Chapter 2
***
"Please sit down."
The Empress's voice was followed by the giggles of the ladies, who made no attempt to restrain themselves.
"..."
Elise clasped her hands together wordlessly.
The trembling in her fingertips showed no sign of abating, no matter what she had been through.
Her eyelids fluttering open and closed, she tried to imagine what the place would look like.
The Empress's conservatory, where the sunlight was beautiful on the glass. The ladies were laughing around the table, and she was before them like a spectacle.
The scene in her head flashed before her eyes, but nothing stuck to her retinas.
From that fateful day forward, Elise's world was always dark.
"Do you intend to make a mockery of my command?"
"......No, Your Majesty."
As much as she wanted to run away, she couldn't.
Responsibility for choices.
Elise shifted her feet, remembering the teachings of her grandfather that had brought her to this day.
A freak accident years ago had left her with a limp, and she walked with it even when she could see.
It was dangerous to walk blind, even without a cane, but that was exactly what the Empress wanted.
Limp. Limp.
After walking precariously for a while, Elise predictably fell.
"Wahahahaha!"
The audience erupted in applause.
"Oh no. Are you okay, Princess? You should have walked more carefully."
"..."
The empress and the ladies enjoyed their refreshments while watching Elise flounder like an upside-down worm. No one helped her.
Feeling like an animal in a cage, Elise suddenly realized.
That she had been doing this for three years.
The day after their wedding, her husband left for the battlefield.
He didn't say a word.
She was left alone to adjust and cope with her sudden blindness.
When Claude was gone, the Empress called for Elise and began to harass her as if she had been waiting. A day, two days, a month, more, and now she felt like a clown herself. The most expensive and best-bred clown in the empire.
"Elise. What are you doing not getting up? You're supposed to be setting an example by being royalty, not cowering like that!"
The Empress's voice swooped in, laughing in delight.
It was the order to begin the next play.
At times like this, Elise was glad she was blind.
No matter how long she had shed her nobility, it would have been hard to take the stares of a zoo animal with a straight face.
It's nothing.
Better to give them what they want sooner rather than later.
Elise leaned on her good leg and slowly pushed herself to her feet.
Haha!
Laughter and applause erupted around her once more.
The empress's jester didn't give up, as Elise was falling to the ground again and again.
Her determination was palpable as she pushed herself up.
People's eyes traced the lines of her body as she stood up.
Her shoulders and waist were straight, like a dancer's, without a hint of stiffness.
No, it was more like a soldier's, with an odd sense of theft.
Her face was ice-cold and emotionless in the daylight.
It was as if the Empress's intention to shame her had failed.
Elise von Winterdell.
The woman now called Elise von Killiatzman had become the center of social ridicule because her beauty had never faded, not even when her family was ruined, her legs crippled, or her eyes blinded.
On the contrary, she seemed to shine more brilliantly as her misfortunes deepened.
A face as white as a blank page, hair as black as ebony. Eyes that resembled the symbol of Winterdell, winter.
The cold expression on her perfectly proportioned brow made her look like she was made of ice.
A face that inspired love where there was none.
The nickname given to her by the nobility was the best way to describe the hero's wife.
Her blue eyes, which faced straight ahead unwaveringly even though she shouldn't be able to see, were strangely clear, like glass beads.
How blind was she?
Three years ago, most nobles were skeptical.
An oracle in an age when ships like giant castles traveled between continents and iron ran instead of horses.
Most believed it was a ploy by the pro-Emperor faction to crush the Republicans.
But as soon as the wedding was over, as if by magic, Elise lost her eyesight.
The nobles famously rushed to the chapel when they saw the bride, trembling like a newborn calf, clinging to her husband as she left the ceremony.
"Give it to me."
A small but strong voice cut through the air.
Elise reached for the servant who had snatched her cane.
Years of living in blindness had taught her to gauge a person's location by the way they stood.
The gesture was so precise that if it weren't for the distorted gaze, they might have wondered if she could see.
"...Yes, yes!"
The flustered servant held out the cane.
"I apologize, but I'm not feeling well enough to stay. I must now retire, so I hope you will finish enjoying yourselves."
With Elise’s things returned to her, the Empress's jester turned away as if that was the end of her performance for the day.
Thud. Thud.
The unsteady steps of her cane faded into the distance.
She never breaks.
The Empress's maidservant, who glanced sideways out of the corner of her eye, clicked her tongue. The Empress's face turned as cold as ice as she watched the wife of the dead Empress's son disappear.
***
"You have returned, Your Grace."
Elise entered the mansion, being escorted by a maid. Her husband resided in a townhouse in the capital, not the palace, so this was her natural home.
Limp. Limp.
With each step she couldn't keep up even with support, a muffled giggle pierced her ears. Elise knew from three years of experience that it wasn't just the maid who was caring for her, but all the servants around her who were laughing at her.
The maid abandoned her as they reached the entrance to the annex.
Elise made her way to her room, leaning familiarly on her cane in one hand and the railing on the wall that was built just for her. Whether it was out of disregard or consideration, she couldn't tell, but it was a good thing.
Usually the nobility had the second floor or more of the mansion, but she had the first.
Elise climbed the stairs, her steps steady and unsteady. Ahead of her, she heard urgent footsteps pounding.
"Your Highness!"
A voice called after her.
It was Nella, the maid who tended to Elise's needs.
"You didn't call for me."
"I could do it myself."
"Still, if you fall, I’ll be in trouble!"
Nella put her arm around the panting Elise.
The young maid was almost the only person in the manor who was favorable to her.
With Nella's support, Elise reached her bedroom. She was tired, as if she had walked a very long way, even though it must have been a short distance.
"Have they left you alone at the entrance again? How can everyone be so rude, and it's been three years!"
"Don't be so hard on yourself, Nella."
The Princess was laughed at even within the mansion.
The people who adored Claude, their hero and prince, refused to admit that his wife was a crippled noblewoman with blindness.
Even if those eyes had been given to save their master's life.
"How do you stand so strong, Your Grace, is it because you are a member of Winterdell after all?"
The girl's eyes sparkled.
Winterdell. The noble house that had defended the family imperial for generations.
It was so envied that every romance novel the commoners read featured a knight from Winterdell.
There was a time, when Elise's grandfather, Lieutenant-General Maximilian, was hailed as a hero for his victories in war, when everyone revered Winterdell blood.
But that was all in the past. After Elise's father inherited the earldom, he became just another in a long line of fallen nobles who crumbled without a trace.
"You're amazing. If I'd had the vision, I would have cried all day... even if I was living with a man as handsome as His Highness the prince…!"
It was all a deal.
The answer was on the tip of Elise’s tongue, the one she couldn't bring herself to give to the romanticized maid.
In exchange, she would no longer have to worry about making a living.
The fear that she might die in her sleep was a fading memory.
It was a give and take. That's all she could think about.
She would be lying if she said she didn't regret it.
Not knowing everything was unknown until you lost it.
For example, she had never been blind, which meant she didn't know the weight of losing her light forever.
She thought she had an idea of some of it, if not all of it, but the weight of reality that crushed her was much heavier than that.
The sensation of being afraid to take a step was something she'd never felt before in her life, even with one limping leg.
It was Winterdell.
She tried to steady herself by recalling the words of her grandfather, a man she revered, and her father, a man she could never say she loved, even in jest, but it didn't work.
She wondered if she was dead and cast into a dark hell, if in fact this was all just a terrible nightmare.
Elise brought her hand up out of habit and touched the corners of her eyes. It was only when she felt her eyelashes flutter that she realized her eyes were opening.
It was a habit she'd developed after being trapped in the darkness, unable to keep her eyes open.
“Oh. I heard that your husband has won another battle. Will he come back this time?”
Nella asked, her voice filled with joy.
****
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