Sister, I'm the Queen This Life (330 Chapters Left to Complete) - Chapter 10

In her previous life, Maleta’s younger sister had died of starvation at the Lambouyé Orphanage.

Ariadne intended to show Maleta exactly that. If you don’t listen to me properly, I’ll leave you right here. You’ll meet the same fate as your sister.

“I’d like to go where there are people suffering even more. Is there anything I can do?”

“Well… there’s bath duty for the sick, but…”

“Then I’ll take that.”

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There was a reason the administrator had trailed off. Though it sounded noble—bathing the sick—in reality, it was horrific. Inside a long, isolated corridor lay patients with no hope of recovery, packed tightly together on filthy straw bedding.

Death’s shadow hung thickly over their gaunt, skeletal bodies. There were neither proper facilities, supplies, nor staff to care for them.

Even considering this orphanage was funded solely by the queen’s budget and therefore financially strained, the situation was so appalling it could reasonably be seen as intentional neglect—maintaining only a facade while deliberately starving the poor to death.

‘So that’s why the administrator didn’t want to send me here.’

Unlike Ariadne, who calmly pondered the situation, Maleta’s face had gone deathly pale. It had been barely two years since Isabella had rescued her from this very chaos.

Vivid memories of hunger, cold, and the terror of possibly dying were flooding back.

Frantically, Maleta scanned the area for a red-haired patient. What should she do if she found her younger sister—the one she’d abandoned and left behind two years ago?

Ariadne, too, was searching for a red-haired patient.

‘Could that child be her?’

As Ariadne began approaching a small girl among the sick, Maleta cried out in alarm.

“Miss, wait just a moment…!”

Convinced she had to leave before encountering her sister, Maleta grabbed Ariadne’s wrist, her face ashen.

Their bare skin met—Ariadne’s exposed wrist against Maleta’s hand.

– Fzzzt!

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A powerful dizziness struck her. In her mind flashed lightning and hazy clouds—then something ‘appeared’ within Ariadne’s thoughts.

– ‘I can only take one of you. Which one should I choose?’

It was Isabella. She stood outside the Lambouyé Orphanage, in the section reserved for the healthy poor.

Before her stood a slightly younger, even more ragged Maleta—and beside her, a frail, freckled girl with the same red hair.

– ‘Which of you is smarter? Which works harder?’

The scrawny girl pleaded with Isabella.

– ‘Miss, my sister and I have grown up together since we were little. We’ll work hard—please take us both!’

Isabella remained indifferent.

– ‘There’s only room for one. Don’t tell me why I should take both of you. Tell me why I should choose *you*.’

The young Maleta shoved the frail girl aside and knelt before Isabella. Pressing her forehead to the ground, hands clasped together, she cried out desperately.

– ‘Noble miss! Sanca has sticky fingers and an incurable coughing sickness!’

Sanca stared at Maleta in shock. Maleta clenched her teeth and turned away.

– ‘If you’re taking only one, it must be me! She’s too young to be of any help—weak and feeble like a baby mouse! I’ll work like an ox! Please take me, miss!’

Isabella looked intrigued.

– ‘You’ve got ambition, don’t you?’

– ‘I’ll work hard, miss!’

– ‘Fine, you it is.’

Isabella slowly turned and began walking away from the orphanage’s courtyard, Maleta in tow. Sanca, realizing Maleta was truly abandoning her, screamed in panic.

– ‘Sister! Sister!’

Maleta’s hurried, placating voice followed.

– ‘Shh! Stay quiet! Once I get paid at that house, I’ll send it to you! I’ll save up and get you out of the orphanage. One of us has to make it—if even one does well, the whole family benefits. Understand? Be good and wait for me!’

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“Miss? Miss?”

Maleta was shaking Ariadne’s shoulder in alarm.

Annoyed that Maleta had touched her without permission, Ariadne sharply knocked her hand away. Embarrassed, Maleta lowered her hand and asked again.

“Miss, are you all right? You suddenly froze and didn’t move—I was startled.”

“How long was I like that?”

“Very briefly—about two or three seconds?”

“That’s fine.”

What did I just see? A memory from the past? Was it real—or not? It was time to verify.

Pretending not to know Maleta, Ariadne approached the red-haired girl lying motionless among the poor and knelt beside her. With feigned gentleness, she wiped the girl’s forehead with a damp cloth and asked softly,

“How are you feeling?”

The girl’s face, turned toward her, belonged to a child of twelve or thirteen. Even at an age when baby fat should still cling to her cheeks, they were sunken and hollow from malnutrition.

The freckled girl opened her pale green eyes and looked back and forth between Ariadne and Maleta.

“Since you entered the Lambouyé Orphanage, has your family ever sent you help?”

The freckled girl shook her head desperately. Maleta’s expression grew darker.

“Do you have an incurable coughing sickness?”

The girl’s headshake grew more frantic. Maleta’s face had now turned as pale as if Death himself had come for her.

“Maleta—do you know this child?”

“Well… that is…”

Though barely able to nod, the freckled girl shot Maleta a look brimming with hatred and despair, then seized Ariadne’s sleeve with all her remaining strength.

“Please… save me, please, miss…!”

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“No matter that you’re the cardinal’s daughter, special treatment is impossible.”

The administrator shook his head—this was his reply when Ariadne asked for Sanca’s life to be saved.

Though Ariadne was the daughter of the second most powerful man in San Carlo, it was all for show—like a gilded persimmon with no substance.

Her powerful father didn’t love her; he invested just enough to keep her as a tool and nothing more. She owned neither money nor authority in her own name. With no money, she couldn’t even afford to call a physician.

Though she’d returned from death itself, she remained a caged bird—still unable to choose anything for herself.

“I understand. Then I’ll give my share of today’s food to that girl.”

Ariadne’s allotted ration consisted only of half a dry loaf of bread and clean water.

She had Maleta soak the bread in boiling water, mash it into a thin porridge, and feed it to Sanca.

That was all she could do. Ariadne felt a deep, bitter helplessness.

Yet Sanca, it seemed, had been starved but otherwise healthy—within a day or two, she grew steadily stronger, like a stray kitten whose fur begins to shine after a few meals.

“Maleta, come here a moment.”

While staying in the nun’s quarters, Ariadne kept reflecting on the earlier ‘vision.’

When she asked Sanca the exact questions she’d seen in the vision, the answers matched perfectly—and Maleta’s terrified reaction suggested the ‘vision’ had shown a real event from the past.

“Grab my wrist again, like before.”

Maleta hesitantly took Ariadne’s wrist once more—but this time, nothing happened.

Apparently, skin-to-skin contact didn’t always trigger the vision.

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Having given her own food to Sanca, Ariadne quickly grew gaunt.

When she insisted on caring for Sanca, the administrator sent her back to the food line—likely afraid this sympathetic noble miss would latch onto another pitiful patient in the main hall.

‘Ah, I’m starving.’

Standing in the food line, Ariadne swallowed hard as she stared at the serving pot of soup.

Ordinarily, she wouldn’t touch such thin broth even if offered—but now, even the oily sheen on its surface looked irresistibly tempting. Yet every drop already had its owner; the orphanage’s poor were fiercely serious about food.

Having received nothing but an untouched bowl of soup at morning meal—her first missed meal since the evening before last—Ariadne leaned against a tree’s shade, trying to forget her hunger.

Just then, an apple suddenly appeared before her eyes.

‘Who?’

She looked up—and saw a handsome boy with dazzling blond hair and porcelain-pale features, dressed in silken court attire, holding out the apple.

“Want it?”

It was Prince Alfonso—far younger than Ariadne remembered, still a tender sapling of a youth, not yet hardened by time.

It felt unreal. He’d already been killed by Cesare.

Ariadne reached out and took the apple he offered. As her fingertips brushed his palm, she shivered at the warmth—proof that the past had truly returned, alive and moving, before her sins had yet been committed.

“You looked hungry…”

He smiled shyly, revealing neat white teeth between his wide lips.

Though Ariadne knew he was a prince, she replied in plain speech—the instinct of a woman in her thirties who’d weathered every storm.

“Thank you.”

She rubbed the apple quickly on her sleeve and took a large bite.

– Crunch!

It tasted like honey. After three days of starvation, sweetness on her tongue made resisting impossible—prince or no prince. The juice was refreshingly sweet.

One bite, then another—the apple vanished in moments, leaving only its core. Only then did Ariadne remember a prince stood before her.

Flustered, she hurriedly explained,

“I haven’t eaten in three days—thanks to you, I’ve had a proper snack.”

To mask her embarrassment, she emphasized the “three days” part—but Prince Alfonso, whether aware or not, simply gazed at her with gentle eyes.

“I heard you gave your food to a sick child.”

“Ah… it just happened.”

“I think that’s amazing. I don’t think I could give up my food.”

Ariadne couldn’t help but smile softly—unaware her expression had blossomed like a pear flower in spring.

“Neither could I.”

For some reason, pretending to be virtuous in front of Prince Alfonso felt awkward. She wasn’t bold enough to play the delicate damsel before the man she’d murdered.

“I only gave up the orphanage bread because it tastes awful—if it’d been something delicious, I wouldn’t have shared.”

Instead, she sounded boastful. Prince Alfonso looked slightly surprised and asked,

“The orphanage bread tastes bad?”

“It’s completely dry—no milk or butter, just flour and salt.”

“I see…”

Alfonso smiled ruefully—likely because the orphanage never served him the real food they gave the poor.

She made no show of recognizing him as a prince, and silence fell between them. It wasn’t the right moment to apologize for killing him.

Fortunately, the prince spoke again.

“How long will you stay here?”

“Until tomorrow.”

Had Isabella not acted spitefully, Ariadne would have returned home yesterday—the third day—and never met Prince Alfonso today.

Gently, he asked,

“Will you keep giving away your food until then?”

“Well, I planned to eat for myself starting today—but thanks to someone giving me an apple, I think I can last two more days.”

Ariadne grinned.

Prince Alfonso frowned slightly, as if troubled, then pulled a handkerchief-wrapped cookie from his pocket and offered it.

“I wish I had something more filling… but this is all I have.”

Ariadne accepted the handkerchief-wrapped cookie. At its corner, the initials ‘AFC’—for Alfonso de Carlo—were delicately embroidered in gold thread.

“I’ll enjoy it. Thank you.”

Watching the tall, thin girl walk off with the food still wrapped in his handkerchief, the golden-haired boy asked,

The afternoon sun, past its peak, showered them both in radiant light.

“What’s your name?”

“Ariadne. Ariadne de Mare.”