Chapter 01

Anne was staggering across a fork in the road leading to heaven, in the middle of a pale, dusty desert.

The fragments of life, when looked back on, were as common and worthless as grains of sand.

Among them, only those born with precious jewels in their hands could walk a different path—only those destined for it.

For Anne Ferro, simply surviving without being buried in the shifting sand dunes was the closest thing to luck.

Wasn’t she already dead?

The bright sky was blue, and endless yellow sand stretched in every direction. As she looked at the scenery, the scent of ash and fire brushed her nose.

“Heaven or hell—just get me anywhere!”

Anne shouted boldly, raising her hand.

The wind between the dunes suddenly intensified. Wrapped in a white cloth covering her entire body, she braced herself against a mound of sand to avoid being swept away.

Thud.

Sand filled from her feet upward—covering her calves, thighs, hips, waist, shoulders, arms.

“Huh—?”

The swirling sand wrapped around her head and began to bury her completely.

Death was not a new world of light. If this was all there was, then where was heaven in this choking, hazy desert?

Anne closed her eyes, hoping to meet her departed family.

“Anne.”

“…?”

“Wake up. Open your eyes.”

A woman with light reddish hair and a mole on the right side of her lips was looking down at Anne. Her voice was familiar.

“Cassie?”

“Yeah. It’s your turn for the morning duty today.”

“…What?”

“If you’re late, the head maid might come and whip your backside.”

At the mention of the head maid, Anne instinctively shot upright.

Before she could even think, her body reacted on reflex.

When she stood up, she found herself in a shabby, cramped room that looked like a storage space, with four beds tightly packed together.

One person was still sleeping in the corner, and another was already gone. Cassie, after confirming Anne was awake, immediately lay back down and closed her eyes again.

Wasn’t I dead?

Without realizing it, Anne dressed quickly in her maid uniform, as if turning the pages of a familiar past, and ran toward the servant hall kitchen.

Before dawn, the kitchen—bathed in a dull gray light—was cold and silent like the night.

Fortunately, she wasn’t late.

“Bread is your task, Anne.”

The head maid briefly assigned everyone their duties before leaving. Anne looked at the pile of flour in front of her and searched for water.

Questions kept rising in her mind. Her lips trembled, and her eyes darted around, but the atmosphere was strict enough that not even a needle could fall through it, so her hands and feet moved on their own.

I died.

Is this some kind of new hell?

What did I do so wrong that I’ve been sent back ten years into the past?

“The lady said your rye bread was delicious, so make the same again today.”

The head maid placed a large sack of flour down, saying they needed plenty.

Even as she tore open the sack, Anne kept glancing around at the familiar ceiling, kitchen tools, and memories of this place she had lived in for so long.

“Anne. Stop spacing out and work. You’ll be in trouble if the lady hears about it.”

The kitchen was busier than usual. Not only the head maid, but servants and butlers were rushing around giving orders.

This meant the duke’s household was preparing for an event.

Even after so many years, her body remembered. Anne poured water into the flour and kneaded the dough with her soft, unfamiliar hands.

“Who’s visiting today?”

It wasn’t noisy enough to be a full banquet, but too busy for an ordinary day.

Given that it wasn’t deep winter yet, it must be early winter. What event was this again?

Working by the faint warmth of a hearth in the basement kitchen, Anne asked another maid.

“Didn’t you hear? The young lord is returning.”

The maids, cheerful, began talking about the duke and the young lord.

They explained that today was the day the young lord—now five years past coming of age—was returning to the capital estate after completing his first solo inspection of the territory.

The duke was busy with royal affairs, so he had been passing down the management of the estate to the young lord, and this journey marked the completion of that transition.

Because managing the household alone was too much, even for nobles.

In particular, the vast territory of Duke Benton—one of the empire’s highest-ranking nobles—took over half a year just to inspect.

“It’s been a year since he left. I wonder how much more handsome he’s become.”

“The duke apparently wants him to marry a noblewoman from their homeland…”

“Would the lady allow that? So many nobles in the capital want to connect with him.”

“What time will he arrive? They said he’ll come in the afternoon.”

Anne kneaded the dough into evenly sized pieces while wiping the tension from her fingertips onto her apron.

There was a reason why the 23-year-old young lord had been gone so long.

Not just half a year—but a full year.

Not returning at noon but late into the evening after meeting the duke.

It was because today was the day a new, unwelcome family member would arrive at the estate.

Anne also knew that the bread she worked so hard on would end up going cold on the table and eventually be eaten by servants.

Did he really come back?

She thought he had died, but instead she had returned to the past.

Shaking her head, she looked down at her flour-covered fingers. There wasn’t even a single ring on her slender ring finger.

Still, she liked that—hands without any trace of memory.

“Get moving! We’re busy today!”

The head maid barked orders as if she wanted to kick the maids’ behinds.

“Yes!!”

Anne bit her lip and focused on the dough, pushing away her thoughts.

It didn’t matter whether he came or not.

She would have nothing to do with him anymore.

She was just a grain of sand in the desert, a speck of flour in a pile of dough—nothing more.

He was a man who held a jewel that shone even when buried in dirt.

Gray Benton. The illegitimate son of the Duke of Benton.

And the only man Anne had ever loved with her whole life.

The only bright, sweet part of her life was the time she spent with him—and also her most painful memories.

Anne had lost her parents early and was sent to work as a maid in the duke’s household while raising her younger brother at her aunt’s home.

From age fifteen, she endured endless menial labor. At seventeen, she met young Gray Benton.

The second son of the Benton family, who had been brought into the estate during the duke’s inspection tour—he was only thirteen then.

He had nowhere to belong. Everything around him was unfamiliar and harsh.

The duke and young lord were too busy to care for him. The duchess treated him with contempt rather than affection. No one in the household protected him.

Servants didn’t go out of their way to care for him either.

He was fed, but not well. No luxuries, no warmth, no one to comfort him when he cried at night.

Only Anne reached out to him, thinking of her own lonely younger brother left behind at her aunt’s house.

She secretly gave him expensive snacks meant for the duke’s family, and carried the crying boy back to bed at night, reading him stories until he fell asleep.

Naturally, the boy grew attached to her.

It was inevitable—a lonely child attaching himself to the only person who showed him kindness.

Anne cared for him like a child, and after learning of her own brother’s death two years later, she poured all that remaining affection into him.

They filled each other’s emptiness, and it was only natural that affection would eventually grow into love.

By the time Gray turned nineteen, Anne was twenty-three and already of marriageable age.

Everyone in the household noticed the subtle atmosphere between them.

Gray’s devotion was obvious in every glance, and even the servants looked at Anne with a mix of envy and concern.

“Isn’t it time you got married?”

But the duchess could not allow a union between a maid and a son of the duke’s blood, even if he was illegitimate.

She decided it was time to sever Gray’s innocent attachment to Anne.

He had been away at the knight academy, rarely returning home.

Taking advantage of his absence, the duchess decided to remove Anne from the estate…