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Chapter 15
By that time, I had grown accustomed to my position within House Laslet.
No one in Laslet liked me.
The internal affairs that were normally handled by the lady of the house were impossible for me to touch, as distrust toward me was overwhelming. And whenever even a token gift or letter arrived from Rowen, I was subjected to cold stares for days on end.
At least when I was with Sioden, I could breathe easier.
He always maintained a certain level of politeness, so others had no choice but to follow suit.
There was something the servants used to whisper about that attitude.
“It must be because His Lordship likes that woman. He’s just enduring it because of his naturally upright character.”
I already knew the truth.
Because I had spoken with him before.
“If I cannot like her, then at least I must treat her as important in order to protect her.”
So Sioden must have been treating me with courtesy as something important. He probably did not like me.
But no matter how much he tried to endure my presence, unpleasant things kept happening in Laslet.
Embezzlement cases, deaths of servants, the destruction of heirlooms belonging to the previous duchess.
When those incidents were investigated, nine out of ten times evidence pointed to Rowen’s involvement.
Sometimes I was even named as the mastermind, and Sioden seemed to struggle the most at those times.
Once, he even came to me and said,
“Is it impossible for you to stay still for even a moment?”
I truly wanted to listen to that.
It was exhausting to be disliked by Sioden. Especially when I already knew how kind and cheerful he could be.
But no matter how much I kept my head down and tried to exist like I wasn’t there, unpleasant incidents continued to occur. And evidence linking them to Rowen kept appearing.
Perhaps it really was Rowen’s doing. My father and Iswen must have stirred up Laslet and been caught by Sioden.
Or maybe they deliberately left traces behind.
Sioden cared about protecting his house above all else. So they likely tried to provoke him by disturbing Laslet.
The difficult part was proving that I had no involvement in what my family did.
“You can never escape your family name.”
As Iswen said, to Sioden I was still Rowen.
To him, I was the beloved daughter of his enemy—and an untrustworthy spy.
Even though I truly hadn’t done any of those things.
That Day
That morning, Sioden came to my bedroom at dawn.
After an early incident in which a Rowen servant was caught embezzling funds, he had moved me to a separate building and rarely visited, so his arrival was unusual.
I was preparing to greet him after hearing he was waiting outside, when the door suddenly burst open.
“Iella Laslet.”
Sioden stood in the doorway, looking at me.
Unlike me, who had not yet even changed clothes, he was fully dressed in formal attire.
It was strange—formal wear meant he had already met someone, yet it was still near dawn.
He strode toward me and snatched something from a maid’s hands. Only when it was placed over my shoulders did I realize it was an outer coat he had draped over me.
Startled by his sudden action, my wrist was grabbed.
“Come with me.”
Only then did I realize Sioden was truly angry.
He dragged me through the corridors. As I was practically pulled along, I noticed the atmosphere in the castle.
The servants were all whispering while looking at me.
Every time those gazes touched my skin, it felt like I was sinking into an icy sea. It stung painfully.
Sioden took me to the forest behind the castle.
It was a place I had never been allowed to enter before.
Within the forest stood a special tree, a symbol of House Laslet. Entering without the head’s permission was punishable by death.
Shivering in the cold wind, I followed him until he suddenly stopped. I stopped as well, nearly breathless from keeping up.
When he released my wrist and positioned me in front of him, I saw what lay within the family forest for the first time.
Two enormous trees stood there.
The tree on the right shone brilliantly in silver, while the one beside it was completely dead and blackened.
The reason was obvious at a glance—its trunk was covered in deep axe wounds.
It was a horrifying sight, filled with clear malice.
I stepped back without realizing it, but Sioden held me in place so I could not escape.
He spoke.
“That dead tree belonged to Merwen.”
Merwen’s tree.
No one in Laslet Castle would fail to understand what that meant.
In the forest behind Laslet Castle, a tree would grow whenever a direct descendant of the family was born.
That tree, called Glasir, was a relic of the age of magic—originating from a blessing given by a fairy to those who once helped her.
The sap of Glasir could heal any wound or illness.
However, once the tree was wounded, it would immediately wither, meaning its sap could only be obtained once.
The previous Duke of Laslet also had his own Glasir.
My father had once demanded that he sell its sap, intending to use it for a heart disease that no medicine could cure.
But Glasir was an heirloom and symbol of the head of the house.
It could not be sold.
The former duke refused, and my father bore a grudge against him and poisoned him.
Even if one cherished an heirloom, if they were dying, they would have no choice but to use it—so my father intended to destroy the tree.
That was the kind of person he was.
If he could not have something, no one else should either.
But even as he lay dying from poison, the former duke never cut down his Glasir.
The tree he protected was inherited by Merwen according to his will.
Since then, the people of Laslet had called it Merwen’s tree.
And now that tree stood before me, hacked apart.
The dried silver sap that had spilled from its wounds onto the ground showed that the culprit had intended nothing but to destroy it.
Anyone who wanted its healing properties would never have let the sap spill like that.
I didn’t know who did this, but there was something disturbingly cruel in it.
More than anything, I didn’t understand why Sioden was showing me this.
He looked back at me and said coldly,
“Last night, a knight from Rowen did this. He claimed it was under your orders.”
“I… I didn’t do that.”
It was true.
I had no way of ordering the knights from Rowen. They all obeyed my father and Iswen.
Sioden did not believe me.
“Denial is useless. The culprit has already confessed.”
He took out a sheet of paper and handed it to me.
It was a statement written in a familiar handwriting. One of the knights my father had assigned to me wrote exactly like that.
In the statement, it said he had followed my orders to sneak into the forest and damage the tree.
I had never said such a thing. Yet the knight claimed he obeyed despite knowing it was wrong—because he pitied me, supposedly believing I had been deprived of Merwen’s place.
But if he truly cared about me, he would not have harmed Merwen. That would only ensure I was blamed first.
At the bottom of the statement, there was even a clean signature swearing it was the truth.
Even though I had done nothing, I was now undeniably framed as the culprit.
It was absurd—but more than that, I was afraid.
This was not something I could simply take the blame for and move on from.
With trembling hands, I returned the statement to Sioden.
“This is… I truly don’t know anything about—”
Sioden did not listen to me until the end.
