Many girls dream of becoming princesses.
It must be because the princess in fairy tales is loved even if she does nothing, and lives happily with a wonderful prince under the protection of her father, the king.
I was born as an imperial princess, a higher rank than anyone else.
But I was never loved.
“It's all because of you!”
My mother, the Empress, was
You blame me often. The reason is that…
“It is not enough to not be a son but a daughter, so everyone looks at me with disdain especially when it is something as defective as you!”
Emperor Siegfried, who founded the Schwanherd Empire, had purple eyes, and his assistant and companion, the lake spirit Odette Rwenheim, had platinum-blonde, moonlight-like hair and golden eyes.
Their children were born with blond hair and purple eyes,
Which became a symbol of ownership.
People described the women of the imperial family with bleached-blonde hair as bright as the moon as swans.
It was because of legend that Rauenheim often took on the appearance of a swan.
But unfortunately, my hair was black,
Unlike my mother's silver hair and my father's blonde hair.
Black, the common and modest hair color of northern barbarians, was a color the Empire did not like.
At least my eyes were purple, so my father, the Emperor, recognized me as his daughter and gave me the name Cornelia.
But my mother was ashamed of the name.
“Cornelia, His Majesty clearly considers you something of a failure as well!”
This name caused my mother to have a tantrum.
Cornelia means “wisdom,” but it also means “ugly crow.”
“Be obedient, understand?”
My mother tried to control my every move, I was considered something defective, and if I did not meet her standards, she would scold me harshly, hit me with her fist or say offensive words.
Her abuse stopped when I was six years old and my younger brother was born.
He was a son with blond hair, not black like me.
My mother no longer hits or abuses me.
But at the same time, she didn't care about me.
“Look, mother, I've learned all the imperial etiquette this time.”
“Mum, Sir Taylor says I'm good with a sword.”
“Mom, this time...”
I clung to my mother to the point of submission.
Like a beggar begging on the street, I wanted to receive a little affection.
But she looked at me with disgust.
“What are you doing while you are standing? Get her out of my sight!”
What caught my attention was my nanny, who usually bullied me quietly.
Her hand, grabbing my arm, was so strong that I screamed.
"It hurts! Mom!"
Little Cornelia looked at her mother as if asking for help, but she immediately closed the door to the room.
The cheerful nanny pulled my bruised wrist and whispered softly.
“You should be punished for not listening today.”
If she was dragged like this, she would be locked in a dark closet for hours.
Terrified, she looked around. However, there was no one to help her, even her mother was gone.
'There's no one around to protect me so...'
I bit the nanny's arm.
“Agh!”
clink-!
After breaking the decorative vase on the small table,
She picked up a piece of it and pointed it at the nanny.
“If any of you try to touch me, I will kill you all!”
"Ah we get it. Now come on, put it on! You might get hurt!"
It was only one small shard, but everyone was struggling to reach me.
“You, take it from her. If the princess gets hurt, it’s our responsibility...”
“But what if I get stabbed!”
Even though I was young, I had a strong spirit.
They treated me harshly, but only when supported by my mother's authority.
That's why they couldn't touch me when I was acting unexpectedly, and they were afraid too.
'I have to move on here'
Without hesitation, I put force into the hand holding the shard.
Reply-! Reply-!
When drops of red blood fell on the white marble,
I raised my voice loudly and cried.
In any case, she is from the royal family.
Now that they saw the blood in my body, they couldn't escape.
***
“Your Highness, how did you get hurt so much?”
In response to the imperial family doctor's question, I pointed to the nanny.
“The nanny made me clean the broken vase.”
“Hah! When did I do that! Don’t lie!”
The nanny protested as if it was unfair, but this was not the kind of behavior an inferior person would do.
There was no way her mother could care much about a court maid.
Soon after, the governess was flogged and expelled from the palace.
Then, when I saw the maids being polite to me, I repeated the action.
'I shouldn't be satisfied. At that moment, they will look at me with disdain.'
I have to protect my body myself, it's better to look scary than superficial.
I had to take advantage of my status as a princess.
After this enlightenment reached her at the age of ten, she began wearing expensive clothes and acting evil so as not to be ignored.
Five years passed like this.
“I must have told you, be quiet and unobtrusive!”
I laughed out loud at the words of my mother, the Empress.
No matter how well I listened to her, she didn't care about me. Every time I had an accident like this, she would yell at me.
So I decided to act crazy.
"You're smiling too well for what you did! Do you even know who the lady you slapped was?"
“Yes, I do, but I have slapped so many people that I cannot remember them.”
Slap-!
My mother, who had slapped me on the cheek, was staring at me angrily. I looked at her like that and opened my mouth.
“Aren’t you curious why I slapped that girl on the cheek? Or what kind of insults she said to me behind my back?...”
“If you were like Madeleine, would you be offended?”
She mocked me and then started comparing me to my cousin.
I thought I'd be able to listen to it because I've always heard it.
But instinct warned her, saying, Get out of the room and don't listen to what is being said.
My mother quickly looked at me angrily and opened her mouth.
“Useless, if only you had died in my womb.
Why are you trying to prevent me and interfere in your brother's path? “
For five years, no, since I was born,
I thought I had gotten used to her loudness and become indifferent.
However, hearing words of wanting not to exist from someone
I wanted to be loved by him and it made my heart break.
But my voice was dangerous.
“If you're just going to give a clear speech, I'll go.”
I heard my mother verbally insulting me behind my back, but I didn't care and walked upright.
It was because it was clear that if she shed even a tear here,
I will be mocked and ignored by the servants.
The only person who followed me when I left the room was the slave I had brought after giving away my allowance for a year.
“Don't bother following me and go.”
However, it was just a superficial master-slave relationship as he turned away at my words, and it was as if no one was by my side.
'If he had seen me crying in the first place, he would have ignored me too..'
The Abandoned Palace Garden, located at the corner of the Imperial Palace, had been neglected for ominous reasons, so there was no one to make fun of me even when I cried.
I went there unnoticed.
“Why did you hit me? That girl insulted you...
She said I was an illegitimate child from your affair...”
She hated being cursed by her mother more than my mother hated me.
Even though I was a failure, I loved you, beautiful and elegant, and considered you a source of pride for me.
I ended up crying in the end.
“I hate myself too”
I also wanted to be loved.
I wanted to be my mother's proud daughter.
For people to call her a swan instead of a crow and to treat her like a princess.
But I was well aware of the reality.
“Everyone hates me because I'm flawed...”
And at that moment I screamed in self-deprecation.
swish-!
I felt blood coming out of my body when I heard the voice of someone close to me.
I quickly wiped my tears and screamed.
“Get out now!”
Soon someone appeared. It was a blond boy who looked a little older than me.
‘He seems to be an aristocrat, but also from a prestigious family.’
The clothes are not flashy but luxurious, and the gentle gait approaching me made me guess his identity.
But most of all, it was his appearance that caught my attention.
Blond hair that can be clearly seen even in the shadows,
Eyes as blue as a lake,
The moment our eyes met him, like an angel in flame,
I felt a strange familiarity.
'strange. There's no way I couldn't remember a face like that if I met him...'
As I was reminiscing, he bowed his head towards me.
“Sorry. I didn't mean to listen...”
I soon realized something and panicked.
“Did you hear all that?”
The princess described herself as flawed while crying alone.
If this boy makes fun of me, I'm sure I'll be ridiculed and ignored again.
I froze my face and spoke fiercely.
“If you tell anyone what happened here...”
Then he offered me something.
It was a handkerchief embroidered with a golden dragon.
Wait a minute...!
When I realized his true identity and was stunned, he looked directly at me and said, “However, please do not consider yourself a defective person because to me, Her Highness the Princess… you are the most noble person in the world.”
Under normal circumstances,
I was going to laugh at him because he said that to me without even knowing.
But it was also the first.
A violently beating heart, a burning sensation in the face, a feeling that someone is beautiful.
I even forgot to warn him.
At that time he looked at me and opened his mouth with a radiant smile.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone what happened here, Your Highness.”
The moment I heard these words,
For some reason, anticipation and confusion reigned at the same time.
I grabbed the handkerchief and watched him retreat.
'Don't expect too much or you will be disappointed.'
This was my first meeting with my husband, Eric Lennon Brant.
* * *
Since the day I met Eric Lennon Brant, the handkerchief has been cleaned and preserved.
But honestly, it was a headache for me.
'Eric Lennon Brant was Madeleine Argen's childhood friend, right?'
Madeleine Argen. As a cousin the same age as me,
She was the person my mother compared me to when she belittled me.
Madeleine always spoke of her friendship with the nobles as if she were boasting to me, the Duke of Brant being at the head of them.
'Yes, Madeleine's friend...it must be a ploy to make fun of me.'
There is no way to be disappointed if you were not expecting anything in the first place.
I realized this when I discovered that the messy boy who used to hand me flowers on Foundation Day no longer came.
“I think he was trying to make fun of me,
But he should do his best to make fun of anyone!”
The moment I was about to throw the napkin into the stove.
When I remembered the blue eyes looking at me and saying those words, my heart began to beat and beat with pain.
After a while, an image of someone appeared in my mind.
A thin, miserable body with messy brown hair that obscured his face.
It reminded me of the boy who handed me flowers for some reason, even though he was clearly a very different person than Eric Lennon Brant.
I couldn't bear to burn the tissue and put it in the drawer.