3. Words That Don’t Reach

Sunlight streamed through the windows, casting a golden glow over the table, where a pile of opened invitations lay scattered. Aveline skimmed through them with a bored expression.

Most ended up fluttering to the floor, but one letter remained in her hand for longer than the rest.

“Where’s Anika?”

The question was directed at Lucy, the maid who had been carefully opening envelopes with a paper knife in Aveline’s stead.

Startled, Lucy stammered, tense with worry that she might accidentally tear the letter in her hands.

“Oh, um… I haven’t seen her since breakfast, but she’s probably following the gardener around, helping with the chores again.”

“Do you think I asked because I was curious about where she is right now?”

Aveline smiled sweetly.

Lucy wasn’t the most perceptive person, but even she could instinctively sense the displeasure behind that angelic smile.

“I-I’ll bring her right away!”

She rushed out of the room as if fleeing for her life.

Not long after, a girl came running in.

Her short hair, flattened beneath a large straw hat, bounced against her shoulders. The cuffs of her trousers were caked with dirt.

One of the maids, tidying the room, gasped in horror at the sight.

“Heavens, Anika! How could you walk indoors dressed like that?”

“Oh, well… the lady called for me urgently…”

Anika scratched her chin awkwardly with a gloved hand, sending hardened bits of soil crumbling to the floor.

As the maids continued their shocked lamenting, only Aveline remained indifferent.

“You’ve practically become a gardener at this point. Should I write you a recommendation letter?”

“Come on, where else would I go?”

Anika grinned cheekily, deep dimples forming in her still-youthful, tanned cheeks.

It was almost flattery but not quite a lie. After all, there wasn’t anyone else who would take in a girl like her—a former back-alley orphan from the western desert tribes—besides this eccentric noblewoman.

The western desert was a barren land, one even the empire had no interest in claiming. The desert tribes eked out a living around the oases, but when a devastating drought threatened to dry up the last of them, many had no choice but to abandon their homeland and drift into the empire.

Anika was one of those orphans, separated from her parents while secretly crossing the border. As if being a foreigner in the empire wasn’t hard enough, she was also from a despised desert tribe. The paths available for survival were few and cruel.

Stealing became as natural as breathing, and lying was just another form of greeting.

Then, one day, she was abducted.

She’d always known she was living on borrowed time, so she figured this was simply the moment fate had caught up with her.

But the one waiting for her wasn’t a soldier looking down on her in contempt. Nor was it some brutish thug wielding his fists, or a sleazy pervert licking his lips.

Instead—

‘You’ll work for me.’

A noblewoman, the kind who had likely never so much as glanced at someone from the gutter, had issued the command with effortless grace.

Anika had hesitated, instinctively hiding her dirt-stained hands behind her back to keep from soiling the woman’s immaculate dress.

‘…Why me? Everyone else avoids me…’

Later, she would learn her name—Aveline Croeta. And the moment she did, Aveline smiled. A smile so stunning and poised, it was hard to believe it belonged to the same species as her.

‘Precisely because of that.’

Anika hadn’t understood the meaning of those words until she carried out her first errand for Aveline.

Her task was to buy information from a broker lurking in the back alleys of the Morbe shopping district.

Most of the intel consisted of unsavory socialite gossip, scandals, or tangled webs of usury—digging up skeletons people preferred to keep buried.

It was a petty job for someone who had lived her whole life in elegance, but for someone like Anika, who had been raised in those very alleys, it was the perfect fit.

A desert tribe girl wandering around dark alleys was such a common sight that no one would ever suspect she was working for a noblewoman.

‘Where are you off to in such a hurry?’

‘Oh, just running an errand in the back alleys…’

Even the maids of the ducal household had no real idea why Aveline had taken Anika in.

One day, they stopped her outright and questioned her. Caught off guard, she answered honestly—only to watch their faces immediately twist in disapproval.

‘An errand? The lady sent you?’

‘She took in a child who just escaped the slums, only to throw her right back in? That’s cruel.’

Then they went on about how someone from the back alleys should be given the chance for a new life, not be forced back into the shadows.

Anika had to press her lips together so hard they went numb just to keep from laughing out loud.

Not because it was funny—but because their shameless hypocrisy was absolutely ridiculous.

The very same people who had once whispered, 

‘Where on earth did she even pick up a girl like that?’

Aveline was not a philanthropist—she was an employer. And from Anika’s perspective, a secure job with guaranteed compensation was far more satisfying than fleeting, trivial sympathy.

For some reason, nearly half of the duke’s estate staff were dismissed not long after, so Anika never saw those maids again. But she swore never to speak so carelessly again.

“I need to go out for a bit.”

Aveline handed Anika the invitation she had been scrutinizing just moments before.

Without providing any specifics or a clear destination, she merely let Anika check the seal stamped on the invitation. That alone was enough for Anika to nod in understanding.

“When do you need it by?”

“Bring it back by this afternoon.”

“Hmm, understood.”

The deadline seemed a little too tight, but rather than complaining, Anika quickly agreed.

There was no point in making a futile request to extend the time—she’d get further simply by moving her feet faster.

After all, her employer, despite her angelic appearance, was not a particularly considerate person.

Anika dashed out of the room once more.

As the maids fussed over the newly dirtied floor, Aveline turned her gaze idly out the window.

The morning sun was slowly retreating beyond the sky.

*

“Your Grace! Are you even listening to me?”

An unexpected commotion broke out in the office of the Duke of Evuteren.

Despite the loud call directed at him, Kazerre did not lift his eyes from the documents he was reading. His expression was nearly nonexistent, his face as composed and flawless as a polished glass orb.

“This is disgraceful behavior before your lord, Sir Thierry.”

Xenon, the aide who had been assisting Kazerre with paperwork despite his weary eyes, reprimanded Thierry in his place.

Even so, Thierry looked as though he was about to collapse in frustration, shouting indignantly.

“I’m telling you, this rascal Jacques nearly tore down the entire training ground fence!”

“Oh, come on now, Sir Thierry. I wouldn’t go that far. You exaggerate too much.”

“This little—!”

Thierry, his face flushed with anger, turned on the boy standing beside him. But rather than looking intimidated, the boy remained utterly relaxed, his expression easygoing and unbothered.

That air of nonchalance only irritated Thierry further, though the boy himself seemed entirely indifferent.

“I should’ve known when he started leading a whole line of horses onto the training grounds.”

“You’re the one who told me that horseback training is essential for becoming a knight, Sir Thierry.”

“I told you to ride the horse, not ram it straight into the fence!”

Xenon rubbed his temples and shook his head. His headache was worsening, thanks to these utterly unrefined troublemakers.

Thierry was originally the son of a hunter from a village near the Nomere Mountains, where magical beasts roamed.

One day, when Kazerre arrived nearby on a beast subjugation mission, Thierry had recklessly charged at a beast barehanded, declaring that he would protect him—only to end up getting rescued by the very boy he had tried to shield.

After being thoroughly scolded, one might think he would have learned his lesson. 

But no, he had stubbornly forced his way into the Evuteren household’s elite Snowfield Knights instead.

Due to its geographical location, the Snowfield Knights was predominantly composed of northerners, and Thierry was a prime example of a typical northern warrior—

Always a step away from drawing his sword at the slightest provocation, his thoughts so simple and transparent they might as well have been written on his forehead.

‘He gets along with everyone, so he’s well-liked in the Order, but…’

He and Xenon simply did not get along. Xenon pressed his fingers against his furrowed brow, attempting to smooth it out.

Of course, not all northerners were like Thierry.

Take his lord, for instance—Kazerre was the complete opposite of that hotheaded fool, composed and solemn beyond compare.

“Well, I just figured the horse would jump over the fence on its own.”

“You can barely even stay seated on a horse, and yet you think you’re some prodigy? A little bit of praise has gone straight to your head!”

Still, the bigger issue here wasn’t Thierry—it was the boy he was scolding, Jacques.

A knight-in-training soon to be knighted as the youngest in history due to his extraordinary swordsmanship, Jacques spent his days causing one absurd incident after another, all while wearing an innocent, guileless smile.

At times, Xenon was almost impressed by the sheer creativity behind his mishaps.

Though, more often than not, he just wanted to smack the back of the boy’s head.

“Enough.”

A brief, low voice cut through the noise.

But that single word was enough to silence the entire room in an instant.

All eyes immediately turned to Kazerre.

Unperturbed, he simply stated,

“Take your fights to the training grounds.”

“Your Grace…!”

Kazerre waved a hand dismissively as if he couldn’t be bothered.

Thierry looked betrayed, but there was no point in arguing. Xenon frowned even deeper.

‘He doesn’t even realize His Grace is going easy on him.’

Perhaps because of his intimidatingly good looks or the inherent prestige of his title, most people instinctively kept their distance from Kazerre, assuming he was an arrogant and difficult noble.

But contrary to their expectations, he wasn’t particularly difficult to serve.

On the battlefield, where life and death hung in the balance, his senses sharpened, making him more irritable. But in everyday life, he was surprisingly tolerant.

‘Which is exactly why these fools get away with acting like this right under his nose.’

In any other knight order, they would have been tried for insubordination and thrown into a dungeon without hesitation.

Having listened to many complaints from aides suffering under overly strict superiors, Xenon sometimes envied Thierry’s blissful ignorance.

Just as he was staring at Thierry in exasperation, a cautious knock sounded from outside.