Chapter 2

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While Anastasia hesitated under the chair, the door to Ivan’s room opened from inside the church. Ivan, who came out to the chapel, shouted when he saw the guest.

“Count Lauderdale! Why are you here!?”

Count? Anastasia opened her eyes in surprise at Ivan’s words. She was ignorant, but she knew that there were commoners like her, nobles above her, and even higher nobles above them. And count was definitely a word for a nobleman.

It’s said that it’s hard to see one even once in your life.

The local lord also said that he ranked lowly among the nobles. But if he’s a count, He’s definitely a very powerful man. Why did such a person come here? My father and he know each other. But why did he call her mother’s name?

While Anastasia was bewildered by what had happened, the Count shouted.

“Get him!”

At the count’s cry, Ivan immediately tried to escape. But the count’s men were much faster.

They dragged the struggling Ivan before the count and forced him to his knees.

Anastasia found it hard to believe the situation before her..

Inside the church, even the prominent village chief bowed his head to her father and knelt.

He said he delivered the prayer of man to God and delivered the will of God to the earth. He was like God’s Messenger.

So in this church Ivan was like a god. The sight of the god kneeling on the floor was, above all, a shock to Anastasia.

Then Ivan and Anastasia’s eyes met. Ivan’s mouth shut.

‘Stay quiet.’

Anastasia stared blankly at his figure.

Anastasia was afraid of her father. This was true of before and after her mother had died.

He always imposed painful discipline on Anastasia and beat her every day for not following God’s will. But it was tolerable. Because I’m a bad kid. So I was forced to take the beating. But mom.

Anastasia recalled her mother’s grave that she had just seen.

Everything else was tolerable. Even if her father hit her more, she still wanted to go to her mother’s grave.

The only being who has kissed her since she was born. She sometimes shoved Anastasia’s tiny body away as if unwilling to see her, but more often than not, her mother carefully held her hand.

However, her beautiful and slender mother could not withstand the cold of this frozen land and lost her mind and then her heart. And then she passed away. The year before she died, she would lay down and speak incomprehensible words or only memorize her prayers.

Anastasia thought that the foreign language that her mother muttered whenever she met eyes with her was the language of paradise and remembered it alone without her father knowing. I’m sure there’s love in what you say every time you look at yourself.

When her mother fell asleep, Anastasia laid down next to her and slept with her. The warmth felt through her rough blanket was Anastasia’s only warmth. So, she just wanted to find the traces, but her father had never allowed her in five years.

However

Anastasia saw the Count’s leather shoes wandering around Ivan. This man was above her father. Could the count take me to my mother?

In the meantime, Count Lauderdale asked again in a harsh tone.

“Ivan, where’s Chloe?”

“Do you think I’m going to tell you?”

Ivan replied, giggling ridiculously. Then the Count grabbed Ivan by the collar and had his men punch him.

Pang! Blood splattered on the floor of the church with a dull sound. As the count’s minions again tried to throw their fists, Anastasia popped out from under her chair and blocked Ivan’s front.

“Don’t hit him! I’ll show you where my mom is! Mom?”

The count looked at Anastasia, who suddenly emerged from under the chair. Anastasia looked at him, too. I could see the count’s face that I hadn’t seen when I was under the chair. Brown hair and brown eyes mixed with white hair. The comforting color of a tree, but his gaze was colder than the wind outside.

His gaze swept Anastasia from head to toe. And the moment the gaze became more predictable.

“Haha!”

The count began to laugh.

“Hahahaha!”

The slow laughter grew louder and resonated in the church. The Count, who was laughing like crazy, suddenly stopped laughing and approached Anastasia, grabbing her shoulder with both hands.

“It’s Chloe’s daughter. It’s definitely Chloe’s daughter. You can’t look like this unless you are!”

The strong grip caused Anastasia to groan unconsciously. But the count didn’t let go. He continued to question Anastasia.

“What’s your name?”

Anastasia answered the count’s question in a trembling voice.

“Anastasia Ivanovna Domanova.”

“Ivanovna Domanova?”

The count frowned at Anastasia’s answer.

Is there something wrong with my name? Her name meant Anastasia, daughter of Ivan of the House of Domonov.

The count turned and looked at Ivan staring at him, pressed by his men’s hands. For a moment, the eyes of the two men clashed in the air. The winner was the Earl. Father groaned and closed his eyes, and the count laughed.

“The poor fisherman who barely got his name thanks to the pastor was using the royal family’s surname here. Since you’re pretending to be god’s messenger at a rural village, you think you’ve become something great, huh? And Ivan’s daughter… She’s Ivan’s daughter…”

The count thought for a moment and asked another question.

“Anastasia, how old are you this year?”

“I-I’m twelve.”

A smile appeared on the count’s face, unlike previously. Conversely, Ivan’s face contorted miserably from where he was lying down on the ground.

“Twelve years old. Twelve years old.”

The count murmured as if it had become a very important fact.

“You met her mother 13 years ago.”

When Anastasia, who didn’t know what that meant, was still confused, Ivan suddenly began shouting, twisting his body violently.

“It’s my daughter! Chloe gave birth to my daughter!”

“But your daughter looks nothing like you.”

“She doesn’t look like you either!”

The count, who briefly frowned at Ivan’s words, raised Anastasia’s face and muttered.

“Interesting. Whose seed did she hold?”

He showed a faint longing as he swept Anastasia’s red hair and green eyes.

From his eyes, Anastasia realized the Count was reminiscing about her mother from her appearance.

‘She doesn’t look like anyone else other than Chloe.’

The count seemed pleased with the fact, but also displeased. Anastasia couldn’t understand. Children resemble their parents. So it’s natural that I look like my mother.

Unable to understand the situation itself, Anastasia grabbed her old clothes with anxiety. She just wanted to go to her mother. She just told the good gentleman her truth, as her father had taught her so she always told her not to lie. So why don’t they allow her to take the Count to where her mother is at?

“Uh, mom.”

“Oh, yeah, we should see Chloe.”

The Count was trying to pick up Anastasia, but when he saw dirt and straw on her clothes, he put his arm back.

“Yes, where is your mother?”

“Over there.”

Anastasia pointed her finger at the hill that she could see over the window.

“Mom’s over there.”

Anastasia looked at the ground she was stepping on. The hill was covered with white snow because spring was still far away. The only land exposed in places were rocks mixed with ice. Her mother’s tombstone was in between.

Anastasia saw the count approaching the tombstone before her. She wanted to approach the tombstone and hug her mother, but the count’s servant held Anastasia’s shoulder tightly and did not let her go.

I heard the earl’s murmur in the wind of the barren frozen ground.

“I managed to find you again, but once again, you’ve run away like this, Chloe.”

Standing behind him, Anastasia could not tell what the count looked like. But I’m pretty sure he’s wearing the face that I saw the moment I pointed at the gravestone.

The count was standing in front of the tombstone for a long time. He turned his body. Contrary to Anastasia’s thoughts, there was no emotion on the count’s face. He looked at Anastasia once and ordered the servant, who was holding her.

“Take her to the church when we leave. Don’t let her walk around.”

The count headed for the church on the hill, leaving only that. Anastasia looked at his back and let go of the man’s hand and approached her mother’s tombstone. In fact, it was only a small rock that had been trimmed crudely, even though it was a tombstone. Anastasia’s illegible inscription, scratched with an iron nail, was engraved on the tombstone.

Anastasia hugged the tombstone and shook her face. The rough rock surface scratched the fragile cheek of the child frozen in the wind.

‘Mom.’

The tombstone standing between the winter winds could not be warm, but Anastasia desperately sought the warmth she had in her memory. As Anastasia hugged the tombstone, the count and Ivan appeared far away from the church.

Ivan stumbled along and sank down. Then the count’s men standing next to him lifted him by his arms. The Count, Ivan, and his men walked across the hill to the river.

When they disappeared, The Count’s servant, who was with Anastasia, grabbed her arm and took her to the church to ask where her room was, and pushed her in.

Clank.

She heard the door lock from the outside.

Anastasia went up on the bed, turned the blanket, and closed her eyes, recalling the coldness left in her hands from the cold stone.

‘You’ll get in trouble.’

The father and the count said that they went to talk. No guest stays forever.

When father returns, the church will become the Father’s domain again. Then, again, he’ll become God’s messenger.

‘It’s scary.’

Anastasia curled up. I disobeyed my father’s orders. Met strangers and talked to them. I even went out of the church.

Already, I heard a whip cutting through the wind.

‘How many times will I get hit this time?’

You could not imagine what the marks that the cane would inflict would look like on the already messed up calves. Anastasia, who was trembling in fear, prayed in her heart.

‘Let father talk to the Count for a very long time. So please, please come back to the church much later.’

Deep in the night, more sincere than ever, it was her prayer. It was a prayer containing a desperate desire that those who heard it would also wish for it to come true out of sympathy.

The next day, Anastasia was informed her father had passed away.

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