Black hair. A cold face broken by moonlight. Red lips curved in a slight arc. Gold epaulettes and a blue cloak.

A man beautiful and overwhelming enough to steal your heart in an instant leaned against the window frame, looking at her.

“…Who are you?”

“The one who bought you?”

He came forward, moved the heavy iron beam aside, and held Lani in his arms.

“What do you think of your new owner? Do you like him?”

The man’s jawline, bathed in white moonlight, gleamed with an imposing light.

It was a strange sensation. Lani met Kahar’s eyes with the feeling of falling into a long spiral she could never escape.

Was the Piren mountain range she saw through the studio window ever this beautiful?

Was the blue river she could see even with her eyes closed ever more vivid than this man’s eyes?

Was the darkness that occupied a corner of her heart ever blacker than this man’s hair?

Lani couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was a perfect form, seemingly sculpted by a god’s own hands.

“We can look at the rest slowly. Let’s get out of here first.”

“Are you really saving me?”

He seemed to smile faintly. He leaped up onto the window frame and said,

“I’m going to jump down, so hold on.”

For the first time in her life, Lani gathered her courage and wrapped her arms tight around someone’s neck.

The warmth where their bodies touched felt strange and ticklish, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

She didn’t want to wake from the dream. It was a warmth she hadn’t felt in a long time.

Meliciel opened her eyes carrying the lingering feeling of a long journey.

“Ah…”

She felt her wet eyelashes as she sat up. A faint sadness left a dull residue of emotion.

Bang bang bang.

Before she was fully awake, someone knocked on the bedroom door. They knocked so hard it seemed the door might fly off its hinges.

“If you’re up, pack your things at once!”

Today, Meliciel was moving her lodgings to a tower away from Chloe Castle.

“I’ll give you five minutes!”

The man shouting like he would tear the door down was named Valt. Valt was a teacher who taught divine power painting.

The moment he saw Meliciel, he detected a vast divine power in her.

“The power the young lady possesses is no ordinary divine power! It is deep and immense beyond all measure.”

Duke Dexter was skeptical when told that his sickly daughter was in fact a genius. And he ordered Meliciel’s lodgings moved to a place more suited for learning to paint.

With no power of her own, Meliciel had no choice but to follow instructions.

She got out of bed and opened the wardrobe. From her modest collection of clothes, she picked the most practical one.

A week passed since she woke in Meliciel’s body. At first, she struggled endlessly trying to put on heavily decorated dresses alone.

Now she was getting by, choosing the simplest clothes she could find.

Unnatural behavior was explained away as aftereffects of the illness, and suspicion was avoided.

Meliciel never left her bedroom from birth until now, so she received no proper education, let alone real learning.

It was not strange at all that she knew nothing of noble etiquette or refinement.

Perhaps because of that, no one visited the half-blood lady’s room.

The maids who came and went with the doctor on the first day stopped coming entirely, for whatever reason. Twice a day, meals were left outside her door.

Meliciel found it comfortable and fine, but she wondered whether this was acceptable treatment for a duke’s daughter.

Even a powerless daughter received an assessment of near-genius from both the doctor and Valt, yet her treatment was worse than a maid’s.

It was because Meliciel was the child of a dancer whose name Duke Dexter couldn’t even remember.

The dancer who gave birth to Meliciel died right after delivering her, they said.

She was almost glad there was no one to grow attached to here.

She didn’t think she could ever like this place where Viviana was born and raised.

And if there were someone precious to the real Meliciel, that would have been a problem too.

Bang bang bang.

“Are you not ready yet? I’m coming in!”

“I’ll be right out. Please wait a moment.”

“Everything is prepared, you just need to bring yourself!”

Impatiently, Valt screamed from outside the door as though coughing up blood.

Meliciel swept a glance around the bedroom, now nothing but faint dust, and took a step. For now, moving was the only option.

***

A small carriage rolled past the outer castle wall and toward the forest. The destination was a small mountain within the Chloe Duchy.

Close to nature for inspiration and free of distractions, ideal for training, Valt had already emphasized this three times.

“Ahem. As you know, there are no maids there. A single servant will come and go during daylight hours. No objections?”

It seemed objections wouldn’t be reflected regardless, but Meliciel gave a light nod.

“Meals will be portioned to suit work, a little grain and a little fruit. Looking at you, the amount could stand to be increased. Ahem.”

Valt talked a lot. His voice was loud and rough, and he spat out words rude enough to make you frown without any hesitation.

“The young lady simply needs to paint from morning to evening as instructed. Are you prepared?”

Painting was something she did all day, every day, for twenty years. Only in her past life, after meeting Kahar, she never held a brush again.

She badly injured her hands at the auction house, and took it upon herself to be Kahar’s shadow, working to dilute his curse.

Meaning she never painted with divine power again.

On top of that, this was Meliciel’s body now. Meliciel’s fingers were delicate and thin, as though they never once held a pen in their entire life.

Getting this hand to develop a feel for it would take far more than a month or two. The hardship ahead was already clear.

Still, she felt confident she would be able to paint well before long. She was sensing a divine power in herself even more intense than before.

“The young lady should think of nothing and simply do as she’s told. Once you can earn your keep, you’ll be sent back to the main castle.”

Ahem. Valt was full of self-importance.

“Teacher Valt.”

“Yes. Go ahead.”

“In my current state, painting from morning to evening will break me.”

“That is all for me to manage. Regulating the training load is also a teacher’s virtue.”

How many things she was never able to say in her past life?

Words that never reached Kahar became a knot of resentment lodged in her chest.

Lani regretted it in her dying moments. She should have raised her voice just once.

She should have told him she carried his child and demanded he protect her.

She hesitated because her status fell short, and gave up too easily. That pattern wore her down.

She had no confidence she could walk this second life through the same hardships again.

Even something small. Even something trivial, she wanted to express herself freely. That was her immediate goal.

To speak her true mind.

Meliciel gathered her courage and spoke.

“…I’ll try painting on my own.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’ll show you a proper painting within a month. Please give me a little time.”

“That’s, no… that makes no sense.”

Valt’s face flushed deep red. He might take it as a slight against him, but she wanted no more of a life spent painting only under someone’s watch, the way it was in the Nail of God tribe.

“The Duke wouldn’t demand I prove my ability within a month either.”

Meliciel looked at him, small but clear, fragile but firm.

“If I’m not an animal that only paints, please allow it. I am a person.”

Before being Duke Dexter’s fifteenth child and a dancer’s bastard, Meliciel was a person.

A person with the right to be free.

In her past life too, Meliciel had no parents. She grew up as the adopted daughter of Shulan, the head of the Nail of God tribe, under her shadow, but could not receive affection.

Lani’s parents were swept away by a river swollen with floodwater when she was three, so she essentially grew up alone.

Now was no different, with no parents to speak of.

She could not expect parental love from Duke Dexter, whose loose lower half produced a string of bastards, nor from a duchess who would never treat bastards as people.

Being looked down on and ignored for the circumstances of her birth was something she only needed to endure once.

Meliciel was too tired to repeat what she already lived through.

“Ahem, who said anything otherwise? I simply follow the Duke’s orders.”

“Give me time.”

That was the moment. Neiiigh. The carriage stopped to the sound of a horse’s cry. The conversation broke off naturally, and Valt opened the carriage door saying he would go see what happened.

Meliciel lifted the carriage window cover and looked outside. Several white horses, and one lavish carriage.

From it emerged Jacob, Duke Dexter’s eldest son. He wore a white suit with his hair neatly swept back, the picture of aristocracy.

“Young Master, what brings you all the way out here!”

Valt greeted him loudly and approached. Jacob looked around with a displeased expression and ignored him.

Even so, Valt bowed his head and wagged his invisible tail eagerly.

Even that rude man has a hard time making a living.

Meliciel watched Valt with a small measure of pity.

From the start of the journey until now, Valt’s constant chatter gave her a rough picture of how the Chloe Ducal House operated.

Dexter had fifteen children, and only two were born of the Duchess, Jacob and Viviana. Jacob was the eldest son and young master, the rightful heir to carry on the ducal house.