TSRTL 06

Chapter 6

Her eyes were dry and lifeless, like a desert where even a handful of emotion had evaporated.

For a moment, an instinctive fear wrapped around her throat, making it hard to speak.

Then, Winter stepped forward, shielding Tiya like a guardian.

“Say you followed Erin because you saw her acting suspicious yesterday.”

Tiya finally came to her senses and looked at Winter’s back.

Her tone was firm, but her back felt so reassuring.

Thanks to that, Tiya managed to squeeze out a voice.

“I… wanted to see the Spirit Egg.”

Winter turned slightly, as if to stop her from saying more, but Tiya didn’t stop.

“Erin told me there was a Spirit Egg there. So, when I saw the door open, I went inside… but then I got trapped…”

If she followed Winter’s advice, she could probably avoid her father’s anger.

‘But that would be a lie.’

Tiya didn’t want to lie just to run from her mistake.

She was about to confess honestly when, suddenly, Winter’s hand cupped her ear.

“Don’t listen. It’s nonsense.”

But her hand and voice couldn’t block out the words that followed.

“So you went in there to steal the Spirit Egg after all.”

“You were framed for stealing the Spirit Egg.”

That’s what Winter had told her.

But to think her father believed it too…

Her head almost dropped, but Tiya clenched her fists and lifted her chin proudly.

Then she spoke clearly, defending herself.

“I don’t take what belongs to others.”

Her grandmother’s teachings—and Winter’s hand still covering her ear—gave her courage.

“Father, I know the Spirit Egg will be used to make medicine. If I took it for myself, then the sick wouldn’t be healed. That’s why I would never do such a thing.”

Before she realized it, Tiya was staring straight into the Count’s eyes.

Everyone in the office shifted their gaze between her and him.

The Count, expressionless, pulled out a piece of paper from a drawer.

“Name the reward you want.”

“A reward…?”

“For catching the little rat. Isn’t that what you want?”

That wasn’t what she meant…

As Tiya hesitated, Winter quickly whispered:

“Ask for half the value of a Spirit Egg in gold coins. That’s fair enough.”

Tiya was just about to speak when—

Knock, knock.

Urgent knocking echoed through the office.

A butler entered and whispered quietly to the Count.

“From the North… an epidemic… emergency lockdown…”

The words—epidemic and lockdown—reached Tiya’s ears in fragments, making her eyes widen.

Just as Winter had said.

A royal lockdown to stop the plague threatening the North from spreading across the Empire.

But no one expected… that it would last until the House of Vladizev was destroyed.

Count Shurka left immediately to prepare, handing something carelessly to Tiya as he passed.

“Write down whatever amount you want and give it to my aide.”

Then he left, as though the matter was settled.

Everyone filed out, and Tiya, feeling pushed along, returned to her room.

Only when she was alone did she look at what her father had given her.

“Well, at least he keeps business and family separate.”

“What is it?”

“A blank check. You write down the amount, and you’ll get that much in cash.”

“A blank check…”

Was this her father’s way of praising her?

But it didn’t feel good at all.

It didn’t make her feel warm inside. It didn’t make her want to try harder next time.

“Guess Father’s not very good at giving compliments… I’ll just have to take it as one, even if he’s terrible at it.”

Tiya rubbed her head like her grandmother used to do.

But no matter how much she rubbed, her hair only got messy, and no warmth bloomed inside her chest.

Her shoulders drooped sadly.

‘Once I become a Spirit User, I’ll collect all the praise Father owes me for eight years.’

As she touched the Spirit Stone around her neck, making her usual vow, a sharp unease struck her heart.

Her eyes slowly turned toward Winter.

Suddenly, it felt like she had found the answer to the biggest question she’d been holding.

And the desire to know it burned so strongly it shook her self-belief.

In the end, she couldn’t help but ask.

“Winter… have you met me before? I mean, the me from the future?”

“Why are you asking that all of a sudden?”

“Mm… just wondering. I want to know if I really become a Spirit User.”

Winter didn’t answer.

“I… I will become a Spirit Master in the future, right?”

<Well…>

The seconds she waited for Winter’s answer felt like years.
Without realizing it, Tiya clasped her hands together as if in prayer.

<Of course you will. Why ask something so obvious?>

With that one sentence, all her worries melted away like snow under warm spring sunlight.

“Knew it! I knew it! I really will become a Spirit Master! What kind of spirit will come to me? No—wait! Don’t tell me!”

Tiya hurriedly covered Winter’s mouth, imagining a gift box inside her head.
She pictured the spirit that would one day jump out from it.

Father had the Spirit of Sand.
Rodion had the Spirit of Shadows.
Lev had the Spirit of Flames.
Grandmother had tamed the Spirit of Thunder.

Among so many spirits, Tiya immediately thought of the Spirit of Spring.

She didn’t know why, but she could clearly imagine filling the mansion’s garden with endless spring flowers together with that spirit.

‘No, it doesn’t have to be the Spirit of Spring,’ she thought.

Whichever spirit came to her, she was sure she could love it more than anyone else.

And when she became a Spirit Master, Father would surely—

<Even if you become a Spirit Master, Shurka Valoz will never acknowledge you.>

Winter’s sharp words tore through Tiya’s swelling happiness.
Her legs, which had been swinging with joy, now dangled lifelessly over the sofa.

Tiya asked, her voice tinged with hurt,
“Why would you say that?”

Because it was Winter, it sounded like a grim prophecy rather than a simple opinion.

<I never explained it to you before, did I?>

Winter pointed toward the tapestry depicting the Great Spirit.

<To go back to the past by making a contract with the Spirit of Time, two conditions must be met.>

Winter raised two fingers and folded them one by one as she spoke.

<One, you must carry the blood of Vladizef. Two, you must possess the Family Head’s ring, which seals the Spirit of Time. Your father once met these conditions, didn’t he?>

…He had.

Now he was the Count of Valoz, but back during Mother’s funeral, Father was called the Little Duke of Vladizef.
And on his finger, there had indeed been the Family Head’s ring…

<That man must have made a contract with the Spirit of Time.>

“How do you know that, Winter?”

<Because the Spirit of Time’s power isn’t limitless. There are restrictions.>

This time, Winter unfolded her fingers one by one.

<One, you can return to the past multiple times, but the total time you can rewind is only twenty years. Two, each time you go back, your soul is damaged.>

The Spirit of Time leads the contractor’s soul back into the past.
But like a salmon swimming upstream losing its scales and tearing its fins, a human’s soul also takes damage.

The more one resists the flow of time, the more the soul is worn down, until their humanity is lost.

The Spirit of Time called it the price for defying the laws of nature.

<Judging by how clouded his eyes are, there’s probably no humanity left to damage anymore.>

The current Grand Duke of Vladizef erasing his own son from the family register was proof of that.

The family law, passed down only to the head, stated that anyone who had exhausted all twenty years of time reversal lost the right to be head of the family.

<Because of that restriction, we will never know what he went back for. But the result… is the man you see now.>

Twenty years of reversing time.

All that time chipped away at Shurka’s soul until nothing was left.
Now, he was a man who could no longer feel anything.