Chapter 07
The evening of her very first day in Hielo.
Adriana had come searching for the partner who would remain by her side for life, yet she finished dinner alone and went to bed alone as well.
Because of a sudden monster outbreak, Dietrich had departed for a subjugation mission in the snowy mountains instead of welcoming her personally.
Unable even to show how hurt she felt, Adriana ended the day quietly.
And then—
As she fell asleep, she felt her body growing strangely numb and heavy.
There had clearly been a paralyzing drug mixed into her dinner.
Then, deep in the middle of the night, Teresa entered her room while Adriana lay completely defenseless, bringing the two maids with her.
Katrin and Dorothea grabbed Adriana’s arms, dragged her from the bed while she was still drugged, and forced her to kneel before Teresa.
“Strip her. There are suspicions that Adriana Berano is a spy, so as the mistress of this castle, I shall personally conduct the search.”
Katrin and Dorothea removed Adriana’s nightclothes and threw them onto the floor.
“Humiliating, isn’t it? As long as you continue coveting my place, this is the kind of suffering you will keep enduring. If you leave before Dietrich returns, nothing more will happen.”
That was what happened on Adriana’s very first day in Hielo.
Certainly, if Adriana had been an ordinary noble lady, she might have taken up a sword and killed herself rather than endure such humiliation.
But Adriana was not someone who would retreat before threats and intimidation.
And thus, the war between Teresa and Adriana began.
If there was only one person Adriana wished to take revenge upon after returning to life, it was Teresa.
And Katrin and Dorothea were Teresa’s most loyal followers.
In the past, Adriana had kept them by her side despite knowing the truth because she could not afford to become enemies with the vassal families.
But not anymore.
Adriana no longer wished to live under surveillance.
“Did you not hear me tell you to leave?”
“Then we shall return tomorrow morning and assist with your preparations.”
“You misunderstand. What I meant was that you will never need to attend me again.”
The two young ladies blinked.
“Your Grace the Duchess… surely you do not mean…”
“I mean that you are dismissed.”
“Your Grace…? Whatever do you mean all of a sudden?”
“I said I will no longer keep you as my maids.”
“If not us, do you perhaps have other candidates in mind?”
Dorothea tried to sound calm, but irritation leaked into her voice.
There was mockery hidden beneath her words as well—as if to say, Even if someone insignificant like you wants different attendants, what can you possibly do about it?
Adriana understood that perfectly well herself.
No matter who served as her maid, the person would ultimately be someone approved by Teresa anyway. That was why Adriana had never openly expressed likes or dislikes regarding the servants placed beside her.
So naturally, the sudden dismissal of both maids caused the two women—whose true role was surveillance—to panic.
“I will be joining the knight order starting tomorrow. There is no need for adornment while undergoing training, nor any need for maids. One servant girl will suffice. Unless the two of you intend to become common maids?”
“That cannot be allowed! How could Your Grace possibly live without attendants?”
“I have already been living as though I had none. Since I publicly declared my intention to divorce, the purpose behind your surveillance has effectively been fulfilled. So return to your master and tell her your mission is complete.”
“S-Surveillance…?”
“Yes, that. There is no longer any need to pretend otherwise. You have both worked hard enduring life beside someone you dislike so much.”
Katrin and Dorothea exchanged glances, unsure how to react.
This was the first time Adriana had ever spoken to them at such length.
More unsettling still was the way she spoke as though she fully understood their circumstances.
The Grand Duchess had always been difficult to read, but never like this.
“Your Grace. Please reconsider your words. If we have offended you, then punish us some other way.”
Katrin and Dorothea squeezed their eyes shut and knelt.
“So even until the very end, you refuse to obey my words despite claiming to be my maids. Do you intend to ignore even a direct order telling you to leave?”
“No matter who you are, Your Grace, you cannot humiliate daughters of families who have devoted their lives to Hielo like this.”
“This alone is humiliation? The true humiliation was what I felt that day when the two of you stripped me.”
“Your Grace the Duchess! We already told you clearly—we know nothing about that incident!”
Katrin and Dorothea genuinely appeared wronged.
And that was precisely the part Adriana found strange.
On her very first day in Hielo, the two women had absolutely followed Teresa’s orders. They had stripped Adriana, searched her room, and even stolen her mother’s keepsake dagger.
The moment the paralysis wore off, Adriana regained her senses and summoned Katrin and Dorothea.
No matter what excuses they made, she intended to harshly reprimand them and recover her mother’s dagger.
But the moment she began questioning them, Adriana realized this too had been a trap.
“You have no memory of it?”
“It is not that we forgot. We truly never entered the castle yesterday.”
They insisted they had not entered Glück Castle not only the previous night, but at any point recently. When the entry records were checked, the documents genuinely showed no record of them ever meeting Adriana.
No matter how furious Adriana was, she could not accuse people who officially had never even met her.
Had Katrin and Dorothea shown even the slightest sign of acting, Adriana would have continued interrogating them.
But their sense of injustice was real.
They truly did not know what crime they had supposedly committed.
And furthermore, the dagger Teresa had stolen was discovered inside Adriana’s own room.
Katrin and Dorothea tearfully protested their innocence, and somehow Adriana became the suspicious one instead.
A senseless Grand Duchess from the South who insulted old vassal families without evidence.
That became Adriana’s image from the very first day she arrived at Glück Castle.
At the time, she believed everyone in the North was conspiring together to drive her out.
But as time passed, more and more strange things continued happening.
People who harmed Adriana—like Katrin and Dorothea—would afterward behave as though they had completely forgotten their own actions.
Because of that, Adriana could never properly accuse anyone no matter how unfairly she was treated.
Remembering that same eerie sensation now, Adriana narrowed her eyes.
“The fact remains that I have no need for maids. So after informing His Grace that I cannot join him for dinner, neither of you is to seek me out again.”
Teresa had stolen everything Adriana wore.
The clothes and jewelry of Trakia—
Even the pride she possessed as a woman of the South.
The fact that the pride engraved into her very heart had been stolen from her left Adriana unable to breathe from the pain.
And the two maids standing before her had assisted Teresa in every one of those acts.
Adriana no longer wished to keep puppets beside her who were not truly on her side.
Her husband and her maids alike were no exception.
A room thick with the smoke of hookah tobacco.
Teresa sat in her bedroom alongside the two women.
“So that is what happened?”
After hearing their report, Teresa lifted the hookah pipe to her lips.
At her seductive mannerisms, Katrin and Dorothea swallowed nervously.
With her dazzling beauty and voluptuous figure, Teresa looked every bit the enchanting temptress.
“She says she intends to cast us out. If we leave in such disgrace, even our marriage prospects will be ruined.”
Though they hated the Grand Duchess, serving as her maids was still an honorable position.
It was a role that had to be maintained in order to preserve one’s standing at the very peak of northern high society.
But if they were thrown out before even marrying, it would mean they had fallen out with the Grand Ducal family itself. No noble household in Hielo would dare seek them as brides afterward.
Adriana had called it dismissal rather than revenge, but for the two maids, that alone was already a devastating blow.
Thus Katrin and Dorothea had come running to the only person capable of resolving this situation:
Teresa.
Of course, the two women had not always depended on her from the beginning.
At first, they had actually looked down on Teresa because of her low birth.
The position of Grand Duchess could only be formally recognized with imperial approval, and the Emperor had never acknowledged Teresa, who had taken the place of her dear friend Agnes.
On the other hand, the reason the Northerners could not simply expel Adriana despite disliking her was because she was the only Grand Duchess officially recognized by the Emperor.
To reject the Emperor’s will could brand the territory as traitorous, and no one knew what consequences might follow.
That was why Teresa could not interfere with powers formally delegated by the Emperor to the territory’s ruler, such as taxation rights.
Instead, the former Grand Duke had handed Teresa his greatest asset.
Glück Castle itself.
The territory had been granted by the Emperor, but Glück Castle had been built personally by the former Grand Duke, meaning ownership could technically be transferred.
Though, of course, countless legal tricks had been involved.
It was little more than wordplay.
Because if Teresa controlled Glück Castle—the residence of the lord and the center of all administration—then in practice, she was effectively the true ruler of the land.
Thus an absurd balance of power emerged:
Dietrich was the ruler of Hielo,
but Teresa was the ruler of the castle.
And those two conflicting authorities stood in direct opposition.
Eventually, even Hielo’s oldest vassal families had fallen under Teresa’s influence.
“Her Grace still hates us.”
“That’s right. She’s still making absurd accusations that we touched her body. She keeps repeating that nonsense about us entering her bedroom on the first day she arrived in Hielo!”
“She is still talking about that day?”
The moment Teresa recalled that day, her expression twisted sharply.
