Chapter 167 — The Secret of Birth
What Loic had said during the day suddenly came to mind.
That he couldn’t last even a single day without me.
‘He’s built like a mountain, but he acts exactly like a puppy.’
“And please make sure to pass on my thanks to the Grand Duke as well…!”
Seeing my wide grin, the Countess stopped mid-sentence in surprise.
“Your Grace?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was just thinking about something else…”
I hurriedly wiped the loosened smile from my face.
Realizing who I had been thinking about, the Countess’s expression brightened.
“I feel bad that I unintentionally separated newlyweds. It would have been nice if the Grand Duke could have come along too.”
I replied that I would invite the Count and Countess to the castle next time, and the couple looked genuinely delighted.
After that, the warm dinner continued late into the night.
After finishing the meal and returning to my room, I rested for a while instead of changing clothes.
“Your Grace, shall I prepare the bath?”
“No, could you prepare some light tea instead? I think we’ll have a guest.”
“A guest?”
Though Cecilia looked puzzled, she instructed a maid to prepare the tea.
Not long after, there was a knock at the door.
It was the Countess.
“May I come in for a moment?”
“Aunt, please come in.”
The Countess, who looked a little shy at being called ‘Aunt,’ paused when she saw the tea set on the table.
“You may come in. I prepared this to drink with you.”
“Did you know I was coming?”
“I felt like you had something you wanted to say to me.”
The Countess looked slightly startled.
“Oh my, you really are just like Olli, even in that way.”
“Was my mother good at predicting things too?”
I said it jokingly, but the Countess gave a faintly sad smile.
“She was very clever and quick to notice things.”
Her gaze drifted somewhere into the teacup, as if recalling the past.
“Every year, no matter what birthday gift I tried to prepare, Olli always figured it out in advance.”
Haha. An awkward laugh passed between us.
After taking a sip of tea, the Countess hesitated for a long time before finally speaking.
“Your Grace was actually born in this room.”
“I was?”
Seeing Annette’s blank expression, the Countess tightened her lips as if she had expected this reaction, then calmly took a breath.
“Your Grace… have you ever wondered who your real father is?”
And so, the Countess began telling the story of her younger sister.
The Countess of Selvanis, Eliane, closed her eyes briefly as she recalled that day.
It was twenty years ago, on the last day of December.
Just after a fierce snowstorm had finally stopped, an urgent message arrived from the Fogen Temple.
Olli was at the temple, and labor seemed about to begin, so they asked her to come quickly.
She had assumed her sister was preparing for childbirth at the Marquis’s estate, so she couldn’t understand what was happening.
To make matters worse, the Count was away from the estate at the time.
Eliane rushed toward the temple with a midwife and maids, but the icy roads delayed them far longer than expected.
“When we finally arrived at the temple…”
Eliane’s voice caught, and she paused.
A scene she had long tried to erase from her mind resurfaced.
“If it’s hard to talk about, you can take your time.”
Annette spoke softly.
“No. I’ve waited a long time to tell you this.”
Eliane straightened her back with effort.
The area in front of the temple looked as if a typhoon had passed through.
Small statues decorating the grounds were shattered, and broken tree debris was scattered everywhere.
Deep claw marks from some enormous beast were carved into thick tree trunks.
And in the middle of it all was a horribly destroyed carriage.
Olli was inside that carriage.
Beside it lay a man who had collapsed while holding Olli’s hand.
He was wearing the uniform of a holy knight.
The Selvanis knights rushed over, but the man had already been dead for quite some time.
Olli was clutching his hand, suffering through labor pains.
Blood-like tears streamed from her eyes.
‘I can’t possibly tell her everything.’
Eliane swallowed the horror of that sight.
Instead, she explained simply that Olli had been attacked at the temple, and the holy knight with her had been killed.
“Who did that to her?”
Annette asked, her face completely blank.
“Most likely… a dragon.”
“Most likely?”
“It wasn’t done by humans. But at the same time, a holy knight wouldn’t fall to just a few monsters.”
That left only one possibility.
“A dragon.”
“The snow was so heavy that it was difficult to track any evidence.”
The old high priest at the temple had clearly witnessed what happened, but no matter how much they questioned him, he kept his mouth shut.
As if bound by a spell that prevented him from revealing the truth.
“We couldn’t stay there, not knowing when another attack might come.”
With the midwife staying beside her, they rode back to the castle in a carriage, and Olli’s labor continued the entire way.
And in this very room, Olli gave birth to Annette.
After listening quietly, Annette asked softly,
“That holy knight… was he my father?”
Just like Olli, she was sharp.
Eliane gave a hollow smile and nodded.
— “Sister… that man is Annette’s father.”
Barely able to speak, her sister had managed to leave those words behind.
She passed away the next day, returning to the Goddess’s embrace.
Eliane took out a small locket from her bosom and handed it to Annette.
“It was Olli’s keepsake.”
Click.
Opening the locket, Annette asked in a subdued voice,
“What was my father’s name?”
“That… I don’t know.”
Eliane shook her head, guilt weighing heavily on her.
She had tried everything to learn even the holy knight’s name, but in the end, he was buried at the Fogen Temple without one.
“So the place I saw at the Fogen Temple… was my father’s grave.”
After speaking, Annette remained silent for a long time, then gave a faint smile.
“Thank you for telling me.”
She gently placed her hand over Eliane’s on the table.
“You must have suffered a lot, carrying this sorrow alone all this time.”
“Not at all.”
Seeing Annette comforting her instead, Eliane’s eyes suddenly burned with tears.
Why her sister had fled all the way here with the child’s father, she still didn’t know.
After the Marchioness disappeared shortly before giving birth, the Marquis’s household had been in chaos.
Even then, the Marquis only cared about whether Annette had been born on the final day of the year, as the oracle demanded.
Thankfully, he never realized his wife’s infidelity.
Though it was a sin, Eliane decided to bury the existence of the holy knight in her heart forever, for Annette’s sake.
After sending knights to retrieve Annette, the Marquis ignored every letter asking about the child’s well-being.
Still, Eliane thought it was enough if Annette was happy.
But when rumors spread that Annette was an illegitimate child, her heart nearly stopped.
Soon after, Annette was branded a ‘fake saintess.’
If Olli had still been alive, how heartbroken she would have been.
Each time news of Annette reached her, Eliane lived with guilt, knowing she could do nothing to help.
And she decided that at the very least, Annette deserved to know who her father was.
Annette had the right to know the truth.
“This must be shocking to hear so suddenly.”
Anyone would be shaken by such a revelation.
She wished she could have told her after growing closer, but not knowing when they might meet again, she couldn’t keep the secret any longer.
“You must have suffered so much… growing up without a mother, under such a father…”
Tears slid down Eliane’s face as she finished speaking.
“I couldn’t even comfort you. I’m pathetic.”
As Eliane hurriedly wiped her tears—
“It’s okay. I still grew up well.”
Annette said gently, handing her a handkerchief.
“And I’m happy now, so please don’t be too sad.”
Seeing Eliane’s tear-filled eyes, Annette smiled softly.
“The Grand Duke gives me more love than I ever missed at the Marquis’s house. Even tonight, he’s probably unable to sleep properly because he misses me.”
Her joking words made Eliane let out a small laugh.
No matter how Annette had grown up, it was clear she hadn’t lost the cheerfulness she inherited from her mother.
The two of them continued talking late into the night.
Step. Step.
The entrance of the villa in the Everne Forest opened into a wide terrace.
Benches were placed there so one could recline slightly and enjoy the garden while feeling the cool breeze.
And instead of using one of the perfectly fine benches, Loic had been pacing the terrace for thirty minutes straight, anxiously staring toward the hill beyond the garden.
Unable to bear it any longer, Perel swallowed a sigh and spoke.
“Your Grace, it isn’t even noon yet.”
“So what.”
“Her Grace likely hasn’t even departed yet.”
Hoo.
Loic bit his lip slightly and muttered,
‘I miss her.’
