Chapter 3

“Hoo.”

Kaya exhaled a long, deep breath in front of the Academy’s main gate.

Had she ever been this nervous in her life? No. Not once. She had spent her whole life breathing and swimming inside the safe little fishbowl her father had built.

She stood still and quietly took in the students streaming past her toward the entrance. They shared their own stories with one another, voices bright and animated, faces lit up with excitement.

“No, so what Rafiola said was……”

“Professor Matthew’s assignment today……”

Her ears, long accustomed to nothing but birdsong in the countryside, prickled at the noise.

Having met only three or four peers her age back in the duchy, Kaya had sometimes thought to herself that humanity must be on the verge of extinction for lack of children to carry on the next generation. She had no idea so many young people existed in the world.

A small, involuntary scoff escaped her.

I really was……a frog in a well.

But alongside the self-reproach for her ignorance came a trembling thrill at the newness of it all.

……I can do this. I’ve run through the simulations a hundred times.

She moved her heavy feet, slowly, one step at a time.

Walking had never felt like such an awkward act before. With every step, her joints seemed to creak and grind.

It was precisely at that moment, when Kaya was just beginning this daunting challenge, that a familiar voice reached her from ahead.

“It was nothing, but thank you for saying that.”

Hm? ……Silvia?

Kaya turned her gaze toward the voice. Sure enough, her cousin Silvia stood there. A cluster of girls with shy, admiring faces surrounded her.

Golden hair, sharp and striking eyes, a confident set to her lips that spoke of high self-regard. She was exactly as flawless as she had been three years ago.

Oh! Silvia enrolled in the Academy this year too.

Kaya’s face brightened in an instant. Spotting a familiar face in an unfamiliar place was the best feeling in the world.

Just then, one of the girls spoke up in a carrying voice.

“Really, who could ever believe she belongs to the same imperial family as Lady Rikart.”

Kaya’s steps toward Silvia came to an abrupt halt.

Why are they suddenly talking about me……?

“Oh, Natalie. Comparing a lady of your standing to that notorious eyesore is an insult in itself.”

“Ah, I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me.”

……What are they even saying?

The words her father had spoken before she left home came back to her.

[There may be distorted rumors about you out there. You’ve never shown your face to the world……]

She had assumed he was making it up to talk her out of enrolling. But even so, she could let it go. Strangers saying things like that was one thing.

Right, well. People will conjure dragons out of things they’ve never even seen.

But the conversation pressed on, testing her patience.

“I heard the grand ducal carriage was spotted nearby recently. Surely that lady didn’t actually enroll?”

“With a face like that, could she even show herself in public? She should stay buried in her duchy and live quietly, just like she always has.”

Ting.

The taut thread snapped.

There was no time to think before acting. Kaya was already moving.

“Have you seen her yourself?”

Kaya stepped in front of them. The girls who had been laughing and gossiping moments ago stiffened with a start.

“……Pardon?”

“Who is she……”

A pair of murky blue eyes, sharp and predatory, fixed on them with a look that could swallow them whole.

They caught one glimpse of that threatening gaze and frantically looked away. But the impression burned itself into their minds in less than three seconds, and they trembled with a fear they couldn’t explain.

Red hair that smoldered like magma, dark arched brows, a sharp nose, and beneath it all, deep-set eyes that struck with overwhelming intensity.

The girls’ minds conjured that fierce, cutting mouth moving in time with Kaya’s voice.

“I asked if you’ve actually seen Lady Rikart with your own eyes.”

They glanced around anxiously. A crowd of onlookers had gathered without anyone noticing.

Backing down now would mean losing face entirely. They steadied their trembling voices and pressed on.

“Well, does one have to see something personally to speak about it? N, nobles have eyes and ears everywhere.”

“My lady……you must be quite fresh from the countryside?”

“It, it has been a verified fact for years that anyone in the grand ducal household who mentions the lady’s unsightly appearance gets dismissed.”

If you mention my appearance, you get dismissed?

A rapid procession of faces flashed through her mind. Servants who had disappeared over the years, one after another. Adam, Fabro, Emily, Robiet……

No way……God, does that mean all this time……?

Shaken, Kaya’s eyes drifted to Silvia. Silvia had been watching her quietly, and their gazes collided.

“You’re her cousin, so you’d know. Is Lady Rikart really……that unsightly?”

Kaya swallowed hard.

She had expected obstacles when she left the duchy, but……the very first one being learn what your own face looks like was something she had never anticipated.

Every gaze in the vicinity converged on one point. At the center of all that attention, Silvia’s lips parted slowly.

“……Beauty is a subjective judgment. It depends entirely on who is looking.”

……Huh??

The students nodded along, one after another, as though they had expected exactly that answer.

The implication was clear enough. It felt like a roundabout way of saying yes, her cousin is unsightly, but she can’t say so outright given the family connection.

Wait, am I actually ugly? Was I this whole time?

Emboldened by Silvia’s response, one of the girls curled her lips into a smirk.

“Still, Lady Rikart must be grateful. At least the country bumpkins who don’t know any better will cheer her on.”

Kaya snapped her head up and fixed the girl with a hard stare. The girl quickly looked away.

She wasn’t the only one who flinched. Every student who caught Kaya’s gaze froze. It was pure instinct. Something in them warned that one more wrong move and they would get cut.

None of them could understand it, of course. Why a single girl their own age had made them afraid.

And just as a deep, dark tide was beginning to rise inside Kaya,

“Hey. What’s going on over there? You’re in the way.”

A voice she both missed and despised drifted in from behind.

Kaya’s body went rigid.

Why now of all times……!

The reunion had come far sooner than she expected. The shock of it made it impossible to turn around.

Facing Owen felt like being seen through somehow.

Of course, the artifact concealed her appearance and there was no real chance he would recognize her, but that rational thought never made it into her head.

Meanwhile, the crowd that had been busy reciting rumors about Lady Rikart shifted into something closer to a hymn.

“I’ve never seen him in person before. That’s Sir Halfmann, right……?”

“……He’s so handsome.”

Listening to the praise directed at Owen, irritation flared up inside her.

……Some of us are standing here being called the Empire’s greatest eyesore. Must be nice. Guess coming to the Academy is really paying off for him.

Just then, she locked eyes with the girl she had been arguing with. The girl smiled slyly and spoke up.

“I’m sorry, Senior. We were talking about Lady Rikart.”

“……Kaya Rikart?”

Owen’s voice dropped in an instant.

“Yes. There was some disagreement about the lady’s appearance. Perhaps Senior, having lived alongside her, could tell us……”

“Does something like that,”

She knew this voice. The low, scraping sound he made when he was holding back anger.

“Amuse you?”

“……Pardon?”

The girl’s lashes trembled. Owen’s sharp reaction had clearly caught her off guard.

Kaya finally turned around. She couldn’t hold back the urge to see what expression was on his face.

Their gazes met briefly in the air between them.

Owen glanced at Silvia, who had stepped back, then addressed the entire group like a warning.

“Don’t ever say that name in front of me again. ……She and I have no connection of any kind.”

The atmosphere turned cold in an instant. The students looked confused, unsettled that the boy known as a quiet, composed elite would say something like that.

Owen said what he came to say and was about to pass through the crowd without another word.

“How fortunate.”

Kaya couldn’t hold it in and let it slip out.

She had resolved, on her way to the Academy, to expect nothing from him. And yet, like an idiot, she had let his words wound her again. So it was only fair to return at least a fifth of what she had been dealt.

One of Owen’s eyebrows tilted crookedly upward. His cold gaze landed on Kaya.

She held that gaze without flinching and pushed each word out with deliberate force.

“The lady wouldn’t want anything to do with you either.”