– Thud!
Ariadne stamped her foot. The impudent maid flinched at the force of her sudden, imposing aura.
“Did I not ask who you serve?”
Ariadne’s voice had dropped to a register unbefitting a fifteen-year-old, laced with a natural authority that stripped the maid of her composure. The servant began to watch Ariadne’s expression with trembling eyes.
“Ah, no, it’s not that. I just thought there was no reason for you, my lady, to concern yourself with the likes of a lowly servant like me…”
“Where do you belong?”
Only then did the maid murmur, her voice barely audible.
“I am a second-floor maid in charge of Lady Isabella…”
Ariadne scanned her from head to toe. She had fiery red hair and a short, stout frame, appearing perhaps a year or two older than Ariadne herself.
“Your name.”
“My lady…”
The red-haired maid looked on the verge of tears. Yet, under Ariadne’s piercing gaze, she quickly lowered her head and stammered.
“It is Maletta…”
“I shall keep an eye on you.”
As the maid stood with her head bowed low like a tortoise, Ariadne added one final instruction.
“Mind your attitude.”
At these words, Maletta hurried into a deep, flustered curtsy and scrambled out of the room.
* * *
Ariadne changed from her rags into a simple indoor dress and followed the maid toward Cardinal De Mare’s chambers.
She had been summoned not to the Cardinal’s study, but to his private parlor. While the study was a strictly forbidden space, family members were occasionally permitted into the parlor.
– Knock, knock.
“Your Eminence. I have brought Lady Ariadne.”
The maid knocked with a servility that bordered on obsequiousness, announcing her arrival.
In her previous life, standing in this very spot, she remembered locking eyes with the golden cherub painted above the door and feeling paralyzed by terror.
Back then, the mere sight of the room had been enough to make her shrink away. But the Ariadne of this life did not even blink. After nine years of navigating high society, she had seen enough luxury to the point of exhaustion.
Ariadne entered with confidence as the servant held the door. She maintained perfect court etiquette, stepped inside with grace, and bowed her waist to offer her respects.
“May you be in good health and high spirits, Your Eminence? It is a boundless joy for this unworthy child to see you after so long.”
Cardinal De Mare looked at Ariadne with a flicker of surprise, his left eyebrow arching.
He was a man in his fifties, slight of stature, with features that vaguely resembled a rat. His delicate, crowded facial traits and narrow, sloping shoulders made him look much like Isabella. However, in a man of his age, such feminine features appeared more pathetic than handsome.
In contrast, his vivid, glowing emerald eyes warned that he was not a man to be underestimated.
“You have worked hard on your long journey. Since you were raised on the Bergamo estate, I assume you had little opportunity for study, so I am pleased to see you have grown up well.”
*‘How grateful I am that you would even pretend to care, if only with empty words.’*
Ariadne hid her bitterness and replied in a clear, resonant voice.
“I will study and train even harder so that I may brighten the name of our house and not bring shame upon my parents and siblings…”
“Of course. You must not bring shame.”
A lady in her forties cut off Ariadne’s words. It was Lucrezia.
“A woman’s virtue lies not in learning and training, but in supporting and serving her parents and siblings in her youth, and her husband in her later years.”
She was a woman with high cheekbones and a long face—the opposite of Isabella’s delicate looks. However, her amber hair and amethyst eyes were identical to those of her daughter. Her disposition was notoriously neurotic.
She glared at Ariadne with upturned eyes, bracing herself to deliver a lecture.
“Do not be presumptuous, and conduct yourself with the modesty of a young lady.”
She was dressed in a gown in the style of the Republic Of Porto. It was a daring silhouette that exposed most of her bosom, shielded by only a single, thin layer of lace.
Her supple, fair skin was quite sensuous for her age, yet she looked more like a high-class mistress than the exemplary matriarch of a grand mansion.
*‘There was a time when I thought becoming like that woman was the standard for a proper noblewoman.’*
Having gained all sorts of experience in high society, and having returned after traversing ten years of time to face her again—she was vulgar, to the point where it was embarrassing to call her a noble.
*‘What on earth should one call the state of mind of someone who wears a dress like that and lectures others on being modest?’*
Ariadne smiled brightly, as childlike as possible, ensuring the thoughts swirling in her mind remained hidden.
“Yes, My Lady. I shall strive to follow your words and become a good child.”
Cardinal De Mare raised an eyebrow.
“‘My Lady’?”
But his arched gaze was not directed at Ariadne; it was fixed on Lucrezia.
Unless illegitimate children of the Etruscan Kingdom were granted their own household registration, it was customary for them to officially treat the mistress of the house as their biological mother. It was the virtue of a bastard to show as much filial piety as a legitimate child, and the duty of a virtuous noblewoman to treat them no differently from her own flesh and blood.
However, it was not the place for an illegitimate child to address the legal mother as “mother” without explicit permission.
Struggling to appease her husband, Lucrezia forced the corners of her lips into a smile to accept Ariadne’s greeting.
“Call me mother, not My Lady. We shall do well.”
The distaste she could not hide was evident, yet the new child and the old husband took no notice.
“Thank you, Mother.”
“That is a pleasing sight.”
Ariadne smiled like a portrait, and Cardinal De Mare beamed, praising the two of them. Lucrezia had no choice but to force a rigid nod at Ariadne.
At that moment, a high, clear voice like a nightingale’s drifted into the room.
“Welcome back to the family. If there is anything you don’t know, feel free to ask me anytime.”
The infinitely beautiful, small, and pretty fairy of San Carlo.
It was Isabella.
She appeared ten years younger than the woman in her early thirties that Ariadne last remembered. Unlike the past, where she had been magnificently beautiful like a rose in full bloom, the young Isabella was truly like a fairy who had stepped out of the pages of a fairy tale.
Unlike her mother, who struggled to mask her displeasure, Isabella smiled with an infinitely affectionate expression.
“We are sisters, after all. I will help you a lot.”
Ariadne involuntarily drew in a sharp breath. It was an overwhelming beauty.
*‘You must not be fooled by that smiling face.’*
The beautiful Isabella—who lured her prey with a sweet smile only to sink a knife into their back.
Her hands trembled of their own accord. Ariadne hid them by tucking them firmly against her waist, ensuring the shaking remained unseen. She then plastered on the most virtuous, agreeable expression she could muster and bowed.
“Thank you.”
She had lived her whole life walking on eggshells, serving and groveling, desperate to earn the favor of this perfect older sister who smiled so sweetly. She had truly believed Isabella was as warm and good-hearted as her expression suggested.
But on the day she had finally driven the knife into Ariadne’s back, she had been smiling just like this.
Isabella responded to the greeting—which suppressed Ariadne’s churning emotions with every ounce of her willpower—with that same radiant smile.
She stepped one pace forward, reached out to unhook Ariadne’s hands from her waist, and grasped them firmly in her own.
“I’ve had so many things I wanted to do once I had a younger sister of my own age. We can have tea parties together, go look at shops in town… Do you like clothes or jewelry?”
“Ah, no. Everything is far too extravagant for me.”
When Isabella touched Ariadne, Ariadne’s body stiffened like a mouse under the gaze of a cat. The ingrained memories of submission, carved into her since childhood, seemed to paralyze her very limbs.
Ariadne gritted her teeth, praying the trembling wouldn’t show.
“Call me sister.”
With the grace of a natural-born ruler, Isabella offered the suggestion with a warm, leisurely smile.
“Sister, my foot!”
A sharp voice pierced the air from the corner.
“Why is she our sister? I don’t acknowledge it.”
“Arabella!”
Lucrezia scrambled to cover the girl’s mouth.
The speaker was a child of about ten with flaxen hair. Unlike her older sister, she had inherited their father’s deep green eyes—much like Ariadne’s—but the dull tone of her hair clashed with her dark eyes, denying her the ethereal beauty Isabella possessed. Her cheeks remained round with the softness of youth.
She was Arabella De Mare, the youngest daughter of Cardinal De Mare. In Ariadne’s past life, the girl had perished at a young age during the Black Death that swept the land in 1123.
Arabella glared at Ariadne, pointing an accusatory finger with a look of pure resentment.
“Does she even look like us? Her hair is jet-black, too. She probably can’t study, and I bet she can’t even play the lute. Does she even know Latin?”
Lucrezia abandoned words; she hurried over and pulled Arabella into a tight embrace from behind.
Before she could soothe the child, however, the enraged voice of Cardinal De Mare thundered through the drawing room.
“Enough!”
Cardinal De Mare waved a hand dismissively, his face a mask of stern warning.
“Lucrezia, how have you been raising these children? Do you expect me to live in such a chaotic house that the Holy See sends for me? I am asking for the basics—nothing more!”
“I apologize, Your Eminence. Arabella is still young, so…”
“What do you mean, ten is young! On the Bergamo estate, a ten-year-old is expected to do the work of a farmhand!”
Arabella glared at Ariadne with renewed hostility, as if the entire reprimand were Ariadne’s fault.
Isabella wore an expression of utmost distress at the shouting, appearing entirely detached from the scene. Maintaining the facade of kindness whenever an authority figure was present was Isabella’s alpha and omega.
“Get out!”
At the dismissal, the family—excluding the Cardinal—retreated toward the drawing room door in unison.
They moved with rigid precision, careful never to turn their backs to him. It was the protocol the subjects of the Etruscan Kingdom were required to show their king. Within these walls, Cardinal De Mare treated his household more like subjects than kin.
“Oh, and assign the same Latin tutor to Ariadne as you do for Isabella and Arabella. The rest of her upbringing should follow suit.”
Lucrezia, unable to voice her dissatisfaction, nodded submissively.
“Understood, Your Eminence.”
* * *
Once they had withdrawn from the drawing room, Lucrezia leaned in close, gritting her teeth as she hissed at Ariadne.
“Do not cause any trouble.”
Ariadne bowed her head politely, though internally, she imagined herself shrugging.
*What have I even done? Your child is the one who caused the scene. I haven’t even started yet.*
With a maid stationed by the door, Lucrezia retreated into her private chambers. Left in the hallway were only Arabella, who was grinding her teeth, the composed Isabella, and Ariadne, standing perfectly still.
Unable to contain her spite, Arabella glared at her one last time.
“I won’t acknowledge it!”
1. The Ignorant Younger Sister
The ten-year-old girl huffed, jabbing a small finger in her direction.
“You, raised as a mere farm maid! Born to a base, lowly mother!”
Ariadne felt more bewildered than angry. Where would a ten-year-old learn such vitriol? It was obvious someone had whispered these barbs into her ear—likely her parents, or perhaps her venomous sister.
In this life, however, Ariadne had decided she would no longer endure such insults by simply brushing them off as childish stubbornness. Besides, her own temperament had never been particularly gentle.
Hiding the thorns beneath a polished smile, she tilted her head and spoke.
“Judging by Father’s words, it seems you’re the one headed for the farm.”
“What?”
“He mentioned that at ten, you’re finally old enough to work as a farmhand.”
“Eeeeek!”
Consumed by a sudden, jagged rage, Arabella shrieked and lunged toward her. Behind her, the steep edge of the stairs loomed.