The third-year advanced music classroom.
A magnificent chandelier hung from the ceiling, scattering tens of thousands of gem fragments in a blaze of light.
At the center of that radiant brilliance, Ofilienne was playing the violin.
A thin, keen high note sliced through the air of the classroom.
Her fluid movements as she drew the bow were as refined as a still-life painting.
The slender fingers gliding across the strings were exquisite.
As the final melody dissolved into the air, Ofilienne lifted the violin from beneath her chin.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Her friends seated on the antique Renaissance-style sofas offered a gentle round of applause.
"That was wonderful, Fili."
"Aren't you just too good at this? Ha-ha."
"That's our Fili, all right."
At their compliments, Ofilienne drew the corners of her lips up in a light smile. She pinched the hem of her skirt, bent at the waist, and answered with an elegant curtsy.
The friends seated on the sofas, singing her praises, were all scions of noble houses renowned throughout the world. They were of her caliber.
When Ofilienne handed her instrument to a servant and approached the sofa, her friends scrambled to make room. She sank deep into the plush cushions and crossed her smooth legs.
A noble young woman standing beside her carefully offered a cup of black tea, steam curling gently from the surface.
"Thank you."
Ofilienne accepted the cup with a picture-perfect smile and savored the fragrance.
The tranquil peace continued — until one of her friends casually opened her mouth.
"Ofilienne, you haven't had any trouble with Franz, have you?"
"Why would I? What about Franz?"
"You didn't know? Apparently your brother had a quarrel with him."
Clink.
The teacup that had been touching her lips was set down onto the round table. The dull sound drew the attention of everyone nearby. For the first time, a strange ripple passed through Ofilienne's cool gray eyes.
"A quarrel, you say. Franz and Mati?"
"I don't know the details, but that's the rumor going around. Someone apparently witnessed it."
Ofilienne's smile slowly faded.
If that rumor was true, this was no mere act of a younger sibling's defiance. Franz was the Crown Prince's closest confidant and right hand.
A rift forming between him and Matyos meant noise in the most critical stepping stone toward her union with the Crown Prince — and by extension, toward her becoming Family Head.
She had to become the Family Head of Moretti. To do that, she absolutely needed the backing of the Crown Prince, and marriage was the indispensable procedure to complete that goal.
"I'll need to have a talk with him."
Ofilienne murmured quietly.
*
"You got into a fight with Franz, I hear."
It was the end of another day's lectures, and she had been on her way somewhere.
Ofilienne had been sitting on the sofa in the dormitory hall, and the moment she spotted Matyos, she rose and approached him.
The rumor had already spread this far, had it.
"Did you really fight with him?"
"I did."
"You did?"
At Matyos's blunt reply, Ofilienne gave a contemptuous smile.
"Do you have any idea who Franz is?"
"I do."
One of the empire's four great houses. The legitimate heir of House Georg, a ducal family. A great house comparable to Moretti. And the closest ally of the imperial family.
"And you still picked a fight with him?"
"He started it."
"Even so — you, of all people. Have you lost your mind?"
Her voice rose in a way uncharacteristic of her. Sharp as shards of broken glass, it rang out in a disorderly echo through the wide hall.
Conscious of the stares around them, Ofilienne seized Matyos's wrist and dragged him up to her room.
She walked quickly on her long legs. Click, click, click. Matyos struggled to keep up. And an unpleasant feeling began to creep up inside him. He had done nothing wrong.
"Get in."
Ofilienne opened her door and stepped inside. Matyos put his strength into it and wrenched his wrist free from her grip.
She hadn't expected her younger brother to resist. Ofilienne's hand was left hanging in the air, looking foolish. Her narrow eyes flew wide open.
She looked at her own hand, then at Matyos's face.
"And just what do you think you're doing right now?"
A twisted sneer rose on her face.
"…I'm sorry for worrying you. But I had good reason."
"Something more important than provoking the Crown Prince's faction?"
Pfft.
She laughed emptily and asked.
"What was it? What on earth could have driven my brother to do something like that?"
"Sister Tiana."
"That commoner?"
Again. That woman, again.
Ofilienne felt displeasure bubble up inside her like a kettle coming to a boil. She suppressed the expression threatening to twist her face. She leaned her shoulder against the doorframe and wound a strand of hair around her finger.
"Franz was going to lay his hands on Sister Tiana. You know what Franz is like. He was clearly going to force her—"
"So what."
Ofilienne cut him off coldly.
"Why are you making such a fuss over that."
"It was nearly a disaster."
"A disaster? What disaster."
"You know what I mean."
"Mati…"
She placed her hand gently on Matyos's shoulder and shook her head. Then, with an expression of feigned sorrow, her brows drooping, she spoke.
"You cannot concern yourself with every matter in this world. Neither can I. We are not gods."
"…So? You're saying I should have just let it happen?"
"No. You can act. But that is greed. And besides — you never know how things will turn out. That situation might even have been good for Tiana."
"What are you trying to say."
"Tiana Pilrn… what kind of future could there be for a girl who tends sheep in the countryside?"
Ofilienne looked out the window. The night sky was pouring down brilliant starlight with complete indifference.
"Franz will be a duke someday. For a woman to become the woman of such a man — that is to hold a future as brilliant as those stars in the palm of her hand. Even if that light is no more than a mistress, as common as the stars themselves. Money and power. Isn't that enough?"
"Sister Tiana doesn't want that."
"Haah… Matyos. Why are you so impossibly stubborn."
Ofilienne pressed her fingers to her temple and let out a long sigh. Her younger brother was far too naive. He still believed the world was like a fairy tale.
'She doesn't want money and power?'
She laughed inwardly. There was no more absurd a lie than that.
'There is no one in this world who doesn't want money and power. Not a single person.'
She herself was prepared to sell her soul for exactly that.
'Being good doesn't make everything right, Mati.'
She made up her mind to shatter her brother's foolish illusions here and now. Her voice was perfectly calm and gentle.
"The human heart is the most fickle thing there is. A person may act noble now, but humans change their tune in an instant. And besides — there's no guarantee that Tiana's true feelings are what you think they are."
"…"
"Of course, you did a kind thing, Mati. But being kind doesn't make it right. Perhaps, deep down, Tiana wanted exactly that. To become Franz's woman."
Matyos's lips pressed firmly shut.
"It's obvious what that lowly creature wants, isn't it."
He said nothing, and simply stared at his sister.
"Who knows — maybe she's been sleeping with Franz behind your back? If that's the case, she's getting an opportunity she'll never have again."
Ofilienne continued speaking, oblivious to the light fading from her brother's eyes.
"You know what it means to become a nobleman's mistress. She may well have been dreaming of seizing wealth she could never earn in a lifetime of work."
He had forgotten.
"Country women tend to be the more ambitious ones, you know. Naive young lords like you wouldn't understand, but they're more common than you'd think. That sort of lowly type."
And he had let himself forget.
Charmed by the warmth she had shown him, he had forgotten what the woman standing before him truly was.
This was her real face.
Matyos felt hollow. And at the same time, he felt a disappointment too deep for words.
She was Ofilienne — the 'villainess' who would one day stain the empire's future in blood.
'I'll read you a storybook. Come, lie down with me.'
In those childhood days.
'You are my little brother. You're mine. Mine.'
The gentle hand that had stroked his hair. The warm gaze. The memory of that young sister shattered and warped like broken glass.
"Forget that lowly woman. She was never suited for you to begin with. A friend who's a shepherdess… that's absurd, isn't it?"
Ofilienne said it with a soft smile.
'That should be enough for him to understand.'
He was a clever brother — surely he had grasped what she was saying. She spread her arms and drew Matyos into her embrace. She buried her face in the nape of his neck and breathed in the familiar scent of him deeply.
"So, Mati. Let's go apologize to Franz. All right? If I come along, Franz will forgive you too—"
"No."
Thud.
Matyos shook off his sister's arms without mercy.
"I won't apologize."
"…Mati. I'm not joking right now."
"Neither am I."
Matyos's voice was flat and dry.
"…More than anything else — I'm disappointed. Sister."
His voice was flat and dry. There was no anger left in it — only a deep, hollow emptiness.
Ofilienne's eyes came to a sudden stop.
"What…?"
"I suppose I was expecting too much."
Matyos turned away without a trace of lingering feeling and walked to his own room. Just before the door closed, a pair of sunken gray eyes swept over Ofilienne with cold detachment. It was no longer the gaze one directed at a 'sister.'
"…"
Ofilienne stood frozen in place. She blinked slowly, opened her mouth, and spoke.
"…What?"