"No, please hold on... Please." With trembling fingertips, Diena unleashed her ability. A soft light enveloped Varkan’s wound, but there was no response. The ability of purification could only dispel darkness; it lacked the power to hold onto a fading life. Even knowing this, she couldn't stop her hands.
"Stop it... Diena." Varkan’s voice was faint but resolute. "Don't be foolish. You have to survive, at least."
"You should have just left me behind instead! Why...!"
Varkan let out a faint smile. "How could I abandon you? You're my sister."
But Diena wasn't even his biological sister. Worse, she belonged to the Duke of Rothwell's family—the very house that had ruined his own family, the Kardians.
"Why don't you resent me? If it weren't for me, you could have lived grandly as the strongest of them all." These were the words she had wanted to ask for the past few years. Words she had swallowed out of sheer cowardice, only to finally blurt them out at the most pathetic moment.
At Diena’s tearful cry, Varkan slowly shook his head. "Not once have I ever hated you."
"But..."
With a trembling hand, Diena gently stroked Varkan's face. "At least you should live on. Be happy..."
Varkan’s eyes closed, and in that moment, the world fell utterly silent. Diena buried her face in the back of his hand and wept. She, too, had already reached her limit. Her life was fading away as the price for recklessly overusing her ability.
Tears streamed down.
"I won't... leave things like this."
If she were ever given another chance at life, she would never forgive those who destroyed her family. She would find a way to take revenge on the people who brought Varkan to this state.
Inside the cave where the blizzard had finally stopped, the warmth of the two slowly grew cold.
Although Diena did not know who her mother was, she had a father who cherished her dearly. However, the year she turned fourteen, he went out for a monster subjugation and vanished without a trace. The father who had always been her dependable shield was suddenly gone.
In the blink of an eye, the Duchy of Rothwell fell into the hands of her uncle, and Diena became an unwelcome guest in her own home.
At first, Diena held onto a sliver of hope. He was her father’s brother, after all, so she believed that even if he couldn’t replace her father, he would at least become her guardian. True to her expectations, her uncle expressed deep sorrow for the fatherless Diena.
"Diena, from now on, consider me your father."
However, her aunt and cousins refused to even treat her as family. This was because, while people generally awakened their special abilities at the age of fourteen, Diena remained powerless even after her birthday had passed.
It was a world where even those born into high nobility were not treated as nobles if they failed to awaken an ability, and commoners with powerful abilities could rise to become high-ranking aristocrats. Normally, this wasn’t an issue, as most noble children awakened their powers and became ability users. But in the rare cases where they failed, they were treated worse than commoners. Being abandoned by one's family was a frequent occurrence.
The only reason her uncle had been able to seize control of the Rothwell Duchy so easily after the former Duke’s disappearance was because he was a powerful ability user.
Whenever her uncle was away, Diena's cousin, Romie, would curl up one side of her lips and sneer.
"Hey, I’m the lady of this house now. If you want to keep freeloading here, you need to earn your keep. See that rag over there? Take it and clean my room top to bottom."
Romie tilted her head with a haughty expression, crossing her arms. Her older brother, Cain, chuckled as if finding the spectacle amusing.
"Wow, this is hilarious. To think the grand Lady of Rothwell has become our Romie's maid."
Diena silently lowered her eyes. From the very beginning, she never had a choice.
Not wanting to burden her busy uncle, she hid her suffering away. And just like that, Diena, who had once been the beloved princess of the Rothwell family, fell to a status lower than that of a common housemaid.
Yet, perhaps heaven hadn't entirely abandoned her. Around the age of sixteen, Diena finally awakened her ability.
The ability of Purification.
It was a vital power that healed other ability users, whose bodies accumulated darkness the more they used their skills. From that moment on, her family’s attitude shifted completely. Her aunt, who had always treated her with a freezing coldness, approached her with a bright, beaming smile.
"Our Diena, you’ve finally awakened your ability!"
Her cousins, who had always treated her like a servant, also wore apologetic expressions as they hugged her.
"Diena, I'm so sorry. I was so mean to you, wasn't I? I was just too young back then. I won't ever do it again."
It wasn't that Diena wasn't wary of them. However, a single word from her uncle—the only person who had ever pitied her—caused the sorrow that had built up in her heart to melt away like snow.
"Diena, I always believed in you. I knew you would become the pride of our family."
She truly believed that happiness had finally found her.
It took a very long time for her to realize that this belief was nothing but an illusion.
At the age of twenty, her uncle succeeded in his treason.
Having ascended to the emperor's throne, a festive atmosphere swept through the Rothwell estate day after day. In stark contrast, however, the atmosphere in Diena's room was utterly gloomy.
'I have nothing left.'
Nothing but a body that was about to die.
Diena looked at the personal physician standing before her.
"Could you repeat that?"
"What I am telling you right now, my lady, is said at the risk of my own life."
"……."
"If you use your ability any more than this, you will die."
Diena blinked slowly.
"This is the result of recklessly overusing your ability in such a short period of time while your body was still growing."
The physician continued, looking at her with pity.
"Every doctor who examined you before was silenced by the Duke. He threatened to kill everyone if you ever found out."
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because I am from the Kardian estate. I am destined to be purged anyway. I am sorry... for turning a blind eye until now."
Letting out a hollow laugh, Diena walked aimlessly until she found her uncle.
'It has to be a lie.'
There was no way her uncle would do that to her. Even when his family despised her, he had cherished her.
However—
"Tsk, so you finally found out."
Her uncle shed his mask instantly.
"Yes. It is thanks to your power of purification that our family was able to rise to the highest seat. You've worked hard all this time, Diena."
He casually admitted that he had merely used her ability for his own gain. Diena’s body trembled violently with a sense of betrayal.
"Did it not matter to you even if I died?"
"It couldn't be helped if we wanted to defeat those pests, the Kardians. Shouldn't you feel honored to have sacrificed yourself for the family?"
The Duke of Rothwell smiled brightly, as if her life didn't matter in the slightest.
"You told me we were family."
"Yes, we are family. Which is exactly why you need to work harder, isn't it? To remain a part of this family."
The Duke of Rothwell continued in a cold, detached voice.
"You are not my biological daughter. Yet, I raised you no differently from my own. So now, pay the price for that care."
"Uncle……."
"There are still many remnants of the Kardian family left. You must not rest until we finish them off."
Her uncle's eyes were filled with absolute certainty. A certainty that Diena would never refuse his words.
And normally, Diena would have done just that. She would have done her absolute best, just as she always had. Because they were family. She had offered her unconditional devotion to them her entire life. But as if mocking her loyalty, the Duke of Rothwell smiled ruthlessly and delivered his final command.
"Sacrifice yourself for the family until the very end."
Diena slowly opened her eyes.
It had been a long time since she had dreamed of the past. To think she would recall her life at the Rothwell estate and her final moments with Varkan. Was she seeing her life flash before her eyes just before dying?
The final memory in the cave was vividly clear in her mind. Varkan had died, and her own breathing had stopped. Diena blinked her eyes.
'Am I not dead? Where on earth am I?'
Splash!
It was then. Freezing cold water poured over her head. Startled, Diena whipped her head to the side.
"Romie……?"
"Romie? Who said you could call me that?"
Diena was bewildered.
"What the... you……."
It was definitely her cousin Romie, but she looked so young. Was she still dreaming?
After Diena had awakened her ability, Romie had never openly mistreated her like this.
'Even if she looked down on me and sneered behind my back, she always pretended to be close to me on the surface.'
This was because Romie would get scolded by her uncle whenever she acted out of line.
"I told you to call me Lady Romie. Do you still think you're a high and mighty lady of this house?"
Lady Romie. That was the title Diena used to call her before she awakened her ability. Romie knitted her brows in irritation.
"Anyway, don't you dare come out of your room for the time being. You don't even need to clean."
"……."
"The people from the Five Great Families are visiting in two days. Got it? If they see someone like you, it'll only ruin their mood."
Leaving those words behind, Romie stormed out of the room with a maid. Diena stared blankly at her retreating back.
'This is strange. It should be a dream, but it feels far too real.'
Diena moved her feet slowly. There was cold water sitting inside a battered brass bowl. Reflected faintly on its surface was a face that was both unfamiliar and intimately known.
It was the face of a young girl in her mid-teens. Diena's eyes widened, and she took a step back in shock.
She pinched her arm.
"Ow... it hurts……."
She could feel the pain. Which meant that this situation was not a dream.
'I've... become younger?'
She didn't know how such a thing was possible, but she had returned to the past.
And Romie had just mentioned that the people from the Five Great Families would arrive in two days. If so, she could guess exactly what time period this was.
'That was when Brother Varkan came to Rothwell for the very first time.'
Varkan Kardian, the young master of the Kardian Duchy.
The man who, in her past life, had saved her after she fled the Rothwell estate.
At the realization that she was about to meet him as a child, her heart began to thud wildly against her chest.
