Yuan first met Louise ten years ago.

Her parents were always busy maintaining the reputation of the Peliesse family, which had produced renowned medical scholars for generations.

Her father, the head of the family, interacted with medical scholars in the capital, while her mother followed him to events to assist.

Young Yuan could only meet her parents in the depths of winter.

In winter, her parents returned to the Peliesse mansion to plan and prepare for the next year.

During all seasons except winter, young Yuan writhed in loneliness.

She wandered in her father’s study, tracing his presence, and lingered in her mother’s bedroom, seeking the scent she left behind during winter.

Her parents said that living such a busy life was the destiny of the Peliesse family.

Nobles don’t work, but the Peliesse family was different.

They said the Peliesse family gained such fame because the first head of the family was a famous doctor who once saved the Emperor from death a very long time ago.

They said they must not forget their roots and must protect the power of the Peliesse family.

Her parents were quite strict but also affectionate.

So Yuan always looked forward to winter.

She loved having her parents and herself, this perfect family, at home.

Ah, no.

For the family to be ‘perfect’, Louise had to be there too.

Louise was Yuan’s sister, whom she had never met since birth when Yuan was 10 years old.

The reason given was that she was recuperating on some warm southern island due to an illness that even all the capabilities of the Peliesse family couldn’t cure.

Winter at age 10.

Yuan was overjoyed at the short letter from her mother.

Finally, her sister is coming to the mansion.

Finally, a small family member I can rely on in this vast mansion during my parents’ absence.

My parents, Louise, and I, these four people, a perfect family, spending this winter in this mansion.

The simple enumeration of these facts made young Yuan’s heart swell.

From that day on, Yuan imagined happy scenarios every day.

The face of a 12-year-old girl, beautifully dressed, smiling brightly at Yuan.

And behind her, their parents watching them contentedly.

Walking the corridors together that she had always walked alone, running around among the usually indifferent servants together.

Even scenes of the sisters growing up and choosing dresses together for the imperial debutante ball, every girl’s dream.

Just imagining it made her happy.

But the reality that arrived was the opposite of her imagination.

“Miss, the Madam… the Count…”

Hurried footsteps.

The snowstorm blowing in from the huge front door flung open.

Knights appearing with small icicles hanging from their beards and a pale-faced butler.

“While bringing Lady Louise, the carriage on the snowy road…”

Behind the knight kneeling and wailing, another knight entered the mansion, protecting a girl.

The unfamiliar girl, with a face red from the cold, unable to shed tears and frozen, stopped abruptly as soon as she saw Yuan.

Then, refusing support, she staggered towards Yuan.

“You must be Yuan.”

Her trembling voice was very weak.

“You’re my little sister.”

The girl approached Yuan, who was standing still as if she had forgotten how to speak.

“I’m your sister, Louise Peliesse.”

And she pulled Yuan into her cold embrace.

Beyond Louise’s small shoulders as she lowered herself, Yuan saw something covered with two cloaks.

It was her parents’ bodies.

***

There was nothing particularly special about the tragedy of the Peliesse Count family.

The death of the Count and Countess was a carriage accident common in winter.

And the situation of orphaned children being left with relatives was quite ordinary.

Even the event of an uncle and his family barging into a house left with only children to inherit the title was not, in a way, an unusual situation.

“Now we are all Peliesse!”

The only thing that mattered was that the uncle was someone young Yuan had never seen before.

“It means we’re really one family now!”

And that there was no such thing as the care Yuan had in mind.

***

Yuan had to accept a new family even before she could escape the grief of losing her parents.

“So this is my brother’s research room.”

Uncle Gerret Peliesse, with his curly black hair forcibly slicked back with oil, sat his heavy bottom down on the desk in the research room full of her father’s traces.

As if overcome with emotion, he stroked the majestic chair’s armrest, then suddenly choked up and rubbed his cheek against the desk.

“I never thought I’d sit in this place.”

After opening the safe and clicking his tongue, the uncle saw Yuan standing still in front of the research room door and said just one thing.

“Isn’t there a safe where your father hid gold or land deeds?”

***

Aunt Priscilla was a very short woman with a skinny body.

Wearing heavy makeup and tottering in high heels to hide her short stature, she freely rummaged through the bedroom still holding her mother’s scent.

“Not much in terms of housekeeping. But there are many things that look quite precious.”

The flashily dressed aunt frowned at the closet filled with her mother’s neat clothes.

“I expected more from nobles, but all the clothes just smell of books.”

The aunt immediately drove out most of the maids and filled the Peliesse mansion with people she brought.

She opened her mother’s jewelry box and sold everything as she pleased, gradually changing the Peliesse mansion to her own taste.

“Does this tiny girl know how to read ledgers?”

The aunt, who was a merchant’s daughter but far from numbers, immediately brightened when she heard that Yuan, whom she had been treating like a maid to be driven out, had been learning ledger management over the shoulder of the butler.

“I needed a lady’s maid anyway, this works out well.”

***

The cousins brought by the new Count and Countess Peliesse were children who completely surpassed Yuan’s common sense.

Regina, who was the same age as Yuan, opened her mouth wide as soon as she entered the mansion following her uncle.

Young Regina, who licked her lips while examining everything from the entrance to the first-floor lobby and the decorations on the stair railings, let out a scream-like exclamation when she entered Yuan’s room.

“All this is mine now!”

Even with the room’s owner following her, Regina didn’t bat an eye as she hurriedly opened the wardrobe, rummaged through the clothes, and opened drawers and jewelry boxes, trying on accessories Yuan had received as birthday gifts from her parents.

“They all suit me better, don’t they?”

Neither the uncle nor the aunt pointed out their daughter’s rudeness.

The uncle was busy consulting with a lawyer to see if there was any hidden fortune left by her father, while the aunt was busy searching the entire house and evaluating the artworks and jewels her mother had brought as a dowry.

“Lady Yuan Peliesse? Pfft.”

When the butler, who had protected the house until the end, called Yuan that, Regina rolled on the floor laughing, holding her stomach.

The pretty new cousin with red hair and green eyes, who laughed so hard she was in tears, hurled insults at Yuan without hesitation.

“Now my father is Count Peliesse. You’re just my mother’s lady’s maid and practically my maid. Know your place.”

After losing her room, Regina, who always came to Yuan’s newly assigned room looking for anything else to take, eventually even exchanged the black dress Yuan had worn throughout her parents’ funeral for a real maid’s outfit, claiming it ‘didn’t suit a maid’.

The butler who protested was driven out, and even the head maid who was dumbfounded left the mansion, leaving Yuan to wilt more and more, unable to hide her shock.

The new servants not only didn’t treat Yuan and Louise like young ladies, but when the Count and Countess weren’t looking, they joined Regina and Frederick in bullying them.

They had to prepare their own meals, and the few old clothes that remained after Regina took everything had to be washed by the sisters themselves as they had become too small.

It was only when the uncle, who knew nothing about the family business of the Peliesse, started asking Yuan about various things that she began to be treated as something other than a maid.

The uncle, who was already constantly compared to the previous generation, made up stories for his family but called Yuan to the research room.

Naturally, the servants could no longer treat Yuan, who frequented the research room, as a maid, and the aunt also needed Yuan for the headache-inducing ledger management, so their attitude improved slightly.

Meanwhile, those who were most bothered by Yuan in the mansion were Regina and Frederick.

Especially the fact that Yuan could freely enter and exit the research room, which was off-limits to everyone else, became a turning point for not only Regina but also Frederick, who had shown no interest in household affairs until then.

“I hit girls too. If you act arrogant, I’ll make sure you can’t use that face again.”

After taking care of family matters instead of her uncle.

Helping her aunt without rest.

After having all the candies and snacks that her uncle had given her as a reward taken away by Regina.

Frederick was a sturdy boy aspiring to enter the military academy, and his threats were a terror to Yuan.

Yuan felt like she was walking on thin ice every day.

For quite a long time, while mourners continued to visit the mansion, Yuan lost her words like someone with aphasia and just crouched down blankly, not knowing how to live among these unfamiliar family members.

For Yuan, her sister Louise was also an unfamiliar family member.

Then one day, when she heard her uncle and aunt arguing about driving the Yuan sisters out, Yuan’s anxiety reached its peak.

Louise, who was listening to the couple’s quarrel echoing through the mansion together with Yuan, quietly approached her and encouraged her.

Despite having bruises on her arms and legs from falling or being hit somewhere.

“Let’s do something, Yuan.”

“…”

“Let’s work harder at whatever they want, whether it’s being a lady’s maid or a maid.”

“…”

“If we become useful people, they won’t abandon us.”

Yuan nodded quietly in Louise’s embrace.

But she couldn’t stop the resentment, anger, and blame remaining in a corner of her heart from being directed at Louise.

‘If only it wasn’t for you.’

If only they hadn’t rushed to bring you home in the carriage on that day when the snow was falling heavily.

If only my parents, who always hugged me warmly even though I couldn’t see them often, hadn’t died.

Young Yuan was sometimes overwhelmed with resentment and despair, even with the sister she had always dreamed of right in front of her.

While relying on Louise and living through hellish days, she always had nightmares.

The scene was always the same.

Early morning. A day when snow was falling heavily.

The bodies of her parents brought by Louise, who entered through the front door with the snowstorm.

Whenever things were tough, Yuan always had nightmares of returning to that day when she lost everything, and Louise embraced her knowing this.

“Yuan, your sister loves you. I’ll always be by your side.”

I’m glad you’re here, sister.

As ten years passed, at some point, Yuan felt the urge to melt away her resentment and tell Louise that.

Although she had never said it.

***

And now again.

Yuan, like that day 10 years ago.

Like the nightmare she always had.

Faced the snow wind blowing in from outside the entrance alone.

Slowly replaying the words spoken to her by the man who had taken away a living Louise and now brought back a dead Louise.

“Your Highness, the Former Crown Princess.”

It was natural for the mansion to be in an uproar at the title used by the man called Marquis Kompani to address Yuan.

“We must leave together immediately.”