Chapter 15

A scream came out suddenly, and before Lucrezia could react, she instinctively brought down the ivory pen again. - Whoosh! Lucrezia's right arm, accelerated by her momentum, cut through the air at a terrifying speed. Just as Sancha was about to receive the tenth lash, Ariadne threw herself in front of Sancha. The tenth lash struck Ariadne's shoulder instead of Sancha's. - Thud! The pain was like being struck by lightning, a searing sensation that spread from her left shoulder throughout her body. As Lucrezia's angry right arm rose high into the air again, ready to deliver the eleventh lash, a voice that Ariadne found tearfully welcome despite not liking it at all echoed through the parlor. "What is this chaos!" Cardinal de Mare had returned. Cardinal de Mare strode into the parlor, his white cardinal's robes billowing. "What is the state of this house!" Lucrezia, who had been trembling with rage like a demon, burst into tears at the sight of Cardinal de Mare. "You! Why are you just coming in now! Do you even know what I've been through today?" Lucrezia tearfully recounted how Queen Marguerite had called her 'Miss de Rossi' and how shameful it was, and how evil Queen Marguerite was. Cardinal de Mare listened patiently to her story and then asked, "Why is this maid being beaten, and why is Ariadne hitting her too?" "It's all their fault!" "Why did Queen Marguerite, who invited you, call you 'Miss de Rossi' out of the blue? Even if the maid did something wrong, would the queen really treat you like this just for a maid?" Lucrezia fell silent for a moment, then her face turned bright red as she burst into anger again. "It's all your fault!" "What?" "I could have married anyone! I could have become a noblewoman! But I ended up living like this because I love you, and I couldn't become a legitimate wife because of you... You've ruined me!" Lucrezia was not a beauty who could bring down a kingdom, nor was she a noble lady of high lineage, and there was no one among the nobles she associated with who could surpass Cardinal de Mare as a husband. A fair assessment would be that even if she did her best, she would have ended up as a baron's wife in the countryside, or at best, the wife of a knight, lawyer, or doctor. However, Lucrezia's one talent was to make Cardinal de Mare believe that she could have done much better. "Lucrezia, why are you like this again." "I could have done much better, why do you ignore me..." The pattern of Cardinal de Mare and Lucrezia's arguments was predictable. Cardinal de Mare, who seemed impervious to any needle, always crumbled under Lucrezia's attacks. They seemed trapped in their younger days, when possibilities were endless. Anyway, with the main characters of the drama changing, it was time for the existing characters to step back. Ariadne, holding Sancha, quietly slipped out of the parlor, leaving it to the pair of cockroaches who were about to start a new farce. She also gestured to Arabella, who was crouched on the floor, to be quiet and took her out. The perceptive Isabella had already left. Walking backward with her center of gravity low, Ariadne made her way from the parlor through the corridor to the entrance, which felt like a thousand miles. Upon reaching the entrance, Arabella went to her room without meeting anyone's eyes, and Ariadne quickly took Sancha to the attic on the third floor, where she finally collapsed in relief. "Sancha..." The clear green eyes of the girl, bruised all over, looked at Ariadne. Under the blue ink that covered her, purple bruises were rising. Ariadne, seeing Sancha in a rainbow of colors, could not stop the tears from pouring out. "Sancha, Sancha, why didn't you tell the truth! It's all my fault!" Ariadne hugged Sancha and cried. "You didn't do anything wrong!" Sancha, with her dry lips, managed to say, "You saved my life." "What...?" "You're my savior. I'll repay you. I'll always be on your side." Ariadne did not bring Sancha to save her; it was merely a result of trying to influence Maletha. She had begged Lucrezia to bring Sancha, thinking that if it worked, she would have a card to check Maletha and a maid to use, and if not, it didn't matter. She had never done anything as earnestly for Sancha as the girl's overflowing kindness, love, and blind trust. Feeling ashamed of her actions, Ariadne looked at Sancha. Sancha's clear eyes met hers. At that moment, she resolved to give back at least as much as she had received. "Sancha, I'm sorry..." Ariadne hugged Sancha tightly again. "From now on, I'll protect you forever. I won't let Maletha get away with it. I'll make sure she can't threaten us again." Ariadne felt a deep emotion rising in her chest. Along with a sense of responsibility, she felt a strange sense of omnipotence. It was the feeling of being connected to someone else, of having to exert the strength of two people and being able to protect two people. It felt more like a blind, unconditional love, something she hadn't felt since her mother passed away. The intense emotion that filled Sancha's heart was unconditional devotion to the person who had saved her life. Her family had died one by one from poverty and hunger, and her own sister, Maletha, had betrayed her. In Sancha's life, the only thing left was the lady who had come from the sky to save her, Ariadne. She resolved never to let go of the lady. The red aura on Ariadne's left ring finger, which had been pulsing as if dissatisfied, suddenly subsided with the girls' embrace. * * * The deepening red aura on Ariadne's left ring finger was not just a feeling but an objective fact. The last joint of her left ring finger, which had only shown a slight blush, had turned a deeper pink after the commotion. As Ariadne kept stroking her left ring finger, Sancha commented, "If you keep touching a bug bite, it won't get less itchy, it will get worse!" Sancha, who had initially seemed like a stray kitten, turned out to be quite sharp-tongued. "Doesn't it seem a bit bigger?" "How can a finger get bigger in a day?" Despite her love for Ariadne, Sancha was strict about facts and enjoyed blunt remarks. The two were lounging together in the attic on the third floor. After selling Sancha, Maletha had moved to Isabella's side and did not return. Ariadne did not bother to look for her. According to a group discussion with Sancha, who had been tracking Maletha since childhood, Maletha was inherently short-sighted. "It wasn't a serious plan to bury you. She just wanted to say something to avoid trouble because 'Miss Rossi' scared her, and she found it uncomfortable to be with me, so she blamed it on me." "Then why hasn't she come back after the commotion?" "She's quick-witted. Stupid people usually have animal instincts. Otherwise, she would have died long ago." And she was a vicious gossip. "How can sisters be so different?" "She takes after her father." Sancha wrinkled her nose, thinking of her dead father, who was a drunk and a gambler. "When she had the chance, she wanted to get rid of me and monopolize the maid's position under you, but after the commotion, she noticed something was off and decided to stay there. I bet she's gambling." "How much does she earn?" "It's just a figure of speech. Hehe." The room they had shared with Maletha naturally became Sancha's. Previously, Isabella had sternly scolded Ariadne. "I don't like leaving loose ends. Father taught me that it's safer to eliminate all possibilities. Isn't that right, my dear sister?" Cardinal de Mare had apparently sat with Isabella and taught her these life lessons. Ariadne had not learned such things, but fate had given her time, and she taught herself through experience. Fate was guiding her. There was plenty of time to learn. This time, she resolved to eliminate all loose ends. It was a mistake to try to recruit Maletha, knowing her true nature from the start. Ariadne decided that since their relationship had become so strained, she would remove Maletha permanently when the opportunity arose. But revenge has its time, so Ariadne decided to let Maletha go for now. A fitting disaster would soon come to end her. Without anyone to monitor Sancha, the two stuck together like glue, except when Ariadne was receiving lessons from the governess with her other two sisters. After a thorough outburst, Lucrezia seemed to have let go of her anger and did not impose any further punishment on Ariadne and Sancha. "About 'Miss Rossi.' Does she think she has no grudges?" Thanks to Queen Marguerite, Lucrezia's nickname had become 'Miss Rossi.' "No, she doesn't. People who say, 'I say what I want to say, no grudges, I'm straightforward,' are like that." Sancha mimicked the sound of vomiting. "I wish they would all be locked in a tower together. By the seventh day, they'd be trying to tear each other apart with their bare hands." - Knock, knock. The two, who had been excitedly gossiping about the mistress, were startled by the knock from outside and fell silent like wild squirrels caught in the act. "Miss Ariadne, the governess is here." One of Isabella's maids had knocked. It was time for Ariadne to learn Latin and Gallic with Isabella and Arabella. "Sancha, I'll be back!" Ariadne left Sancha and followed Isabella's maid to the parlor on the second floor. Since Ariadne's room was in a corner on the third floor, she rarely came down to the second floor where the family lived, except for meal times. As she walked down the corridor, she heard Lucrezia's sharp voice from Cardinal de Mare's parlor. "Do we really need to keep that child here?"