IDIBC Chapter 21

Sabrina Rowe Fennel

The next morning, Freddy personally escorted me to my family. Greeting guests was clearly not the butler’s duty unless they were very important guests. Yet the fact that he moved personally meant it was Ricardo’s order.

Even after riding in the carriage for quite a while, we couldn’t reach where my family was.

Only then did I understand why Ricardo had said I couldn’t see my family last night.

The Blue Hill he mentioned wasn’t the name of an annex inside the ducal estate. In fact, the place where I had gotten lost and wandered around a few days ago was just a very small part of the ducal estate.

Blue Hill literally had a blue hill alongside it.

When I flung open the half-open window wide, I couldn’t quite tell whether I was currently inside the ducal estate or traveling down some quiet country road somewhere in the Empire.

I was stunned once by the mansion’s enormous scale, and once again by how similar the place where my family was staying was to our home in Resotia.

Having heard news of my arrival, all my family members were standing outside the door. Even Countess Fennel. As soon as I saw them, I jumped out of the carriage before the horse had completely stopped.

“Lienne, be careful!”

Only when I heard Sabrina’s voice scolding me, saying I was always careless, did it feel real that my family was all here.

Jonathan ran toward me faster than I was running.

With a thud, the boy came into my arms. No, since he was bigger than me now, it would be more accurate to say I was embraced. I had thought I would be able to see them again, but I had never even imagined it would be in Dermeier rather than Resotia.

Once again, our family’s fate had been completely overturned.

****

“You brought Coco and Kio too?”

“Yes, do you know how much time we lost bringing those chickens?”

I couldn’t help but be surprised by Sabrina’s words that even our chickens had come along. Of course, I had mentioned the chickens several times while riding in the carriage with Ricardo. Even so, to pack up and bring even the chickens…

“Was there any trouble on the way? The Countess must have had a very hard time…”

“She stayed inside the carriage the entire time. She has difficulty coming outside.”

Countess Fennel, whom I met again, looked more haggard than before, perhaps because the carriage journey had been difficult for her. After briefly making eye contact with me and giving me a light embrace, she patted my back with trembling hands, then soon returned to the room where she would be staying.

She still found it difficult to remain in open spaces for long.

“How was Jonathan?”

“That kid, well, he was just worried about you. But he was excited to be able to see you.”

The house where my family was staying was in the middle of renovation work. Just from that alone, I could tell Ricardo had handled things urgently. Jonathan stayed with me briefly in the drawing room, then soon hurried outside, saying he would help the workers.

Seeing his nose turn red from time to time as he spoke, he seemed to be struggling quite hard to hold back tears.

“Was it about five days after you left? The ducal house’s people came back to the house. This time we thought we were really going to die…”

I carefully explained to Sabrina what had happened. About how the Dermeier Emperor had ordered them to find and kill the Fennel family again, and how Ricardo had stepped forward to protect us.

However, I couldn’t tell her everything about how this had happened because I had helped with Ricardo’s manifestation and awakening.

“Of course I know you won’t understand everything.”

“Obviously not.”

Sabrina shook her head and stood up from her chair.

“But if I were going to interrogate you, I would have done it seven years ago. Even then, Ricardo came to rescue you. Thanks to that, we survived too.”

She wandered around here and there for no reason, dusting things with her bare hands. I knew this was a habit that came out when Sabrina had something difficult to say or was in a predicament.

“Why are you stalling so much? If you have something you want to say, say it.”

At my words, Sabrina bit her lip hard once, then opened it again.

“Lienne, do you remember?”

“What?”

“When we lived at the Count Fennel estate.”

At the sudden topic, I tilted my head for a moment. Our family avoided talking about those times as much as possible.

“That merchant trader who used to come and go from our estate. The one whose mustache was so long it reached his ears.”

“Ah…”

As soon as I heard the words “merchant trader,” an unpleasant memory surfaced and my brow furrowed involuntarily. It wasn’t easily felt within civilization, but Resotia was still a land where desert sandstorms blew.

Because of that, the principality’s commerce hadn’t developed, and there were merchants who transported goods not produced on Resotia’s land to noble estate mansions.

Among them, merchants who had many rare goods were popular with children.

“Why are you talking about that bastard who wouldn’t be satisfying even if we chewed him up?”

No matter how noble a family was, unimaginable things could happen in a house without adults present.

Sabrina would be excited from morning on days when the merchant came. After we became close, I always joined her too, and that day as well, I had hurried to the main building because she had asked me to come on time.

“I found out later, but behind that merchant who deceived me, there was actually Justin.”

“What?”

This was the first I’d heard of it.

Though the items the merchant laid out were quite rare, somehow I had no interest in such childish toys.

At the time, I was busy learning to read and write, and I was more interested in the ledger he used than the bags of goods he unpacked.

Perhaps because it was too bothersome to deceive two little girls who barely reached his waist, the ledger was full of obviously absurd contents.

Even so, I had tried to ignore it at first. The Fennel family wouldn’t be shaken by something like that, and even if they were, it had nothing to do with me anyway.

“You know how much he hated me.”

But to think Justin was behind it.

“If you hadn’t stepped in that day, I would have been sent to boarding school.”

“Boarding school?”

I couldn’t not step in. If the merchant had just played around with the prices of goods, I might have pretended not to notice, but he lied that Sabrina had secretly brought and stamped the family seal.

Even then, we never figured out how the family seal had left the Count’s study. The only evidence that revealed the merchant’s lies was that the inventory of items I had written down just in case matched the items Sabrina had.

That merchant ended up losing one wrist because of that incident.

“So that’s how that seal was stamped…”

“Yes, that’s right. Justin stamped it for him. Why on earth did that bastard hate me so much?”

Well, rather than hating her specifically, it was more accurate to say he saw her as a political enemy threatening his position. Sabrina was the Countess’s biological daughter, after all.

“That’s probably why I wasn’t sad at all even when Justin died. Even though half the same blood flowed through us.”

I still can’t forget Sabrina’s face from that time. Young Sabrina, trembling in fear without understanding what was happening, was too frightened to even shed tears.

“Ever since then, to me you’ve been…”

“…”

“A benefactor.”

“A… benefactor?”

“What’s with that expression? It’s annoying.”

Unable to say such embarrassing words, Sabrina acted even more gruff.

“Of course, even if it’s annoying, I can’t help it. You’re my benefactor, and also…”

She turned red all the way to her ears, uncharacteristically, and rubbed hard at the end of an innocent wooden chair’s backrest.

“Also? What else am I to you?”

I narrowed my eyes and smiled mischievously, urging Sabrina on. At that, Sabrina’s face turned red as if it would burst.

“Do you really not know? To me, you’re my mother and father and friend and sister, and, well, an idol… something like that.”

I froze for a moment, forgetting that I had been trying to tease her. I was… that much to her?

“Why are you making such a dazed expression?”

“N-no. I…”

I knew that Sabrina had been relying on me a lot at some point, but I had never imagined she thought of me this much. We had always been busy bickering, after all.

“Of course it’s natural. Back then, mother was sick, father was bad, I was young, and you were excessively mature.”

“R-right.”

“It’s not just me either. Jonathan too, and mother… she doesn’t express it, but yes. Maybe she relies on you even more than I do.”

I couldn’t answer anything and just stared at Sabrina for a moment. Then she approached and embraced me as I sat there dazed.

Sabrina always smelled strongly of roses. I had scolded her to use expensive cosmetics more sparingly, but the familiar scent actually calmed my mind.

Her tastes had always been firm since childhood. Buried in the bouquet of flowers called a dress, I caught my ragged breath for a moment.

“Look at this time too. In the end, you saved all our lives.”

“…”

“Actually, even when I lived like a princess at the Fennel estate, I wasn’t very happy. Rather, the time when we lived together in a small house was better.”

Before I knew it, I had completely relaxed in her arms. I had thought I was fine, but it seemed I had been quite tense since coming to the ducal estate. The breath that had always been floating and fluttering rapidly near my heart felt like it had sunk all the way down to my lower abdomen.

“It’s not because you were dating, is it?”

Sabrina chuckled. Each time she laughed, the ornaments on her dress tickled my cheeks.

“Right, there’s more than one or two guys who’ll be sad when I leave.”

“…”

“So we’ll be happy here too. As long as we can all gather together and have dinner.”

“Yes, you’re right.”

“And someday…”