IDIBC Chapter 3

The Nameless Child of the East Wing

As I shrugged my shoulders and walked past lightly, I could hear Sabrina hissing and following behind me.

“Won’t you answer? Where are you going?”

“If you’re bored, go play with Jonathan.”

I don’t have time to bicker with you right now.

“Are you ignoring me right now?”

“Finally, we’re understanding each other.”

Following the butler to the study, I had a very peculiar experience. To survive in this harsh world ahead, I need knowledge about the reality I’m currently living in. That was quite an excellent thought, up to that point.

First, I pulled out the thinnest book from the bookshelf. But as I boldly opened the book with the momentum to read it all at once, I soon came to realize something.

The fact that I couldn’t read.

Come to think of it, that made sense. Just because I died and came back to life doesn’t mean knowledge that didn’t exist would suddenly appear with a “ta-da!”

“But, Sabrina.”

“What, what?”

“You… can you read by any chance?”

As I slowed my hurried pace and casually asked, she made a triumphant expression.

“Of course!”

I felt irritated by the mocking gaze of a kid who didn’t even seem particularly smart, but pride wouldn’t solve my illiteracy.

“Then would you teach me how to read?”

“What? Why should I?”

I was about to turn my head and say “never mind then,” when it happened.

Thump.

I met eyes directly with the pitch-black pupils of a boy sitting in the distance.

‘Ricardo, so you were here after all.’

His eyes, catching the sunlight, emitted a mysterious radiance.

He sat in a chair prepared in the garden, using everything around him as his background. The way he sat with his long legs crossed for his age, drawing pictures, was unmistakably that of a young aristocrat.

When I stopped abruptly, Sabrina, who had been grumbling and following behind me, bumped into my body with a thud.

“Ow! Why did you suddenly stop?”

“Who is that?”

I asked Sabrina subtly, as if testing her. Ricardo’s memory loss clearly happened between manifestation and awakening. But why had he become the nameless child of the east wing?

“What, who? Ah…”

Even while talking with Sabrina, I couldn’t take my eyes off the boy as if I were bound to him.

“I don’t really know either. But one thing is certain.”

“What?”

“That kid is annoying.”

That’s not really something you should say.

“In what way?”

“He doesn’t answer when people talk to him.”

I thought I knew the reason, but I didn’t bother adding to her words.

I left Sabrina’s words behind and carefully observed Ricardo. Ricardo’s attire was shabby, and not a single servant was attending to him.

“He stays in the east wing but sometimes comes out here to draw. But why are you staring at him so intently?”

He appeared free at first glance, but there were many watchful eyes around him.

“What? You do have an eye for looks though. He’s damn handsome, isn’t he? I was really shocked when I first saw him.”

It was subtle surveillance that would never be noticed from a child’s perspective. So the only places he could stay were the east wing, the gentle hill connected to the east wing, and this garden.

“Is he… similar to me?”

“What? A bastard child?”

Yes, this tactless Sabrina. Even when she speaks, she has to…

“He’s not a bastard.”

“How do you know that?”

“His surname isn’t Fennel. He has no name.”

“No name?”

The child of the east wing didn’t mean his name was forbidden to be called, but literally meant he truly had no name. While I observed him more closely, Sabrina’s unkind explanation continued.

“From what I heard, he has natural talent for painting, so father brought him here, but Justin should explain it properly for it to make sense.”

Even though it was clear I wouldn’t be welcomed if I approached him right now, my steps were already heading toward him.

One step, two steps, three steps.

Perhaps noticing me approaching, he raised his head. Our eyes met directly at close range. As if connected by an invisible string, my eyes seemed to be drawn into his.

It was the moment he tilted his head questioningly.

‘Wh-what is this?’

An unbelievable emotion rang loudly in my chest. Even though the memories of love weren’t completely intact, could my heart ache and hurt this much?

What I was feeling now wasn’t the kind of emotion that makes your heart flutter when you see flowers blooming by the roadside, but the devastating feeling of seeing ruins crumbling down every time I looked. It was the kind of pain where my entire heart was completely scraped by a red-hot iron skewer.

I thought that vivid emotion I felt last night was just a temporary whirlwind caused by all the unbelievable things that happened at once…

“Don’t come closer.”

But at the voice that reached me clearly, the sharp sensation cutting through my chest shattered like glass.

“Huh, why, why?”

“I can’t allow a slave to come close.”

“What?”

A low voice for a child, and an expression sharp enough to feel unsettling, too mature for his age.

Perhaps that’s why he was even more annoying. So for the first time in my life, I found myself agreeing with Sabrina’s opinion.

I could hear Sabrina giggling from behind.

Even when this kid blocked my way and forced me to be rude in the corridor, he wasn’t as irritating as he was now.

“Don’t laugh, Sabrina.”

I should have immediately poured out a lecture to correct his rude manner of speaking, but I couldn’t help but look down at my own attire first.

His situation didn’t seem much different from mine, but a handsome face was truly remarkable. No matter what you dressed him in, he just didn’t look like a slave at all.

****

Back in my room, I fell into thought while biting my thumbnail.

The current emperor of Dermaier naturally feared the oracle given to Ricardo. My biological father, Count Fennel, received orders from the emperor to kidnap and imprison Ricardo, who was taking refuge in the principality.

Ricardo is currently hiding his name. He might have been threatened by Count Fennel, or he might not have wanted to reveal it himself.

[The one who will kill his father and become the sun of heaven.]

Perhaps Ricardo, like the emperor, believes that Duke Rochester, who feared the oracle, abandoned him.

Tap, tap, thud, tap.

But why did she follow me all the way here?

“Hey! You’re being noisy.”

“There’s nothing to see since it’s a slave’s room.”

Having nothing to do, Sabrina had followed me to my room and was carrying around a child’s fan, tapping here and there.

I wanted to tell her to shut up immediately, but I couldn’t help but survey my room, which looked like one a slave would use.

“But, Sabrina.”

Sabrina snapped open her fan, half-covering her face and giving me a sideways glance.

“What? Are you going to tell me to leave?”

“That’s not it, it’s about your brother.”

“Brother? Ah, Justin Rowe Fennel, that bastard?”

At this point, I became quite curious about what Sabrina would say about me when she went around.

“Yes, that Justin. Blonde with blue eyes, right?”

Sabrina suddenly widened her eyes and glared at me.

“You’re doing this on purpose to make fun of me right now, aren’t you?”

There would be countless reasons why Sabrina disliked me, but the biggest reason among them was my hair color.

The color that has symbolized this family for generations is silver hair with blue eyes. That didn’t necessarily mean it appeared in every generation. That color was considered noble, and as rare and precious as it was, it became established as the family symbol.

In other words, the color of the family head—that was silver hair and blue eyes.

“You’re trying to tease me that I’m not even blonde, let alone silver-haired. Aren’t you?”

“No.”

At my firm answer, Sabrina’s mouth snapped shut.

“I’m the one being mistaken for a slave, so who am I to tease anyone? I don’t want to be swayed by such color games, not even a little bit. If I didn’t have silver hair and blue eyes, there would have been no reason for me to be dragged to this house.”

This was also my speculation, but that was the only reason I could think of for why Count Fennel gave only me the Fennel surname among his bastard children.

Sabrina looked quite shocked. That would be natural since she would think my being here was great fortune. Most bastard children of noble families lived lives worse than commoners.

“So where is your brother now?”

It wasn’t that I had never seen Justin. However, whenever I encountered him, I always kept my head down, and fear blurred my vision so I couldn’t see his hair color clearly.

“He went with father!”

Sabrina shouted. Well, how was I supposed to know where her brother was in the first place? Come to think of it, I seemed to have heard it briefly.

That he was currently devoted to studying to be the family head.

“How old is he?”

“Don’t you even know brother’s age?”

“No.”

Sabrina let out a deep sigh.

“He’s sixteen.”

Justin didn’t abuse Ricardo from the beginning. One day, he happened to see Ricardo’s painting, which was beautiful enough to be called a masterpiece.

Captivated by the world drawn by the nameless child of the east wing and by Ricardo himself, who would later be called the absolute beauty of the empire, Justin expressed his twisted affection by horribly abusing him.

The fact that he was sixteen meant that his twisted hatred toward Ricardo had already begun.

I closed my eyes for a moment and recalled that moment when I was dragged to the stake. Ricardo was definitely there at that place too.

With empty eyes that only the dead would have.

In my incomplete memories, Ricardo was covered in blood. Having clearly come from endlessly cutting and slashing something with a sharp sword, he seemed as if he had become a sword himself.

I looked down at my small hands and gaunt, thin arms.

What could I do with this insignificantly weak body? Could I really protect him?

Listening to the irregular noise that Sabrina continued to make with her fan, I fell into deep contemplation.