TMWDS Chapter 18

"You're just as low-born as she is—is that why you're taking her side? Do you think if you side with her, you'll get to live like her too?"

"Aah!"

"Don't you dare! People like you, who don't even know your place—you're the ones who ruined my whole life! Everything about how I ended up like this is because of that bitch Ionna!"

Yvonne shoved the maid backward into the wall, sending her sprawling, and shouted the words.

She'd broken furniture and struck a maid, and still, her mood refused to improve. The person she truly wanted to punish was someone else entirely, after all.

'Sly little bitch—never made a peep when I hit her, not till this marriage nonsense came up. And now, all of a sudden, she's decided she doesn't know my face anymore?'

By rights, within House Modrov, Ionna had always been something like the household's garbage bin.

Whenever anything upset Nils, he always vented on Ionna first.

Every time Yvonne caught sight of Ionna's face, she felt compelled to spit out at least one curse to feel any better, and sometimes she'd go to considerable trouble to make things harder for her—having the maids serve her spoiled food, ruining her outdoor clothes.

But the most important thing of all had always been intercepting Ionna's invitations before she ever saw them, and burning them.

There was no way she could stand being seen playing at sisterhood with that presumptuous girl at the same social gatherings.

Thanks to that, Ionna had come to be treated as something of an outcast in society—and Yvonne had never felt the slightest twinge of guilt about it.

Of course she hadn't. The girl was a filthy bastard.

Since it was Ionna, and no one else, who'd ruined their happiness, it was only right that the source of it all be made more miserable than the rest of them.

Still—needing a garbage bin was one thing; having the filth loitering right in front of your eyes was another matter entirely, and an unpleasant one at that.

Yvonne had, at times, hoped Ionna would simply be unable to bear the tormenting and run away.

If they abused her mercilessly enough, wouldn't she just give up and leave on her own? That thought alone had made her crueler still, at times.

But that leech of a girl hadn't left the household, not even after years had passed, not even after she'd become an adult.

No—if anything, as time went by, she'd only grown more indispensable to House Modrov. More than Nils or Yvonne, the actual legitimate children.

'Why do I have to be treated like this over some fake?'

Today alone, Hayden had sided with that presumptuous bastard over Yvonne herself. All because a guest had overheard the sound of their fighting.

Yvonne had been a little taken aback to learn this, but her indignation had quickly returned in full force.

None of this would have happened if that bastard didn't exist, she'd argued—no, it was her father's fault, for trying to pair a girl like that off with a duke in the first place.

The result had been disastrous. Count Modrov, thoroughly enraged, had ordered her to stay in her room for the rest of the day.

Thanks to that, Yvonne hadn't even been able to show her face to the Duke, and had been holed up on the third floor ever since.

"If only she weren't around—if only she weren't around…"

Yvonne was muttering exactly that, teeth clenched, when—

Someone shoved the door open without so much as a knock.

It was Nils.

At the sight of his welcome face, Yvonne cried out, her voice cracking with emotion.

"Brother!"

Startled by the thunderous volume, Nils clapped a finger to his lips in alarm.

"Shh—Fadther's right there. Duke's 'lready headed home, tho' guess it wouldn' matther much anyhow…"

The slurred speech made it hard to follow properly, but Yvonne nodded frantically anyway.

To think her brother had come to talk like some three-year-old baby—and all because of Ionna. It was enough to make her furious all over again.

"Did the Duke say anything about me? I hope he didn't get the wrong idea about me…"

Yvonne asked, impatience plain in her voice.

If the Duke only understood the circumstances, surely he'd understand her position too—but because of the family's honor, she couldn't very well explain the truth of it, and the injustice of it all was almost too much to bear.

"Didn't say nothin'. Well, it's a mardge fer the sake of the Empire anyway, so he prolly don't care much 'bout Ionna neidther."

Nils answered, offhand.

But it was plain from the deep scowl on his face that he wasn't feeling any easier about it either.

Nils, too, hadn't been able to face the Duke—thanks to the teeth Ionna had ruined—and no wonder he was frustrated.

“But we can’ jus’ leave it like thih. That bitch is makin’ foolsh of us. Even if she becomes duchess, she won’t cooperate with us. Fadther’s the only one who don’t see it.”

Hayden still seemed intent on keeping Ionna sweet and putting her to use somehow, but Nils saw things differently.

Most of House Modrov's current standing came from Ionna's close relationship with the Crown Prince.

If Ionna went ahead and married the Duke, taking on a different family name, House Modrov's position would come apart at the seams.

"Yvonne, you gotta be the one who becomes duchess. Or else, we gotta kill thih whole mardge deal. Gotta do one or the other, or there's no future fer us."

"…That's easy to say. How are we supposed to change an order that came from the Imperial family itself?"

At Nils's outlandish suggestion, Yvonne's expression drooped.

However powerful their family might be, they couldn't simply act outside their father's shadow.

But Nils, it seemed, had never intended to work through official channels from the start.

He lowered his voice.

"If the bride's gone, that's fine."

Yvonne drew in a sharp breath. Nils, gripping both her shoulders, added, eyes gleaming.

“When the arranged bride meets with an acciden’, the person who stepsh up firs’ as the nex’ candidate is always the bride’s sister. If thih goes well, we get two birdth with one stone.”

"Y-you mean… kill Ionna? Is that—will that really be all right?"

"There's risk, sure, but it's nothin' compared to what we get. Whole problem started when we let a bastard’th hands manage the family’s affairth in the first place. Family’ll do jus’ fine without tha’ little wrech."

The words were still difficult to make out, but one thing was clear enough: Nils didn't just want to humiliate Ionna. He wanted her gone entirely.

Nils pulled the dazed Yvonne over to a nearby chair and sat her down.

Before continuing with the details, Nils looked around and said,

"Ev'ryone out."

The maids scattered from the room like a receding tide, exactly as if they'd been waiting for the order. Once out in the corridor, they exchanged uneasy glances the moment the door shut behind them.

He must have lowered his voice considerably, because Nils's own voice no longer carried through.

After a silence that wasn't especially long, the maids gathered in a loose circle exchanged some wordless conversation among themselves.

Not even a whisper had passed between them—which meant that no one on either side of the door had any idea what was happening on the other.

The Imperial Knights' attendance policy was strict. Even for someone standing on the brink of a major life event like marriage, there were no exceptions made.

'This hellish rotating shift work—I really do need to quit soon.'

She griped about it inwardly, but her eyes, well-adjusted to the pre-dawn shift, stayed sharp and clear regardless.

Her body had simply adapted to the miserable working conditions.

Ionna, in her familiar uniform, fastened her buttons with mechanical speed.

'It's a small mercy, at least, that retirement's already close at hand.'

One more advantage had just been added to the list of benefits of a proper marriage.

Before she'd died, she'd never once dared even imagine quitting the job, playing the willing slave to the very end—but now she had the room to look at the whole situation with some measure of objectivity.

She'd been having her passion exploited.

"Why're you up already, when you could still be sleeping?"

At the knock from the other side of the door, Ionna answered without much interest.

But Marsha didn't come in—she simply stood there in silence.

That alone was enough to tell her the person on the other side wasn't Marsha at all.

Rather than ask who it was, Ionna flung the door open.

"A-aah, my lady…!"

A maid with a thin, hairline scratch on her cheek stood before her. If memory served, this was one of the girls who'd worked under Yvonne.

Ionna asked, indifferent.

"What is it?"

The maid glanced anxiously around at that, trembling.

It looked as though whatever she meant to say wasn't something for other ears.

Ionna let her into the room without a word. If the woman's purpose had been espionage or assassination, she'd hardly have announced herself with a knock.

The maid took a small breath, then began.