The maid was beside herself, but she needed to report this quickly, so she left Lani standing there in a daze and hurried off.

“She’s gone.”

Lani murmured weakly.

Left alone where the maid vanished in a flash, Lani looked around nearby. Then she spotted a calendar and furrowed her brow.

“…Imperial year 951, August 2nd.”

Strange. The last date Lani remembered was Imperial year 950, August 1st.

Could she have skipped an entire year? Having entered someone else’s body, there was no reason she couldn’t skip through time as well.

Then perhaps she entered right after this body’s owner died.

They said her breathing stopped, so it was a plausible guess. Lost in thought, Lani carefully made her way down the stairs.

This was the annex, and the maid said she was the only one keeping watch.

“And she called me Meliciel…”

She turned the unfamiliar name over in her mouth as she descended to the first floor. She didn’t encounter anyone until she stepped out into the garden.

Standing on the green grass, Lani felt the warm wind on her skin. The vivid five senses confirmed once more that she entered someone else’s body.

She looked up at the imposing building nearby that she guessed was the main castle.

It wasn’t as grand as Diozart Grand Ducal Castle, but this castle’s scale was intimidating in its own right.

With wealth like this, it must be a great noble house.

Then Meliciel must be of this family’s bloodline.

But if she ended her life in a secluded corner of a castle like this, she must have been of little standing.

Perhaps a bastard. Bastard children weren’t uncommon in the empire. People just kept quiet about it.

If not a bastard, then a powerless noble lady pushed aside in a succession struggle or family hierarchy.

She felt a pang of sympathy for the body’s original owner, while at the same time a sense of helplessness settled over her at the thought of what to do now.

She was treading the green garden, racking her head over why she came back to life in someone else’s body, when it happened.

“Who’s there!”

A rough voice suddenly latched onto the back of her neck. Before she could turn around, a rough hand grabbed her wrist and yanked hard.

“Ugh!”

“Are you one of the new dancers who just arrived?”

“…W-who are you?”

The man looking her up and down was a knight. His disheveled appearance with a couple of uniform buttons undone and his fierce face were deeply threatening.

“Why was a dancer here?”

That was exactly what Lani wanted to ask.

Why am I here?

When Lani didn’t answer right away, the man’s expression turned even more unpleasant.

“Come with me. I need to inform the master.”

“Let go of me. And I’m not a dancer.”

“Then who are you?”

She couldn’t decide whether it was safe to say she was Meliciel.

Finding no ready answer, she cast her eyes down and bit her lip.

“The way you’re acting cheap, you must be one of the new dancers!”

Cheap. Before she could even respond to the knight’s shocking words.

Gripped by his rough hand, she was practically dragged along.

His pace was so fast her body nearly toppled forward. Running on a body that could barely walk was overwhelming, and she had no chance to stop him.

The place the knight dragged her to was a building slightly larger than the annex.

The first floor was carefully laid with red carpet, and behind the banister blocking the second floor were several doors.

“Wait here. The master is upstairs, so I’ll go ask.”

“The master, you mean…”

“The Duke, obviously.”

The Duke?

“Who else would our master be but the one who holds one of the only five ducal titles in the great empire of Ferriland?”

The man growled as though it were obvious, then turned his back.

She happened to glance up at the ceiling and took in the family crest.

The waves surging within the banner looked familiar somehow.

She was sure she saw it somewhere before, but she couldn’t quite remember which family’s crest it was, so she tried carefully to trace her memory.

It wouldn’t come, like a foggy veil blocking her vision.

“Don’t go anywhere and stay right here. Even if you try to hide in the Duke’s castle, you’re still in the palm of my hand!”

The man gave firm instructions and disappeared to the second floor. She rubbed her stinging wrist and looked around a little more.

Portraits hung in sequence along the wall that followed the staircase. The colors in the paintings were not bright, but they seemed to be the work of a fairly skilled artist.

Lani naturally drifted toward them.

The very first painting featured a man with faded blond hair and green eyes, wearing a stubborn expression. He looked to be in his mid-fifties.

Beside him hung a portrait of a woman with elegant grace. The woman with red hair and black eyes had fierce-looking eyes.

“Could they be the Duke and Duchess…?”

She voiced the question quietly. After the portraits presumed to be the Duke and Duchess, portraits of what appeared to be their children were displayed in order.

They all resembled one another in overall impression and features, like a family.

With each step up the staircase, the subjects of the portraits grew younger.

At the last step before the top, Lani drew a sharp breath like someone who stubbed their toe.

“Wh-what…”

Why is this person here?

Inside the frame was a face she knew well.

She looked about five years younger than Lani remembered, but it was unmistakably the person she knew.

A face she could never forget no matter how much she wanted to.

A woman with blond hair and an attractive figure.

The devil who used her status as a lady of the house to drive Lani and her child to their deaths.

“…Viviana Chloe.”

Then this was Viviana’s family home, the Chloe Ducal House.

She exhaled in short, ragged breaths, engulfed in confusion. Then she spotted a portrait of a woman with pink hair hanging beside Viviana’s, and her face went rigid.

It was the face she saw in the mirror a short while ago.

“Meliciel Chloe…”

I was that woman’s sister.

So I became Viviana’s younger sister?

“Ha…”

Faced with an unbelievable truth, Lani let out a hollow breath.

To think she entered the body of Meliciel Chloe, Viviana Chloe’s younger sister.

What kind of absurd fate was this?

Lani fled with her back to Kahar just as Viviana demanded, right before her death.

Even so, that devil chased her to the end and killed both Lani and the child.

Was Viviana now at Kahar’s side?

Did she go from former fiancée to reigning Grand Duchess?

A year passed since then, so it was a real possibility.

Did Viviana wear an innocent smile, lay her vicious hands on Kahar, and dye him in her enchantment?

Just the thought made her chest cave in with resentment.

“…”

The image of Viviana leaning against Kahar’s arm with a sweet smile rose naturally to mind and sent a sharp ache through her head.

What if Viviana and Kahar had a child together?

In place of her own child, who existed like a tiny star and left without a single flutter of movement, Viviana’s child…

The tears she held back burst out all at once. At the same time, she clenched her fists tight.

Was this the gods’ cruel joke?

Why did she wake again in the same bloodline as Viviana, of all people?

Why? Why?

The world never gave her answers. It only ever handed her questions filled with pain.

Her chest felt ready to burst. So full of hurt, so packed with resentment and rage, it seemed like it would explode any moment.

She had no generosity to spare Viviana any happiness. None at all.

“Hff…”

She clenched her fists and lunged toward Viviana’s portrait.

“You, you!”

If she had only let the child live, Lani would not curse her this deeply.

The child was innocent.

It was Lani who got pregnant without shame, and there was no reason for an innocent star to bear that sin.

She wanted to smash Viviana’s portrait, but it was too far to reach. Just like always, everything was just out of reach.

She pounded the wall and let thick tears fall, then crumpled to the floor as though drained.

Still. Still. The child. Only the child…

I cannot forgive you.

I… cannot forgive you.

Rage as deep as tears of blood streamed down both cheeks.

If Viviana was happy, she would drag that happiness down.

It was the moment Meliciel resolved on revenge, her expression twisted.

“Who is where?”

The stern voice of Duke Dexter, master of this castle, rang out. He strode across the carpet, looking around.

Visiting the castle where he kept his dancers was an important item on Duke Dexter’s schedule.

Today as well, he was wrapped in the skirts of a dancer he was fond of, pouring out his heat.

But word from his escort knight that one of the new dancers escaped the castle on her own and was loitering around broke his mood entirely.

And so he went to the trouble of coming out to find her.

To a duke with a taste for women, beautiful dancers were precious assets he had to personally manage and cultivate.

Duke Dexter spotted the woman sitting on the floor and opened his mouth toward her.

“Show me your face.”

He took in hundreds of dancers who lived here, so seeing the face would be enough to remember the name at least.

He approached with the intention of demanding why she left without permission, but the woman leaning against the wall sat with her head down and didn’t move.

“Didn’t I tell you to show your face!”

She didn’t flinch even at the harsh shout that grazed her ears.

“Insolent.”

“Hey! The Duke is calling you!”

The knight who brought her here came running and pulled Meliciel to her feet.