TSDS 01

The Second Daughter Was Not in the Original Story

Chapter 1: The Nonexistent Second Daughter

The Sea Goddess taught her children one cruel lesson:

“Every blessing and every stroke of fortune comes with a trial and a price.”

No one could possess all fortune. Everything one gained carried a cost equal to its value.

The Winter Duke, who possessed the greatest strength, lost the only person he ever loved.

The princess, blessed with the sharpest mind, lost her chance to rule the kingdom.

The girl beloved by all lacked the strength to protect those precious feelings.

“Lady Serih Behad has arrived!”

Then what must a young lady blessed with every grace of the Sea Goddess surrender to balance these uneven scales?

Beneath the magnificent façade of the Prussian Palace, the young lady who had set the hearts of the entire kingdom racing stepped into the hall. There was not a hint of hesitation in her confident stride, and beneath her cold gaze lay a pride that would yield to nothing.

The anxious nobles parted before her like the Red Sea. In an instant, silence fell over the banquet hall as if water had been poured across it.

At the end of the path formed by the retreating nobles stood the Crown Princess, wearing a composed smile. The young lady advanced through the silence without the slightest concern.

People were tense. It was far from the first time the unforgiving Crown Princess had overlooked the offenses of the daughter of House Behad. But this incident was serious.

Depending on how it was interpreted, it could even be considered treason. No one would have found it strange if the Crown Princess immediately stripped the young lady of her status and punished the ducal house for rebellion.

But she was Serih Behad.

The fact that the Crown Princess had summoned her to this banquet hall surely meant she intended to forgive even this. If the young lady were to once again take the Crown Princess’s hand, bow before her mercy, and swear to fulfill the royal family’s long-cherished wish together—

Then perhaps the dream this land had desperately yearned for could finally be realized.

Everyone must be hoping for that scene.

I quickly surveyed the hall.

Anticipation burned in everyone’s eyes.

They wanted the young lady to run forward and kneel at the Crown Princess’s feet.

They wanted the Crown Princess to smile benevolently and pull her into an embrace.

They wanted the royal family and House Behad to clasp hands and declare the beginning of a new era.

Everyone was expecting a dramatic and magnificent next chapter.

Perhaps even the stars in the night sky were waiting for that moment.

Ah, but I hate that idea.

Yet my feet were not carrying me toward the Crown Princess.

There was no need to push through the assembled crowd. Every time I veered from the expected path, people jumped aside in shock.

In the corner of the banquet hall I eventually reached, a large window revealed the night sky and the acacia tree blooming outside.

Standing alone beneath that window was a man.

I could hear people whispering, wondering who he was.

Who else could he be?

“Shall we go, Your Highness?”

I playfully extended my hand toward those wide golden eyes.

After a brief moment of stunned silence, a familiar smile appeared on his handsome face.

Edmund, looking as though he found me impossible to handle, chuckled and took my hand.

“So when I said you could do whatever you wanted, you really meant to do whatever you wanted.”

“You made me like this. Stop complaining and come with me.”

As if escorting me, Edmund politely raised his left arm.

But what I heard beside my ear was a childish grumble.

“Ah, I just wanted to live quietly.”

“I could have lived quietly too—as the unnoticed second daughter of the Winter Duke.”

At those words, Edmund laughed out loud.

He paid no attention to the stares and whispers surrounding us.

His eyes were fixed solely on me.

Stars sparkled in Edmund’s gaze.

“That was never going to happen.”

“You either. If you’ve decided to stand with me, then claim the rights that are rightfully yours.”

The possibility of escaping to some remote island and living a peaceful life had vanished the moment we chose to write this story’s happy ending.

But how could I regret that?

I was the author who would rewrite that happy ending.

“If the Sea Goddess demands a price, I’ll pay it.”

No matter what price she demanded, I had no intention of surrendering anything I loved.

The burden of narrative necessity belonged to the author.

Not to the characters I loved.

At that moment, a hand gently wrapped around mine.

When I turned, Edmund lowered his head with a warm smile.

His voice echoed beside my ear, as comforting and dependable as his expression.

“Do whatever you want. I’ll allow it.”

At that arrogant answer, I couldn’t help laughing.

The gazes and noise around us vanished.

The Crown Princess’s schemes and the expectations of others no longer mattered.

There was only starlight.

Only the stars wishing us eternal happiness embraced us.

***

My last memory was standing on a crosswalk just after midnight, returning from a cram class.

More precisely, I remembered being suspended in midair above that crosswalk.

A student retaking the college entrance exam, with sixty-seven days remaining, getting hit by a speeding truck.

It was such a boring story.

If it were the opening of a web novel, I would have immediately hit the back button and cursed my bad luck.

But this wasn’t a novel.

It was reality.

Not a beginning, but an ending.

I knew before the truck even hit me.

I’m definitely going to die.

Yet I was conscious.

Which meant I wasn’t dead.

But I couldn’t move a finger.

I couldn’t even open my eyelids.

Surely I hadn’t become a vegetable?

Then unfamiliar whispers reached my ears.

“…cannot simply… waiting…”

“…might not…”

Doctors?

Had Mom come too?

Perhaps because I was standing at the crossroads between life and death, a pointless thought suddenly crossed my mind.

If I became a vegetable, would Mom still love me?

Immediately, a voice from my memories flooded back.

“Come on, let’s surprise Dad. Make him love us again.”

…Ha.

Even if I died, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

I was tormenting myself with that empty thought when the voices around me suddenly grew louder.

“Look…!”

“…Gasp!”

“As expected…!”

But the commotion made it impossible to understand what they were saying.

Honestly, whether you’re doctors or my mom, if you’re going to talk that much, go outside. What kind of behavior is this around a patient?

Then it happened.

A cold wind blew from somewhere.

No, “cold presence” would be more accurate.

The chill didn’t start on my skin—it spread from deep within my spine.

Just as goosebumps began to rise for reasons I couldn’t explain, a voice colder than winter itself pierced my ears.

“Did you not say she would wake soon?”

Only that voice rang out clearly.

It wasn’t louder than the others.

Yet just as a single gust at the edge of winter can make fragile leaves shrink away—

My eyelids fluttered open as though touched by winter wind.

“Huh?”

“She opened her eyes!”

“My goodness!”

Countless lights and sounds rushed in, making me dizzy.

Yet the face before me was perfectly clear.

Winter.

A winter night raging with a blizzard so vast it seemed endless.

Neatly combed black hair.

Strange gray eyes meeting mine directly.

A pale face as white as snow, surrounded by the darkness of a stormy night.

At that moment, a certainty nearly indistinguishable from instinct pierced my mind.

I know that face.

I knew it too well not to.

“She’s awake.”

The slightly inclined head straightened and vanished from my view without hesitation.

Beyond it, I saw a high ceiling and unfamiliar wooden beams.

“Congratulations, Duke.”

“Blessings upon Aberden!”

Outside the stone walls, snow was falling.

A fireplace burned fiercely.

There was no way this could be a Korean emergency room.

Yet amid the unfamiliar scenery, fragments of memory fit together like puzzle pieces.

The endless snow of Aberden.

The cruelest trial granted by the Sea Goddess.

And the unfortunate Winter Duke who faced it.

A hollow laugh escaped me.

The fact that I understood words like Duke and Aberden was absurd enough.

The fact that I knew exactly where I was made it even worse.

The moment our eyes met, I realized it.

This was the world of Winter Duke’s Spring, the web novel I had written.

No way…

I repeated the thought, but deep down I knew it was true.

That man—

The black-haired duke who had glanced at me and then casually walked away—

Was none other than Eden Behad.

How could I not recognize him?

I was the obsessive creator who had designed him according to my exact tastes.

I had imagined him over and over until his face appeared in my dreams.

I had transmigrated into my own novel.

Was that what this was?

The idea was ridiculous.

One of those cliché stories had become reality?

No, just kill me instead.

I never wanted to become a character in one of those cliché novels!

“She opened her eyes at the Duke’s voice. It seems the young lady responded to her father’s call.”

Father?

I shot upright.

Eden was my father?

Winter Duke’s Spring had gained popularity as a tragedy.

The unfortunate Winter Duke, appointed heir at a young age, was eventually blessed with a piece of luck as warm as spring sunlight.

She was a woman whose warmth could melt even Aberden’s frozen snowfields.

Eden, frozen stiff by a lifetime unfamiliar with kindness.

Her smile, which melted his frozen heart in an instant.

Readers had been thrilled by that single ray of hope in an otherwise dark and tragic story.

Even I had imagined their happy smiles and felt my heart race.

Everything comes with a price.

But the author was immature.

Someone who had never truly grown beyond the wounds of childhood.

No one gets eternal happiness.

In the end, that twisted author failed to save her own characters.

Eden’s lover died on the battlefield, leaving behind only a daughter who resembled her.

And that was the end.

—A ruined tragedy.

—Was giving us one happy ending really that hard?

—The author should stop writing.

And now that guilty author had transmigrated into the daughter who deserved the most love?

“Elisha.”

Eden spoke the name.

The sole remaining hope in his life.

Elisha Behad.

Guilt crashed over me.

How could the author who had thrown him into misery receive Eden Behad’s love?

“Hello?”

At that moment, sunlight appeared in the middle of the night.

Warm footsteps approached as though walking on a spring breeze.

Golden hair woven from sunlight.

Green eyes carrying the color of fresh sprouts.

Cheeks blooming like spring flowers.

Clarid?

A face that looked exactly like my story’s heroine stood before me.

A child so lovely that merely looking at her could melt a frozen heart.

“I’m Elisha Behad.”

The child introduced herself brightly.

Wait.

If she was Elisha—

Then who was I?

Only then did I notice the long black hair falling into my hands.

Outside the tightly shut window, winter night continued.

Reflected in the dark glass was an unfamiliar child.

Black hair.

A pale, thin face.

A small body that looked no older than ten.

The child touched her cheek.

Soft, cold skin brushed against her palm.

What is this?

The sharp instinct that had guided me ever since waking in this strange place suddenly vanished.

“I’m so happy that I can finally be a big sister!”

A big sister?

I couldn’t understand what Elisha meant.

Clarid had died shortly after giving birth to Elisha.

Elisha was the only family Eden had left.

So…

So…!

“Congratulations on waking up, Serih!”

Who in the world was Serih?!

Outside the window, the familiar snowstorm raged.

Before me, the characters I loved were alive and breathing.

The only thing I didn’t know—

was myself.