heart.

* * *

I was six when the orphanage staff began truly tormenting me, little by little.

“Did you not hear me call you?”

They would appear at random and scold me for the most ridiculous things.

“Did you just glare at me? How spiteful you are, just like your wicked mother!”

I have to admit that their disdain and hostility made things more challenging for me, but not so much as their menacing words did. I did not want to get used to being verbally abused like this. But there was no other way to withstand my merciless reality.

As I grew numb to life, one day the orphanage director caught my tormentors in action. He glanced at his staff, then at me as I whimpered, resigned. He turned away as if he’d seen nothing.

“No one is to say a word about this.”

He said this not as a rebuke but because he fully intended to turn a blind eye. It was essentially an endorsement of their actions. This, I believe, washed away any guilt they might have felt.

* * *

By the time I was seven, while I knew it wasn’t ideal I was well used to violence.

Damn this story. Damn fate, too.

Should I blame my mother for being the villainess? Or those guilty of making me who I was? Or, was I to blame the novel’s main characters?

I want to live in peace.

As I spent my days in gloom, someone new arrived at the orphanage. The woman had a beautiful face that radiated innocence and goodness. Unlike everyone else, she treated me with kindness. She would take care of my wounds, feed me in secret, and cuddle me. She treated me as if I was her own child.

I was deeply satisfied to finally experience this long-awaited peace. I guess the orphanage doesn’t only employ crazy people. I prayed sincerely for this peace to last.

* * *

But of course, how could I have dared to hope for peace? After a sudden summons by the director, I was sent to the tower, accompanied by a handful of knights.

I was curious. They had been so fixated on separating me from my mother, and yet they were taking me to her now. So I questioned one of the knights.

“It is only right for a child to be present when their mother is on her deathbed,” he answered. He then reminded me that it was purely out of the goodness of their hearts that they were doing me such a favor.

So my mother is about to die…

The knights didn’t seem to care at all.

A favor… to me, or my mother?

No, this was no favor. These men were just going through the motions to absolve themselves of any feelings of guilt. They’re just pretending to be kind. I knew well that nobody actually cared about me.

I don’t even remember her face. In the memories I had of her, my mother was always crying over her husband. I didn’t believe for a second that the woman longed to see me. However, it did feel a little strange to think that my mother would soon be dead. I had no expectations whatsoever of my father, but as for my mother... At least she fed me when I had cried from hunger. I remembered that her embrace was so snug that I often forgot about the sorrowful future that awaited me and even how hungry I was.

It would be best to witness her last moments with my own eyes, just so I have a memory of her if I do happen to miss her later. This resolution was not necessary, though. I had to stifle a gasp when I saw my mother lying in bed. She was completely different from the woman I remembered. She was thin and weak, even more so than in my memories of her at her weakest. Anyone who laid eyes on her could tell that death was imminent.

“Y-Your Grace...”

Her breathing was ragged and uneven. She could hardly draw air, but she was still waiting for the man she loved. It strangely pained me to see her like this. I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I could handle all the violence and abusive words that came my way, but somehow the idea that my own mother didn’t care about me, even as she lay there dying, made me ache.

“I-I... missed you.”

I turned my head away.

When our eyes met, the knight who brought me also looked away, avoiding my gaze. It seemed that my mother had been endlessly calling for her ex-husband all these years.

Obviously, they could not summon the duke to her deathbed, so I guess I was their second choice. I realized my suspicions regarding their real motives had not just been my imagination. The duke. Love. That man is so deeply in love with that woman that he’s forgotten all about us. How have you not realized that? Or is it that she knew, but still couldn’t let him go?

I despised my mother, but now I could understand her. I myself had experienced the sorrow of longing for someone who never looked my way. Her eyes didn’t find me, but I approached her carefully anyway. I pressed my palm against the top of her rough, dry hand. Her skin was pulled tight against her bones, and my little hand was quite a lot smaller than hers.

This was the last bit of time we had together. I forced my fingers to move and held onto one of her bony digits, wanting to hold hands. As the warmth of my hand registered against her icy cold one, she slowly turned her attention to me.

“My name is Daphne. No one wanted to name me, so I named myself. Pretty, isn’t it?”

Her eyes were fixed on mine. My golden eyes, they said, resembled my father’s. I assumed that she must have been thinking of her ex-husband as she looked at me. Still, I forced these thoughts away and smiled. I wanted to send her off with a smile.

“I understand. You wanted to be the duke’s wife, not my mother. I will not forget you, so… Please, rest in peace. You can let go now. Don’t wait any longer for a man that will never come. Please, find your peace.”

“D-...” She stuttered out a sound, her voice ragged with disuse, as if she was trying to say something. But she wasn’t able to. As if she resented her throat for refusing to cooperate, my mother began to cry after several dry gasping attempts. Tears trickled down her skeletal face. She closed her eyes as if to fight them off.

I waited a while longer, but her eyes never opened again.

The knight next to me silently draped a piece of white cloth over her face.

“Farewell, Mother.”

That was our last moment together.