Episode 25
The first emotion Helen felt upon setting foot in Hexilov was longing. Tragically, it truly was.
Having lost the mother who had carried her for ten full months to bring her into the light of the world, the only person Helen had to trust in this world was her father. Even after being abandoned by him, she had still longed for his embrace during those first few days.
“It’s my fault.”
What had she done wrong?
“Father is just a little disappointed in me.”
What was he disappointed about?
“Father still loves me, so if I wait just a few more days, he’ll come to get me.”
If he had loved her, he would never have abandoned her.
They say she had gone to sleep hugging her pillow tightly on her first night in Hexilov. Because the unfamiliar night in an unfamiliar place was frightening.
The nights in Hexilov, white all over, were nothing but cold. The great white moon did not rise, and only the sound of owls hooting filled the air.
That winter night, hugging the white pillow tightly, she had prayed to the moon that did not even rise. She prayed that when this night passed and the morning came—when the sun ruled the sky—her father would come to get her.
But no such thing happened.
After about a week, her longing for her father gradually steeped into a sense of betrayal. The painful family love that had eroded young Helen’s heart did not reveal itself for some time. She didn’t even cry.
The first thought that came to her when she saw the Count again was that he had grown old. The young Count of those days had disappeared somewhere, and only an old man had taken his place.
Helen looked at him and thought to herself that so very much time had passed. Ridiculously, only their appearances had changed. There was not so much as the crust of an eye’s worth of the warmth that usually flowed between father and daughter.
“His Majesty came to visit, I heard.”
“Yes.”
“He proposed to you, I understand.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you refuse?”
“Simply put, because I do not love His Majesty.”
She had merely spoken the truth, yet the Count set down his teacup roughly. The coffee inside swayed violently before slowly settling.
“How dare you disgrace our house!”
“Disgrace it? I rather think I saved it.”
Helen let out a short laugh, a cold sneer crossing her face. There was no reason to treat like a parent someone who regarded their child as nothing more than a means for the house’s prosperity.
A coquettish word or two to make her parents happy, a pretty eye smile, a warm touch. She had lost all of that on the day she was abandoned so very long ago.
“If I had accepted His Majesty’s proposal, what do you think I would have done next?”
“Naturally, you would have done what ought to be done for the house.”
“Things like connecting the house’s business to the imperial household, or ensuring the house secured its share in exchanges with other nations? Father, really… you expect a great deal from a child you abandoned.”
At Helen’s words, Count Platini’s brows furrowed. The words *abandoned child* had stirred up the past.
The Count remembered the events of ‘that day’ vividly. Perhaps even more clearly than Helen, who had been so very young. Therefore, he could not deny Helen’s words calling herself an abandoned child.
“Yes. I abandoned you. But is it not all in the past?”
“The past? Did you just call it the past?”
Helen’s dark green eyes grew even colder. Even though every window in this room was shut tight without so much as a crack, it felt as though a winter wind was blowing in from somewhere.
“You stuck a dagger in a young heart and chased her out to that cold, distant place—was that truly something so easily forgotten for you, Father?”
“Helen.”
“If Mother had been alive, you wouldn’t have abandoned me. Because you loved Mother.”
A person could not abandon the child of the one they loved. For they would have loved the child born of the one they loved.
Helen knew the reason her father had been forced to abandon her. It was something she had not understood when she was young.
In a world without the person he loved, merely looking at a child who resembled her must have brought her to mind. And with that, all sorts of thoughts must have choked the Count.
*If this child had not been born, then that person would have lived. She would be by my side now. We would be living happily, loving each other.*
The more he looked at the child with such thoughts, the more he must have gone mad.
But he had to endure. He was the child’s father, and what the person he loved had wanted was for the child to live happily.
“Do you remember what I said before?”
“Since I was born into House Platini, I will do one thing for the house.”
She had meant it sincerely. The Count had not killed the child, and had ensured she grew up safely. The child intended to repay that grace. With a dagger lodged in her heart.
“I intend to serve the house by not becoming Empress.”
“Helen!”
“Because if I become Empress, I will not leave the house that abandoned me in peace.”
She would trample this house with overwhelming power, again and again. Until he realized he had repented his sins too late.
“So isn’t rejecting the Emperor’s proposal the very thing that serves the house? Isn’t it, Father?”
Helen pulled the corners of her lips upward and lifted her coffee cup. As the bitterness in that one sip faded, a fleeting sweetness followed. She rather liked that taste.
She watched Count Platini’s stiff face and his clenched, trembling hand. He looked as though he would burst with rage at any moment, but Helen calmly wetted her lips with a sip of coffee.
Remaining with the Count any longer was uncomfortable.
“Abandon me again. Isn’t that what you said to me? That you don’t keep useless things.”
As she set down her teacup, she cast a bitter smile at the Count’s ten fingers, shaking violently.
*Useless thing.* What parent would say such a contradictory thing to their child? Where was a child born for the sake of utility? When they themselves had brought the child into this world.
To say the child born of the person he loved was useless. If the person he loved were alive, he would not have thought the child useless; those words were truly contradictory.
When she first heard those words from the Count after so long, she had felt only misery. But upon reflecting on them, the emotions that young Helen had felt—longing for the father who had abandoned her during those few days—were the truly useless things.
“If I were Father, I would abandon me right away too. There are others’ eyes to consider, and besides, you cannot kill me now because of the Emperor who proposed to me.”
“You certainly do speak your mind, for all that loose talk.”
“Isn’t that what you wish for? Or do you want me to leave on my own?”
If he wished it, she would leave without a second word.
Helen waited only for the Count’s decision. Whether he let her remain in the mansion or chased her out to Hexilov, neither would change her plans going forward.
Having cast her out once, it should not have been difficult to do so a second time, yet the Count could not easily open his mouth.
“I…”
The Count’s pupils shook. Helen felt thoroughly displeased at the sight of him agonizing over a daughter he had abandoned long ago.
“Don’t tell me that you never abandoned me.”
“…”
She hadn’t thought so, but seeing the Count’s reaction, it seemed he had been about to utter words he didn’t even mean.
Helen was so dumbfounded that she burst into a short laugh. After all, who would believe that the Count had chased that young child out to Hexilov that very night?
“Whether you abandon me or not is your choice, Father. But whichever you choose, don’t try to be a real father now.”
Because it’s disgusting.
The world knew that Count Platini had two daughters, but no one knew the truth: that the daughter the Count loved was only one.
They merely knew there was a daughter who had been far away due to illness, and a daughter who had grown up in the fullest embrace of her parents’ love because she was healthy.
Nothing would change now. Rather, she did not wish for anything to change. The words *forget the wounds of the past and live* were only for those whose wounds would someday heal.
Helen dusted off her seat and stood up. She brushed past the Count and immediately opened the door.
In front of the open door stood Roji, whom Count Platini loved most dearly. She held a letter in both hands, her eyes filled with anxiety.
Helen called out to Roji, who seemed to have been lingering in front of the door for quite some time.
“Roji, did you come to see Father?”
“Ah, yes. And you too, Sister.”
“Me? Ah, I was hoping you might eat the cookies a little later.”
“No! It’s not because of the cookies.”
Roji shook her head and held out the letter she had been gripping with both hands. The envelope had apparently already been discarded; only the letter, folded precisely in half, remained.
Helen made an expression asking what sort of letter this was, but Roji silently handed it over.
Helen had no choice but to unfold the letter folded in half. Then, the first thing she saw was the familiar handwriting of someone she knew.
It was a letter from Lucas, the Emperor of the Empire.
“His Majesty sent it. A carriage sent by His Majesty is waiting.”
It was a letter saying he wished to enjoy tea together in the hope of harmony between the imperial household and House Platini. If one looked at the content alone, the nuance was that refusal was acceptable; but considering Roji’s words that a carriage had come, it was not an invitation but a semi-coercive threat.
The letter stated that Helen, Roji, and Count Platini were invited.
“I’ll tell Father. Sister, you should hurry and prepare to go to the Imperial Palace.”
If the carriage sent by the Emperor was waiting, as Roji said, they could not very well send it back empty. Nor could they make it wait long, so they had to hurry with preparations.
Helen nodded and folded the letter in half. As she turned to head toward the stairs to change her clothes, Roji grabbed Helen’s wrist.
“Sister, wait a moment.”
“Hmm?”
“What you said about His Majesty wanting House Platini—is that really true?”
Roji’s eyes were still uneasy. Helen guessed that her anxiety stemmed from the Emperor’s heart.
“…Yes, it’s the truth.”
Helen did not consider her own words a lie. But neither could she guarantee they were an obvious truth.
To Lucas, the Emperor, House Platini was needed to bring the Empire to prosperity. But Lucas also needed someone who could make the longing caused by his family’s absence disappear.
She merely thought that she had happened to catch the eye of Lucas, who needed both of those things.
Perhaps on the day of the party celebrating Carlisle Everett’s successful expedition. If she had not sat on Violet’s swing in the imperial palace, she would never have caught Lucas’s eye.
Therefore, this was truly an illusion created by coincidence.
“Go quickly and tell Father. That we must go to the Imperial Palace.”
Roji let go of Helen’s wrist. As soon as Helen turned to leave, Roji looked at her back, biting her lower lip, and asked.
“But why does it feel to me as though His Majesty truly loves you?”