4. The Second Meeting
Her mother was warm, and wished to grant Daphne whatever she desired, yet at times she could be strict.
"You must not become a laughingstock when you go to the palace later."
Daphne learned everything she could in her childhood.
Among those things, her favorite was drawing. When she drew fruits and teacups on a pure white canvas, they took on quite a plausible shape.
Despite her teacher's protests that she had astonishing talent, her mother shook her head and put a stop to it.
"You will stop learning to paint now."
Daphne said she didn't want to, but once her mother had decided on something, she rarely changed her mind. Daphne, who had thrown a tantrum, cried herself to sleep.
On days like that, her mother would come at night and stroke her hair until dawn. That day was no different.
"You have no need of that person's legacy."
Her mother whispered with tender hands to Daphne, who was sniffling in her sleep. Her mother was an unknowable person.
A modest mansion with pretty red roofs. When she grew tired of studying, her mother would bake her snacks, and when she was truly exhausted, her mother would skip a day of lessons and take her on a picnic.
A world lacking nothing, filled only with love and happiness. A world made complete by her mother alone.
Occasionally, the Emperor would visit like an uninvited guest and come between her mother and her.
Of course, that did not mean the Emperor gave no love.
Her mother was a mistress who was quite beloved, and the Emperor strove to fulfill her every wish. It was only natural that Daphne, their daughter, was loved as well.
Daphne was perceptive, so she knew that the love she received was false and undeserved, but she was ignorant of the fundamental problem.
That was Daphne's sin. Protected by the devoted love of her mother, Beatrice, she lost all her shields after her mother's death.
"Daphne, the palace... your father..."
Spitting up blood, she told her to obey her 'father' until the very end. The Emperor sent off his beloved lover, who was dying suddenly of illness, with tears.
"Your Majesty, my daughter, please, my daughter..."
Naturally, he reassured her, saying he would take in Daphne, the fruit of his and Beatrice's love.
Her mother died. Her world died. Beatrice, who was greedy but not cunning, had tried to bring her daughter into the palace, but failing to do so, she died suddenly of an illness that had stricken her without warning.
A sorrowful loss, and the father who was to take her in. It could have made a beautiful picture, even if everyone pointed fingers at it.
But the shieldless girl's world was far too fragile, and it collapsed with ease.
Daphne sobbed on her mother's bed, drawing and drawing again the mother who would not come. She thought that if she cried herself to sleep like this, her mother might appear in the night and stroke her hair.
Before the pain of loss had even healed, a destroyer appeared to bring her world crashing down.
"You lied to me!"
Listening to the Emperor's roar, Daphne trembled inside the wardrobe. He was smashing everything. With a clang, a vase rolled across the floor. Something heavy came down with a dull, wet smack.
Then came the sound of something crashing into something else with a sickening crack. Daphne covered her ears with her hands and prayed for it all to end soon.
"That wretched, sly thing! Me, how dare you deceive me!"
Thud, thud, thud, thud! Again came the sound of something slimy being beaten down.
"You loved that worthless bastard, yet you passed off another man's seed as mine...! That cunning creature! That fox!"
The Emperor's rage-filled shouts filled the quiet house. After her mother's death, she had once thought this house would be too quiet to bear.
But she had never once wished for it to be filled with such terrifying sounds.
She pressed her legs together and hunched her body.
Young Daphne understood in an instant.
Everything had been exposed.
In truth, she had been hoping. She had hoped that man was her father. But once again, it was not to be.
Her mother had lied to her 'father.' Her real father was someone else! And that lie had been discovered.
But her mother, the only one who could answer for that lie, was already dead. And so she had to face the Emperor's wrath head-on.
The wardrobe door burst open. Through the gap between the clothes, she saw bloodshot eyes.
When a faint thread of light entered her eyes, they stung for a moment. As she grimaced, a slender little wrist was forcibly dragged out, and she toppled over.
Daphne looked up with a tear-soaked face. She could not understand how this man, who had once stroked her hair, this man who had been so kind, could now cast her aside like a piece of luggage.
Yes, she had been arrogant, believing herself more mature than her peers. There was no way a child of barely ten years could understand all of that malice, that fury.
Daphne looked around. She saw the corpses of the people who had worked here. She recalled their horrific screams, which she had been desperately denying. Her trembling pupils met the eyes of the butler's corpse.
She could not even scream. She only knew that if she did, she would be killed.
The moment she realized what the Emperor had been beating, she knew that she, too, would end up like that. And yet she wanted to live. She did not want to end up like that.
"F-Father."
She uttered the words she should never have said, trembling. Her father—no, the Emperor—looked at the young girl, smiled coldly, and pulled the necklace from her neck.
"Father?"
The Emperor's lips curled upward.
Daphne's eyes had turned blue. She had been named 'Daphne' for her laurel-green eyes, but that, too, was a deception. The Emperor raised his hand and seized her face with his large palm.
"Ugh!"
"Father? Father? Who exactly is calling me father?!"
"..."
"Look at these blue eyes of yours! You hid even this from me?!"
The face in his grip shook back and forth. Daphne, weeping, murmured "I'm sorry" in a voice small as a mosquito's.
The Emperor stopped his violence and panted. His rage-filled eyes were already, in that instant, mad. Daphne opened her eyes, looked at the man who had been her father, and said:
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Your Majesty!"
"..."
"I'm sorry!"
Daphne begged, trembling with a pale face. She did not want to die. No, she was afraid to die. And yet she envied so deeply her mother, who had gone into the forest of death.
She was terrified. She could not bear the fear. And the Emperor watched it all. As if something had occurred to him, he stared piercingly into Daphne's eyes.
After a long while, he seemed to think of something and let out a feeble laugh.
"Yes, I must honor her dying wish."
"..."
"But then, it is an Emperor's promise."
It was a cruel face. Wearing the face of a sadist who had resolved to inflict every humiliation and suffering the world could offer, he gazed upon the last trace of the woman he loved.
"You must go to the palace."
Having thrown away the face of a father entirely, the man smiled.
It was the end of Daphne's peaceful, loving world.
In this world, there are those to whom purity and ignorance are permitted, and those to whom they are not. Daphne was the latter.
In fact, for her, it was not merely her ignorance—even breathing was a sin. That was what the people of the world said. It was only natural. She was the daughter of Beatrice, the infamous temptress who had dared to deceive the Emperor and covet the seat of Empress.
* * *
"Hey, go fetch water!"
A bucket flew through the air and struck young Daphne's body. It was large enough to be about half her size. Daphne quietly picked it up by the handle.
"Isn't this too much?"
"That's what you get for being a good-for-nothing who can't do anything."
Snickering sounds came from behind her. Raised under her mother's warm affection, she had lived delicately, without so much as wetting her hands.
But after she entered the palace, as if they had all been waiting for it, everyone in the world trampled Daphne down. Her downfall was the sole remaining amusement in this tiresome place.
Though she was but a young girl, she was a shameless, cunning wench who had dared to impersonate royalty. Moreover, the hatred toward Daphne, who had never done a scrap of menial work, stirred the peculiar inferiority complex these people harbored toward their betters.
A filthy duckling just like us dares to imitate a swan?
Punishment must be handed down to such a one. People rationalized their twisted sadism as justice. That was precisely what the Emperor had intended.
Daphne finally scooped up the water and dragged it along. No one helped her. The overflowing water spilled out, carving a trail across the floor.
"Hey! You!"
She had bad luck. She knew that voice. It was Thomas, the head servant notorious for his foul temper even within the palace. As she turned to look back, a dull impact struck her head. He had struck her with his enormous fist.
It hurt so much that tears welled up in her eyes, and when she looked up at him, Thomas bellowed.
"You ruined the corridor I painstakingly cleaned!"
"..."
"Oh-ho, so you're that cuckoo!"
At Thomas's words, everyone snickered with laughter.
"A cuckoo's brat..."
At Daphne's words, a servant bent at the waist and said:
"Don't you know? It's called a cuckoo because it's a vile bird that shoves its offspring into other nests. Your dead mother did what a cuckoo does, that's why."
"..."
"Calling yourself His Majesty's child—you've got some nerve. Your mother didn't get to die a peaceful death."
Daphne lifted her head. She did not want to hear that her mother had not died peacefully. And yet, her mother... her mother was, no matter how bad a person she may have been, still my mother...
"You don't know this either, do you? She might be flirting away before the god of death even now..."
"She isn't!"
Daphne screamed through clenched teeth. They began to laugh even louder. It was such an immense insult. Why, why did these people torment her? Why did they insult her dead mother?
Her mother never did anything wrong to you!
She tried to shout back in fury, but she could not. Because cold water came pouring down on her. A steel bucket was shoved over her head. She was drenched from head to toe.
Laughter and whispers rang out. She even heard someone mutter "poor thing" in mock charity. The upturned bucket blocked her vision. Her own breath echoed raspingly in her ears.
The cackling laughter sounded distant. She wanted to run away. But she could not see ahead.
Looking like a rain-soaked mouse, with the bucket over her head, she tried to take it off. But her chin was caught on the handle, and it would not come off easily.
Then someone threw something, and a clang rang out.
"Bullseye!"
The laughter grew even louder. Daphne wanted to die. She wanted to get far away from this place. Weeping, she desperately sought a place to hide.
As she fled for her life, she collided with someone. At the same moment, the bucket came off.
"..."
Only a deathly silent stillness remained. Daphne looked up at the person standing before her. Astonishingly, the one standing there was a boy.
The white shirt the boy wore was soaked with water.
That boy with raven-black hair and green eyes. Ashelard was looking down at her. It was the kind boy she had encountered in the palace.
As Daphne's eyes widened, a voice came from somewhere.
"H-His Highness the Prince."
His Highness the Prince?
She snapped to her senses. In an instant, an indifferent, languid gaze turned toward her. The boy's eyes fell upon Daphne, drenched and wretched. At the end of that observing gaze, his eyes curved.
"Are you all right?"
Like a blade cleaving through the silence, a kind voice rang out.