Only the doctor, Sierra, and Poppy—the maid exclusively dedicated to nursing Sierra—were in the room.
Oh? Jeffrey and Jasper must be terribly busy. So busy they would leave their collapsed younger sister unattended without nursing her!
But perhaps it was fortunate that the two were absent.
After all, the grave declaration the attending physician was about to make would reveal its secret, true worth precisely when shared among so few.
“Lady Ferain, please listen carefully.”
Suddenly, the physician set a somber tone. Sierra—her complexion pale as a porcelain vase, yet her lips alone glistening with the hue of a beautiful apple—sensed the unusual mood and raised her lashes woefully.
“Yes, Doctor……”
No matter how one looked at her, she did not look like a patient. She had undoubtedly applied glossy lip rouge with painstaking effort before the doctor arrived. Even while ill, she had apparently found time to dress herself up.
But according to the young noblemen of high society, such doubts were nothing but ugly jealousy. Let us put them aside.
In any case, her appearance was like a painting. No, that was wrong. A painting? If ordered to capture this sight, even the empire's greatest painter would suffer over his own lacking abilities and snap his brush in anguish.
A magnolia, of all things.
Who in the world had described Sierra Ferain as merely a magnolia!
Surely, somewhere, there existed a flower deserving of every fine modifier—purer, nobler, yet more splendid and more striking.
Merely a magnolia!
Meanwhile, the physician had grown solemn.
Because he had to say these words.
“Lady Ferain. You are terminal. You will die in one month.”
Poppy’s and Sierra’s eyes widened simultaneously.
The physician told her the name of the disease he had diagnosed.
It was a disease she had never heard of, but with an exceedingly plausible-sounding name. The peculiar trait of this disease was that the date of death could be predicted exactly. The physician concluded that Sierra would die in exactly thirty days.
And so, completely out of the blue—without even being examined at a major hospital, simply sitting at home—Sierra Ferain suddenly received a terminal diagnosis.
Spoiler at this point:
In truth, Sierra is not terminal.
Sierra's misfortune lay in believing this diagnosis entirely because she had trusted her attending physician too much.
In fact, it was not solely Sierra's fault.
All the people who would come to learn of Sierra's terminal condition in the future would believe this diagnosis.
Because Sierra's attending physician was very, extremely, exceedingly competent.
Only that this terminal sentence would end up being a fatal stain on his career in the future.
* * *
As soon as Sierra received her terminal diagnosis, Poppy—Sierra’s right hand, her closest maid—wailed at the top of her lungs.
“Oh, my lady. Oh, my poor lady, how pitiful.”
But what she said next was a little strange.
“Hic, our lady spent, hic, fifteen years employing method acting to put on affectations to build the image of the empire’s m-most pure, frail, sickly beauty……”
It was the sort of remark that would make the young noblemen singing Sierra’s praises at the club today leap in shock. But Poppy continued.
“Our lady, waaah, spent, hic, fifteen whole years suppressing her temper and fawning upon His Majesty the Emperor to become the Crown Princess, hic……”
She looked more aggrieved than Sierra, who was the one supposed to die soon.
“To think our lady will pass away in a month without even getting to become the Crown Princess she longed for so much. Waaah!”
Having been combing Sierra’s hair, Poppy stopped and threw herself onto Sierra’s bed, wailing.
Sierra sat blankly with her lips parted, her face still wretched with shock. But soon, her expression began to change.
Her gently curved brows rose, and her slightly parted lips pressed together coldly. Then she began to chew on her lower lip.
The Empire’s swan, the white magnolia. The woman most pure, delicate, pristine, and sickly on the continent; she who received the adoration of all men with her innately fragile temperament and delicate, gentle nature—the most pure and easily bruised flower.
A woman whose smile was like a sigh and whose fingertips moved like a lace veil fluttering in the wind.
A woman who knew not a single vulgar word, who would tilt her head at even slightly coarse vocabulary and make an innocent face, asking, ‘Whatever do you mean?’
Instead of blinking back distant tears, she roughly swept her hair back and spoke.
“What, why is this dogsh*t happening all of a sudden, you b*stards?”
Because Poppy was wailing at the top of her lungs, fortunately, no one heard the unimaginable profanity that came from her lips.
Lady Sierra Ferain, daughter of Count Ferain, 18 years old.
The three words that defined her were hypocrisy, affectation, and duplicity.
She spoke to Poppy, who lay prostrate before her.
“I’m the one who’s dying, so why are you crying? Stop crying. Nothing changes just because you cry.”
But Poppy’s tears did not stop.
“Waaah, my lady. What do we do? What are we going to do now?”
She repeated her sobs and wails as if Sierra had already been placed in a coffin and buried in the ground.
Sierra brushed Poppy aside with a light wave of her hand. Poppy now began to cry, prostrate on the carpet.
“What do you mean, what do we do... I should just get some sleep......”
“What?”
Poppy raised her head in fright. It sounded as though Sierra intended to take her own life right then and there and rest in eternal peace.
Whether that was the case or not, Sierra wrapped herself tightly in a feather duvet and sought sleep.
Deep sleep came a mere two minutes later.
It was a deep sleep utterly unbelievable for someone who had just received a terminal diagnosis.
At that point, Poppy had no choice but to stop crying.
First, because she was afraid she might wake her lady.
Second, because she felt awkward being the only one grieving.
* * *