Chapter 15
Riiip—shhh.
From the marquis’s hand, Cailian’s letter of recommendation was torn into pieces and fluttered down like snow.
“What is this…?”
With trembling hands, Lune hurried to gather the scraps from the floor and clutched them tightly.
Something hot welled up in her throat. She forced down her emotions and spoke.
“…Back then, I understood. I was sick with fever. But now I truly cannot understand you, Father.”
Even to her own ears, her voice trembled pitifully.
“Why do you oppose me so strongly? Didn’t you once say you wished for me… to inherit the Este name?”
“Lessons for succession can be learned within the household. There is no need to insist on the Academy.”
“Yes. That is, if I weren’t in full possession of my limbs. But unless there’s such a reason, for the heir of a knightly family to graduate from the Academy is only natural!”
“Foolish words. The world has changed, Lune.”
Since the day she first grasped a sword, she had trained until her palms split open—just to earn her father’s recognition. She could not disgrace the fame of Edmund Este, Marquis of Este, the Empire’s magic swordsman and hero of salvation.
Lune’s cheeks twitched as she struggled to contain her agitation.
“…I know you want to hide how lacking I am. But even so, you clearly… granted me the right to knighthood, did you not?”
Clicking his tongue, the marquis shook his head, looking weary.
“Yes, you forced me to knight you. And that alone is not enough for you?”
Lune bit down her bitter laugh. Until she was fully acknowledged by her father, nothing would quench this thirst.
She widened her burning eyes and pressed on.
“What I’m saying now, Father, is that I will succeed you as the ‘Sword of the Empire.’”
At his child’s resolute words, the marquis’s face twisted in disbelief.
To think she wanted not only the Academy, but even the Imperial knighthood…!
Among graduates of the Academy’s officer school, those with exceptional skill were granted the title of Master and qualified to join the Imperial Knights—the Royal Knights. For a knight, there was no greater honor.
The marquis himself had once been a Royal Knight in his youth. He knew well what his child desired. Yet he needed no reconsideration. Not then, not a year ago, and not now.
“Allow me to enroll.”
The marquis, massaging his throbbing temple from the migraine, finally erupted from his seat with a shout.
“From the very start! A place crawling with men—how could you possibly go there with that body of yours!!!”
Clang! The teacup struck from his hand shattered on the floor, shards scattering.
For a moment, silence fell.
Then, a chilling realization poured into her mind. Lune stared at her father.
“…The reason you opposed me all this time—was it because I am a woman?”
Her lips curved into a bitter smile.
“I never imagined the lofty laws of men in the Empire would apply to me as well.”
Perhaps because of the burning fury inside her, her mind gradually grew calm again.
“Answer me. You, who raised me all this time as a son.”
“Hold your tongue, Lune! How many times have I told you to watch your words and conduct!”
“No. Today, I must say this. Not once, from the moment I was born, have I ever thought of myself as a woman. Nor have I ever wished to.”
Her inconvenient chest, the torment of monthly bleeding—it reminded her all too painfully of that fact.
Binding her chest with cloth every morning had become routine. Always hiding, erasing herself, just to be recognized as his rightful heir, his son…
Why had she only realized it now—that she would never be allowed to live fully as a man?
“No matter where you place me, I’ll always be only half. Tell me, Father… how do you expect me to live like this?”
Her words, clenched between her teeth, were closer to a plea.
“Can you not stop this madness!! Lune Adeluz!!!”
Even at her father’s thunderous roar, Lune only clutched the shredded letter tighter, her nails digging painfully into her skin.
“Yes. I will stop here, then.”
She walked past the marquis. At the door of the study, she paused, her hand on the knob, and murmured softly to herself.
“…Even knowing it’s meaningless, sometimes I wonder. Would things have been a little different… if Mother were still alive?”
Thud. The door closed. Silence remained, leaving Marquis Este alone.
**
“Young lady! What on earth is happening?!”
Marlene stamped her feet anxiously as she watched Lune tear through the room.
Lune emerged from the dressing room, wordlessly stuffing clothes into a travel bag on the bed. Opening a cabinet safe, she even pulled out her emergency pouch of coins.
“Heavens! Wait, young lady!”
Realizing the gravity of the situation, Marlene turned pale and rushed to block her.
“Young lady, wait. You’re not… planning to leave the estate, are you?”
“Yes. I’m going to the Academy.”
“Yes, but you already went to show the marquis your recommendation letter. What on earth happened—”
Marlene stopped short when she saw Lune’s stricken, pale face.
“Oh my…”
She pulled Lune into a tight embrace. Her shoulder soon grew damp.
“Oh, dear… Don’t cry, my lady.”
“I know why Father is like this. That’s why I’ve endured it all this time.”
Hearing her tear-soaked voice, Marlene could only pat her back gently.
The Marquis of Este had not always been so unyielding. He had begun withdrawing from the world after the death of his wife, Claire Este.
Because of that, whenever Lune thought of her father, she always felt both suffocated and crushed by guilt.
“The reason he hates me must be because of Mother. If not for me, she wouldn’t have died so suddenly.”
“Young lady… please don’t say such things.”
Her mother, they said, had loved horseback riding and archery. She must have been healthy before giving birth.
Even the portrait left behind told as much. Her beautiful mother had lively cheeks and red lips.
Lune grasped the moonstone pendant around her neck, closing her eyes tightly. The necklace, which her father never failed to check, was the only memento her mother had left her before dying in childbirth.
She could still recall the image of her father leaning against the hall railing late at night, gazing up at her mother’s portrait.
That alone told her clearly—her stern father had truly loved her mother.
And she could remember, as a child, watching anxiously, fearing her father might throw himself down the steep stairs beneath that portrait.
‘A child born from the body of the woman he loved.’
How dreadful must that have been? She could only guess at his contempt from the coldness he showed her.
Worse still, the only heir born was not only a girl but also one who had nearly died of fever as a child…
Knowing her father’s endless despair, Lune had borne her own stifling circumstances until now.
“When I thought of Father, who lost Mother, I could endure living shut away as if dead. But Marlene…”
Lune clutched her chest, letting out a sob.
“Now I can’t. I can’t breathe anymore.”
At her heartbreaking cry, Marlene’s face hardened. She grasped Lune’s shoulders firmly.
“Don’t do it.”
Her gaze unwavering, Marlene repeated, even more firmly:
“You don’t have to do it.”
She led Lune to sit on the bed, then knelt before her and took her pale hands in hers.
“Long ago, the marquis took in me and my son when we had nowhere else to go.”
That was when monsters first began to inhabit the northern woods. It had not always been called the Black Forest.
The winter when Lady Claire died giving birth brought another tragedy to Este territory: monsters appearing in the once-beautiful forest. Those who lived there lost their homes and families.
It was a cruel, bitter season.
The marquis led expeditions to hunt the monsters while also helping refugees resettle in his lands.
At that time, Marlene had lost both her nursing infant and her husband to a monster attack. Only her two-year-old son Jun remained. For his sake, she had no choice but to live on.
On the day she stood in line for rations, clutching Jun’s hand, adjusting her damp blouse soaked with spoiled milk…
“…You’ve lost a child, haven’t you?”
The marquis had offered her a position within the keep—as a wet nurse for the newborn who had just lost her mother.
“Meeting you, young lady, was the greatest fortune for Jun and me.”
Thanks to that, she could raise her son, even send him to the Academy with the marquis’s support.
Having lost her own baby, Marlene poured all her heart into caring for Lune—hoping Lune would not suffer from her mother’s absence.
“Yes, partly out of gratitude. But mostly, I served you because I wanted to protect you.”
To her, the young lady was always her dearest, most fragile child.
“For with this fortune came a heavy secret I’ve borne all my life: ‘This child will one day be heir to House Este.’”
Marlene stood and began briskly packing the bag.
“When the marquis told me to call you ‘young master’ even as an infant who hadn’t been weaned… When I myself had to cut your lovely hair short every month… I obeyed silently, because I believed it would keep you safe.”
She placed the neatly packed bag at Lune’s feet.
“It always hurt my heart, but you wished it so, and so I followed.”
With her usual gentle smile, Marlene added:
“If you don’t want to, you don’t have to continue. Whatever you choose, I will follow you.”
As she stepped out to fetch some food, Marlene looked back at Lune and said in a steady voice:
“So if there is something you truly want to do, never stop.”
