Even if you wring a chicken’s neck, dawn comes. In the same context, even if our heads are cracked, the day of the founding festival approaches.

The pearls Mother had given without instructions on what to use them for still just sparkled. Since pearls are originally vulnerable to oils, she couldn’t touch them carelessly and only watched the ebony jewelry box. How burdensome. She lightly shook her shoulders and closed the drawer when Mélisande spoke to her.

“Have you decided what jewelry to wear?”

“Hmm. Since it’s a yellow dress, wearing yellow gems would be a bit ridiculous. Let’s go with peridot today.”

When she pointed to the olivine necklace studded with small crystals, the maids hurriedly put on gloves and fastened the necklace’s chain. Mélisande smiled and touched the Heart of Spring pinned to her left lapel.

Dresses deliberately made of similar yellow silk, with the same lily pattern on the stomacher. Plus similar green-toned gems as accents, so our shadows reflected in the mirror looked like twin dolls made to not resemble each other.

The maids had been busily running around since dawn carrying boxes transported from Levizet’s mansion in the capital. Banquets originally require much preparation, but especially for the founding festival banquet that comes once a year and lasts a whole week, how much would there be to prepare?

The family’s symbols that had been sleeping in storage, accessories that had been pushed aside for being too heavy for regular wear, etc., were loaded in trunks and occupied various spots in the reception room.

While giving instructions one by one with her finger—attach this crest, sprinkle this fragrant oil, etc.—one maid knocked over a sandalwood box. The contents spilled out everywhere.

Her face turned pale white and tears welled up in her still young face, so instead of scolding, she just gestured to clean up quickly. Her hasty hands gathering things weren’t yet mature, so several pieces slipped out between her arms. Mélisande casually picked up a fallen white object.

“Oh my, it’s a feather.”

Only then did her eyes go to the contents. Sky-blue fabric pieces close to tunics with feathers attached haphazardly. And thick golden chains that had slipped out through the box cracks.

Like the moment of unexpectedly being in the same group with an ex-boyfriend who used to be a CC in a required major course, her face stiffened slightly at the unexpected encounter. To think they’d send even this from the mansion. She smiled calmly at Mélisande, who was holding the feather and asking what this was.

“……It’s nothing special. Clothes I wore to last year’s founding festival masquerade ball got mixed in. Now, shall we go?”

***

Long, long ago, when spirits still lived in forests and evil dragons kidnapped princesses, a young and handsome lord met a mysterious maiden Eliox wearing a gold chain around her neck in the forest. The two fell in love and married.

But the lord had to go to war. While her husband was at war, Eliox gave birth to septuplets with gold chains around their necks. However, Eliox’s evil mother-in-law, who coveted power, killed Eliox and abandoned the children in the forest.

The children grew up in the hands of a forest hermit. The children who inherited Eliox’s magical abilities could become swans when they removed their gold chains.

One day, the mother-in-law’s servant went to cut wood and witnessed six boys bathing in swan form after removing their gold chains. When the greedy servant stole the gold chains, the boys could never return from swan form.

Only the youngest sister, who alone didn’t have her chain stolen, went to her father’s castle, revealed the truth, and got back her brothers’ chains to make them human again.

However, because the servant had already broken one chain, one swan that couldn’t become human became a swan guarding the ship of Elias, the eldest brother who was the swan knight.

Thus all of Eliox’s swan children returned to the castle, and the evil mother-in-law and servant were punished.

⟨Eliox’s Swan Children⟩

***

“Now hear how I answer your forbidden question!

He who sent me is the king who guards the Grail,

I, my father’s knight, am Elias.

Woman who was my bride, how can love and doubt coexist?”

The tenor singer sang a magnificent song. The soprano playing the princess, the female protagonist, collapsed in grief, but since the taboo had already been broken, Elias, who had been her bridegroom, couldn’t catch her and departed on a ship pulled by swans. Only empty wind brushed past her pitifully outstretched fingertips.

As the collapsed princess wailed singing an aria of grief, sniffling sounds could be heard here and there in the audience along with the sight of people wiping tears with handkerchiefs.

It was when the Imperial Opera Company was performing ‘The Swan Knight and Princess.’

There was a princess in crisis due to the death of her father and brothers. The princess overcame the crisis with help from a knight who suddenly appeared riding a swan one day. The knight who won a hundred duels to protect the princess married the princess on the condition that she not ask about his identity (why marry without even knowing his identity? But this was a romance story from hundreds of years ago, so let’s move on).

However, the princess eventually couldn’t overcome her suspicion and asked about his identity, and because the taboo was broken, the knight left—such a story. It’s a clichéd tragic opera if you call it clichéd. But since she had quite liked it in childhood, she had whined day and night wanting to see The Swan Knight and Princess.

However, what captivated thirteen-year-old her wasn’t actually the tragic love that led to destruction. It was the amazing ability to transform into a swan just by removing the chain. Well, even in her previous life, she had liked magical girl shows until that age. Nothing was as fun as transformation stories of beautiful girl warriors receiving the protection of stars.

Anyway, at that time Antoine had gotten her a collection of narrative poems containing the legend of ‘Eliox and the Swan Children,’ which was the original form of the swan knight story, as a birthday present. The thirteen-year-old who naturally fell deeply into the story of the swan children made a fuss at the masquerade ball that we should all be swan children.

Both Antoine and Caleb showed reluctance, but eventually couldn’t overcome her whining and disguised themselves as swan brothers wearing fake gold chains around their necks and tunics with feathered wings on the sleeves.

Thinking about it now, how did they play along without complaint? She may have been middle school age in Korean years, but the two were on the verge of twenty.

Well, it wasn’t particularly special at a masquerade ball where people disguised themselves as all sorts of monsters like skeletons, goblins, animals, and spirits, but it was still admirable that they disguised themselves as the not-even-funny swan knights to indulge their young sister’s stubbornness. Fluttering thin tunics, white feathers covering them. They had even properly prepared fake golden chains to wear around their necks.

Anyway, from then on, disguising as swan children at masquerade balls became a small tradition for us Levizet siblings and Caleb. Didn’t we wear matching swan clothes until last year too? She smiled slightly bitterly. Until then, she hadn’t known their relationship would deteriorate like this. She thought they were family-like companions who would be together for life.

However, as Antoine and she came to stand at opposite poles of a rival relationship, childhood memories crumbled like sandcastles in waves. Now, it felt like precariously balanced on a rotting single-log bridge.

On the way to the founding festival ballroom, she could see Mélisande and Antoine walking in front of her. They were holding hands to enter together as a marquis couple. Excluding the fact that they didn’t exchange a single word, the back view itself was that of a problem-free married couple.

But what about their faces? She who followed them from behind couldn’t see. Her cousin who was escorting her said something, but since all her attention was focused on the couple, she only responded perfunctorily and moved her steps to the Silver Room.

The servants guarding the Silver Room door recognized Antoine and opened the giant mirror door. As soon as the door opened, the heat of the ballroom seemed to hit her face, making her slightly frown.

Emperor Basilios the Great, who built Rauli Palace, must have really wanted to waste money. Mirrors in this era are very expensive because they require a process of thinly coating silver over glass. To have wallpapered one wall of a room as big as a playground with such mirrors. Thanks to this, this room does look several times larger.

And that’s not all? Golden candlesticks, crystal chandeliers, marble floors. On the ceiling was painted a magnificent fresco containing the founding festival and divine mythology. The painter who painted that picture was said to have gone mad and committed suicide after being unable to create a masterpiece surpassing it.

Six-year-old she and Elene, who used to run around the court thoughtlessly, heard this story from a young maid and had nightmares of a painter’s ghost shedding bloody tears crawling out of the Silver Room. The maid who had told the story thinking to make the thoughtlessly wild princess and mademoiselle a little more well-behaved was punished with a month’s ban from attending balls. Since they had been wailing that it was scary before bed for a while, Antoine had gotten a doll……

“By the grace of the merciful Holy Father, the emperor of the Lamuah Empire, heir to the Holy Latium Empire, Grand Duke of Fadesa, Duke-King of Luzena and Milledia, head of the Dieu Charles Union, and holy guardian of faith anointed by the Pope who is God’s representative on earth, His Majesty Emperor Arthur Hugonis Charlus enters!”

The flow of consciousness was cut off by the emperor’s chamberlain’s cry. The emperor, who glanced once at the crowd that bowed to pay respects to him, gestured for them to rise. When the emperor ascended the platform, everyone’s eyes focused in that direction. However, what caught her eye was the empress standing behind him. Though she had applied powder mixed with pearls and draped a veil woven with gold thread, she couldn’t hide her hardened face.