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Chapter 02….
Helena
In the noble society of Ellarion, the capital of the Cardia Empire, opinions about Helena Winston varied widely.
Her friends, for one, called her a “funny friend.” Not just a “fun friend,” but a “funny friend,” they emphasized.
Most of the respectable crowd referred to her as “the troublesome daughter of the Winston Count family,” usually with a fond but slightly awkward smile.
Then there were the men who had been toyed with by her. They could never forget Helena and labeled her a “bewitching woman,” proudly claiming to be her followers.
Meanwhile, a few women who believed Helena had stolen their lovers cursed her as:
“A wicked woman.”
But Helena herself evaluated her life differently:
“I’m perfectly ordinary, if you ask me.”
Of course, that was just Helena’s own claim.
With exceptional wit and eloquence, she was the darling of society and a stunning beauty frequently mentioned whenever the capital’s socialites were listed.
Her beauty and notoriety came from her mother, Sandra.
Sandra Winston had once been a beautiful dancer who turned the capital’s social scene upside down. She was so stunning that rumors claimed the emperor himself had courted her. Yet the man she ultimately chose was Adrian Winston—a fairly ordinary man who hadn’t even been granted a title at the time.
Her audacious marriage once again shook the capital. Unfortunately, Sandra’s married life was short-lived. Only five years after her wedding, she left both her husband and daughter, fleeing the Winston estate with a new lover.
Sandra left her husband with an indelible scandal and her noble family with an enormous disgrace. But she left one good thing to her daughter, Helena: beauty that mirrored her own.
Yet Helena never felt particularly grateful. She thought men of remarkable looks were rare, while beautiful women were a dime a dozen.
Her relationship with her stepmother, Mia, who entered as her father’s second wife after Sandra’s sudden departure, was strained. But Helena assumed that was perfectly normal.
She was the offspring of a scandalous first wife who had disgraced the Winston family and fled at night. Moreover, she bore her mother’s strong-willed personality and fierce temperament, making her particularly challenging to raise.
If Helena and her typical noblewoman stepmother, Mia, had gotten along and been happy together, that would have been unbelievable.
Helena considered her stormy childhood and adolescence to be an entirely natural consequence.
So even though the gentle Count Winston would sometimes fly into a rage because of her, and the prickly stepmother, who acted tough but was soft inside, occasionally shed tears, Helena didn’t see it as a big deal. After all, adolescence isn’t called “the tempestuous age” for nothing.
Yet this time, Helena wondered if perhaps she had gone a bit too far.
Her father’s aristocratic pale face, usually reddened by Helena’s antics, was now flushed in an unusual and alarming way.
“Helenaaah…!”
Count Winston shouted, his voice strained, clutching the back of his neck as he staggered.
“My lord!”
Mia Winston rushed to support him, her eyes shooting Helena a fiercely reproachful glare.
Helena instinctively froze.
‘Yikes.’
In her younger, naive years, she would have faced off against her stepmother in a tantrum, but now Helena knew exactly how to deal with her.
She slumped her shoulders, dropped her head, and put on the most pitiful expression she could muster.
Her stepmother, carrying a lingering guilt for failing to nurture young Helena properly, immediately crumbled under the act.
Mia’s eyes lost their strength, and she eventually shouted, holding her husband’s neck alongside him:
“I truly cannot live because of you…!”
The reason for the Count and Countess Winston’s outrage was none other than Helena’s scandal with the Empire’s crown prince, Rufus Arpend.
The capital was in an uproar over their scandal.
The scandal stemmed from the claim that “Helena and Rufus were seen together by the Empress and the crown prince’s fiancée, Lady Adela Byard.”
The problem lay in the phrase “seen together.”
Rationally, it seemed harmless enough. Yet, fueled by their social reputations, the scandal swelled endlessly through the imagination of gossipmongers.
Helena, however, was exasperated.
Raising her head, she declared firmly:
“But I did not sleep with the crown prince.”
Count Winston’s face went from red to a dark, plum-like shade, while the Countess screamed in anguish:
“Eliza, Ira, Henry! Out! Get out at once!”
Helena turned and saw the faces of her beloved younger siblings peeking through the crack in the study door.
Little Henry called out cheerfully:
“She didn’t sleep with him!”
Smart Eliza quickly covered Henry’s mouth and dragged him away.
Once the study door closed, Helena resumed her explanation:
“So, if the stages are A, B, C, we didn’t even reach A…”
Count Winston wailed, his face a dark plum:
“Helena! Enough! I have no desire to know anything about your love life!”
Helena rolled her eyes:
“Yes, of course. I just wanted to clarify that it never went this far…”
Almost out of breath, the Countess interrupted:
“Helena, it doesn’t matter whether it was stage A or C. What matters is that the crown prince has a fiancée, and you were caught with him by the Empress and his fiancée!”
Helena was struck dumb.
She had more explanations, of course.
Adela Byard, the crown prince’s fiancée, was notorious in society for looking 91 years old at 19. Everyone knew that Rufus despised her. The crown prince, it was known, would have thrown himself into a frenzy of romance with the capital’s young noblewomen if freed from his betrothal.
Helena believed that if all the women who had fallen for Rufus were gathered, they could fill the imperial grand hall.
Yet Helena herself had never fallen for the crown prince’s charm. Their relationship was different.
As she moved her chess piece, Helena spoke:
“There’s only one thing I want. To be happy on my own.”
The crown prince, Rufus Arpend, looked at her and asked:
“Do you mean living alone without marrying?”
“Well… that would be ideal, if possible. Realistically, it’s difficult.”
By the window overlooking the beautiful night view of the imperial palace, Helena and Rufus sat across from a chessboard, speaking in low voices.
The tower above the palace’s ballroom had been their secret hideout since childhood.
Whenever formal banquets became tiresome, they would retreat to the tower to chat like this.
“People often say this: ‘Just get married. Even the sharpest edges will soften and mold over time.’ They make it sound like a beautiful process.”
“That’s a generalization.”
“To me, it sounds like you fight, get hurt, compromise, and end up losing yourself in the process.”
Helena looked at the queen on the board and continued:
“Could I do that? Be faithful to one man, bear his children, and live a picture-perfect life?”
After a short pause, she added:
“Or would I end up running away like Sandra?”
Rufus reached out and gently patted her shoulder.
Their relationship was somewhat special.
Having been frequently present at the palace from a young age, Helena had grown up almost like Rufus’s sibling, a closeness that allowed them to see each other’s worst and best sides.
Perhaps that was why Helena could speak honestly about her deepest, bitter feelings in front of him.
Her voice quiet and somber, she continued:
“I don’t think I’m capable of living with someone.”
