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“Hello.”
“Oh, hello!”
When Philomel greeted her, Ellencia hurriedly followed suit.
Raising her head, she glanced at Philomel’s attire.
“I… You seem to be a noble person, but what’s happened here… ? It is a rural village with nothing to see. Oh! Was it a useless question? Sorry!”
It was lovely to see her being wary but unable to hide her curiosity. She was dressed as an ordinary mountain girl, but she had an unconcealed elegance.
“It’s okay. Is that house yours?”
“… Yes. This is the house where my mother and I live.”
Uneasy, her long eyelashes move ceaselessly.
Philomel asked politely.
“If you will excuse me, may I take a look at the house? I happened to see it while passing by, and the house is really pretty.”
“My house? Compared to the lady’s house, it would be shabby.”
She knew that it was a ridiculous excuse.
“Can’t I?”
“It’s not that I can’t… I’m a bit embarrassed. But if you want, of course, you have to show it. Come here.”
Ellencia took the lead, probably deciding that there would be nothing good if she refused the request of a nobleman.
“Madam, please wait in the carriage.”
She instructed Countess Deles, who was a short distance away.
“But going alone…”
“I’ll be back soon.”
Philomel overruled the countess’ dissuade and followed Ellencia.
“Mom! I’m here!”
When I opened the front door, I could smell the food being cooked.
Philomel slowly looked around the house.
The furnishings were simple, but everything was there, and it was clean. It was an ordinary, cozy country house.
“Hey! It’s been a while since you left, why are you coming in now? You ran around like a colt again, didn’t you? Why are you so…”
The woman came out of the kitchen, nagging and stopped.
“There’s someone I’d like to introduce to you. The lady here said she would like to see our house… Mom? What’s wrong?”
The eyes of the woman who saw Philomel were stained with astonishment.
“Are you…? “
The woman asked in a trembling voice.
“Hello, I was passing by and wanted to take a look at this house, so I asked your daughter.”
“Looking at the house… please go back, I don’t want to be a spectacle for noble people.”
She turned away from Philomel.
“Then shall we talk about something else?”
Philomel continued without changing the tone of her voice.
“Don’t you know me?”
As she took one step closer, the woman swallowed a shrill groan.
The dark brown eyes of the woman looking at Philomel wavered aimlessly.
Meanwhile, Philomel also observed the woman’s appearance.
The hair is dark brown. She had some wrinkles for her age, but she was beautiful. When she was young, she must have been a beauty with a slightly stubborn look.
Her facial features resembled her own.
That’s what I thought, too.
“Mom!”
Ellencia supported the woman, who collapsed as her legs gave out.
“Are you okay? Where are you sick?”
“… I’m okay. Don’t shout because my head is ringing.”
“Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
“I’m fine”
A mother-daughter relationship that looks good in every way. To them, Philomel was an uninvited guest.
The woman shook off her daughter’s arm and stood upright.
Philomel said to Ellencia, who was at a distance.
“I’m sorry, but could you give us a minute? I need to talk to your mother.”
“But…”
“Go up there.”
At her mother’s determined tone, Ellencia hesitated and went up the stairs.
As in the novel, Ellencia’s room was upstairs, I thought to myself.
There were only two people left in the living room. The woman fidgeted and opened and closed her fists.
“You, you…”
“Let me introduce you. My name is Philomel. It’s a name I took from an ephemera flower that blooms only here in Utina.”
Ellencia went up, but Philomel spoke in a low voice, just in case.
“Phil, Philomel…”
The woman covered her mouth with both hands and sobbed.
“Why, why did you come here? It is not a place for someone as precious as you to come. Go back to where you belong.”
“… You know as well as I do there’s no place for me.”
Philomel calmly replied. She was a fool
The woman was blinded by her jealousy and changed the lives of the two children. She said that she didn’t become an empress herself and that she made her daughter her empress, she wasn’t even funny.
Besides, if you decided to raise her as your daughter, you would raise her well.
The person who tortured Ellencia while recalling the crime she had committed.
However, the person who finally opened the door to the good child constantly approached me.
It was a future that had yet to come, but she confided the secret of her birth to Ellencia one year later, the year her daughter turned 17.
Even though she knew for sure what situation Philomel would find herself in if the real princess appeared in search of her real father.
‘A heartless person. My mother.’
“Listen carefully, I will take your daughter to the Emperor.”
Philomel spoke quietly but firmly.
Catherine’s pupils dilated.
“… Such! Such a thing!”
“I’m trying to get a father and daughter who have lived without knowing each other’s existence to meet.”
“No!”
Philomel looked coldly at the howling Catherine.
“Why?”
“Even if I didn’t give birth to her, Ellen is my daughter!”
Daughter.
Philomel was devastated.
The lovely Ellencia is loved even by her non-blooded parents.
“Whether you are the real mother or not is for Ellencia to decide after knowing everything.”
“No! She’s already my daughter! How did I raise Ellen alone… !”
Catherine started to weep.
Philomele scoffed coldly.
“You didn’t ask until the end.”
“What?”
“I guess you have no idea how I lived.”
Only then did the woman shut her mouth tightly with a surprised expression.
“That, that’s…! Of course, being in the luxury imperial palace…”
Luxury? Have you lived your life justifying yourself with those words?
“Just as you don’t care about me, I don’t care about the life you’ve lived.”
My eyes were cold.
Philomel’s voice trembled slightly. She couldn’t love that woman either. Just like she doesn’t love herself.
“So if you want to live, run away right now.”
That was the only consideration she could give to the woman who gave birth to her.
“You know better than anyone else that if the Emperor learns the truth, neither you nor I will be safe, right?”
In the novel, Eustis finds and kills Catherine as soon as he learns the truth.
Even Ellencia’s plea to save the mother who raised her did not call for mercy from the Emperor.
“Then I will take Ellencia.”
A look of despair spread over Catherine’s face. She seemed to realize that no matter what she did, she couldn’t be stopped.
Philomel passed Katrin and took Ellencia from the room.
“There’s a place you have to go with me.”
Ellencia tilted her head at the brief explanation.
“Mom?”
“Follow her. It’s not a bad thing, don’t worry.”
Catherine, sitting on a chair at the table and bowing her head, said without looking at her daughter.
Ellencia followed Philomel in bewilderment. It was, in effect, a farewell between her mother and daughter.
The carriage returns to the annex palace like that.
“Do… Do you mind if I ask where you’re going?”
Ellencia wiggled her fingers in discomfort.
“We are on our way to Lake Utina.”
“Ah! Lake Utina is a really beautiful place. I heard that there are many villas of aristocrats nearby, so the lady must have come to see them too.”
Even in this situation, she grew up being loved with a bright smile.
“So, um… What’s your name?”
“It’s Philomel.”
Philomel did not mention a surname that would soon lose its meaning.
“My name is Ellencia. Wait! Ellencia and Philomel are all flower names!”
Ellencia and Philomel were the pride of the empire, as they were flowers that only grew wild near Lake Utina.
“What a strange coincidence!”
“I know, right.”
It’s no coincidence.
These were names that Isabella, who loved flowers, thought of giving her daughter when she was born.
It was kind of funny to have two names, one real and one fake.
“Come to think of it, you have the same name as the princess. I heard that His Majesty, the Emperor, and the Princess also stopped by Utina…”
Having said that, Ellencia’s expression darkened.
“Could you be the princess…?”
“Well, what do you think?”
Ellencia, who was in tears at Philomel’s cryptic attitude, looked at the countess as if seeking confirmation.
But Countess Deles, who had lost her mind, did not notice the gaze.
She was in that state from the moment she brought Ellencia and sat next to her. Ellencia seems to have realized who her face resembles.
No one entered the imperial palace and did not know the face of the empress in the portrait.
“Why are you taking me?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you right now. You’ll find out soon.”
“… yes”
After that, Ellencia did not open her mouth.
A heavy silence fell inside the carriage. Philomel thought that Ellencia’s face, as she closed her mouth, was as cool as any other people.