Chapter 3

Sienna was speechless.

What did he just say?

She felt dizzy.

“Sienna?” She almost couldn’t hear the grand duke call her name. What she heard was her terror-stricken heart pounding.

The grand duke must have felt something was off because he extended a hand toward her. “Uh...”

She avoided his hand instinctively, stumbling backward and falling to the ground with a cry.

“Sienna! What are you doing?” Alarmed, Principal Kendall rebuked her sharply, but neither the grand duke nor Sienna paid any attention to him. The grand duke remained frozen with his hand awkwardly hanging in the air, looking at her as she lay still on the ground.

Is he... flustered? It was unbelievable, but that’s what it appeared to be. No. I’m just imagining things.

She then clenched her trembling fist. She knew she would have to say something. Thus, she opened her dry mouth and stammered, “I-I...”

If she was being honest, she didn’t want it. Nacht castle had been her grave. Sienna lived there like a ghost for nearly ten years and never received love from anyone. She chose to take her own life after learning she had been betrayed by the one person she believed had loved her—her sister.

That place is where I meet my miserable end. She didn’t want to set even one foot into that castle. No, not just that. She wanted to get far, far away from there, even if that meant she had to leave the capital and ended up dying in a ditch somewhere.

If I can ensure that I’ll die this time, then that won’t be so bad either.

She had to find a way to nicely tell him no, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak. Most might think that was to be expected. After all, Sienna’s mind may have been fully grown, but her body was still only eleven years old. Her terrified child’s body was on the verge of a panic attack.

The grand duke couldn’t just wait and watch as she lay there drenched in cold sweat and stammering. He attempted to reach out to her again. He only intended to pull the child to her feet, but she suddenly broke into tears.

“Sienna!”

“I... I don’t want...” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence to say that she didn’t want to go with him. To her amazement, she was so overcome by the indescribable terror of him possibly touching her that she fainted. Her vision went dark.

“Oh my word! Sienna!” The principal squawked and leaped into action to take care of her collapsed body.

The grand duke remained frozen in place without withdrawing his hand. Just now she… He was certain of it. It was a rejection. A rejection clearer than any words could convey.

* * *

It was always like this. Sienna always stood out as a lesser being whenever she was next to the perfect Lorena. But ironically, only Lorena had treated her well. It had been that way from the moment they met long ago.

“Oh, so you’re Sienna!”

“H-Hello, Miss Lorena. I’m...”

“What do you mean, ‘Miss Lorena?’”

The first day they met, Lorena had taken her hand and said, “We’re both beneficiaries of the same family, so let’s be sisters.”

“Huh?”

Lorena giggled when she saw Sienna’s eyes widen in disbelief at what she had said. Even her laugh rang out clearly and beautifully, like a cool breeze on a summer day. “I’ve always wanted a sister, so could you call me your sister now?”

And so Sienna and Lorena became sisters.

“Sienna, I’m going to be staying at my family’s summer house. Won’t you go with me?”

“Lorena...”

“I told my parents we were sisters now and they were very curious about you. So let’s go, okay?”

Her summer with Lorena was fun.

“You must be Sienna.”

“Thank you for getting along so well with our Loren.” Lorena’s parents had treated Sienna kindly, even though she was basically a commoner.

But that wasn’t the only surprising thing.

“Sienna, are you asleep?”

Late one night that summer, Lorena went to Sienna’s room.

“I have something I want to do with you before we sleep.”

“What is it?”

Sienna always tried her hardest when playing with Lorena. She wanted her older sister to consider the time they spent together fun, so even if the games were a bit difficult, she tried to agree to Lorena’s requests as often as she could.

“Let’s try doing this together.”

Lorena opened an old book on the bed. It was a leather-bound book that looked very old. The text was also stained with some unknown substance, which Sienna thought looked ominous, but Lorena simply looked excited. Lorena explained what was written in the book to Sienna since the latter couldn’t read.

“It’s talking about how to share mana with another person.”

“Huh?”

“Shhh! We can’t get caught, Sienna. I want to share my mana with you. Sadly, you don’t have that much of your own, do you?”

“Really? You want to share with me?” Sienna had to become a capable magician. She thought if she couldn’t, she would be such a disappointment for the duke after he had taken her in. But to think she didn’t have that much mana...

She went pale with worry, so Lorena soothed her by saying, “It’s okay, Sienna. I can just share mine with you. I have plenty of mana.”

“But...” Sienna had a good head on her shoulders. She knew that Lorena having a lot of mana and receiving some of it were two separate things.

“We can’t. How... How could I? Your mana? If we did that, then we’d be tricking everyone else.”

“Do you want to go back to the orphanage, Sienna?” The little girl fell silent as the pointed question dove into a sore spot in her heart. “I want to be your sister forever. Please?”

“Lorena...” Sienna’s eyes filled with tears in an instant. There had never been anyone as kind to her as Lorena before. She had wanted to stay by her kind sister’s side, so she nodded in agreement.

Thus, the two performed the ritual in secret.

“It’s a secret only we will know. Don’t worry. I’ll keep our secret forever, Sienna.”

A secret. She recalled how her heart would race at the mere thought of that word. She should have realized then that a hierarchy had been established between them and they would never be able to escape it.

No, it probably wouldn’t have mattered even if I had known.

Since things had gone that far, they couldn’t turn back anyhow.

Sienna simply wanted to stay by Lorena’s side no matter what she had to do. She wholly believed that was something worth doing back then.

Even though it was all a delusion...

She eventually learned how futile trusting and depending on someone was. That’s why I absolutely can’t this time.

Sienna was slowly starting to wake up from her nightmare. Of course, I doubt this nightmare is over just because I’ve woken up.

She unconsciously accepted that it was time to return to her miserable life.

* * *

While Sienna was unconscious, the adults spoke.

“Sir Marian Kendall.” The grand duke was interrogating the principal. “I’m sure you’re aware that children who are born with the ability to use magic are very, very rare.” The trembling principal bowed his head as he accepted the grand duke’s stern criticism. “I’m sure you’d like to subvert the issue by saying they are simply resources who volunteer to work for His Imperial Majesty and the people of the empire, but I prefer to see them this way.”

“Y-Your Grace...”

“The children here, and myself, are the empire’s military resources. Resources that cannot be damaged or wasted,” the grand duke continued.

Sir Kendall gulped loudly as he tried to think of an excuse. However, his haughty tongue reserved for torturing the so-called “worthless orphans and pushover teachers” suddenly didn’t seem to work as smoothly. Especially since he was being held accountable by Rodrik Nacht of the Underworld who was also known as the infamous Grand Duke of Death.

Damn it... I’m being humiliated like this just because that girl collapsed?

After Sienna fainted from hearing his offer, the grand duke had looked down at her with a stony face. At first, it seemed as though she had fainted while avoiding his touch, but… I’m sure I imagined it.

He convinced himself that it was just bad timing. There were plenty of reasons why she could have collapsed. Perhaps she was extremely nervous. Never mind that their society referred to him as the king of hell. That was more than enough to make a terrified child faint.

Wait… But upon seeing the unconscious child in her teacher’s arms, he thought she appeared a bit thin and her skin had an unhealthy pallor. Although she was freshly bathed and dressed in clean clothes, her malnutrition was unmistakable. The children around her didn’t look much different either.