Stone Thrown into the Lake

Chapter 1 – Yvor Adela

Queen Yvor Adela, who once climbed to the highest position a woman can reach in the Kingdom, was now in an underground prison without even a chair.

It was very quiet in the prison because her last maid, who had been crying loudly a while ago, was taken to the execution site two days earlier.

Yvor did not dislike such quietness. She couldn’t stand the sound of the maids’ mouths chirping who didn’t even know what she truly wanted.

「The Queen has been so merciful to them, how dare they return the favor by plotting a rebellion? They imprisoned Her Majesty the Queen. The new ruler of Salzmia is indeed a seed of a thousand thorns, how ungrateful.」

But Duran Craig, the Lord of Avonbury and the right-hand man of the new King, was the instigator of the rebellion the maids were denouncing. He was also Yvor Adela’s dear younger  half-brother.

Thinking of him and the family he will continue, Yvor was thrilled with the sweetness of even her own downfall. Now, with the blood she will shed, the House of Salzmia will become something that no one can surpass. So how can she not enjoy it? Only for this downfall, she willingly became the snake that twisted the former King.

Gremory-Wundt-Salzmia, three poor families who were once neglected while hearing public ridicule, are now standing at the pinnacle of this country. After being destroyed once, the six branch families gathered, they will not be able to escape as Salzmia’s dogs for the next 100 years.

Where are the tongues of the women who insulted her and told her to pour tea and bake snacks? The former King, Rand II, they were now like pickled salted fish in gold jars, made for her. How about her younger brother, who sometimes had to sit in the corner with the Knights when he went to meetings with other nobility? Wasn’t he standing next to the new king now?

Everything went the way she wanted. So the maids who dared to blame her brother were foolish. Her lovely little brother did his job brilliantly without needing help from her. Yvor wanted to run around the capital carrying him if she could.

Duran did a really good job. The very fact that he is now the Head of Salzmia, the Marquis of Salzmia, proved how outstanding her younger brother was.

Since he was a bastard, he had to climb several steps made of numerous thorny vines to succeed the family. Far from helping him in the battle for succession, she had to oppose him becoming successor. It’s because they shouldn’t be seen as friendly brothers and sisters in the public eye.

Duran Craig couldn’t be seen as the favored brother of the vicious new Queen who drove the King crazy. He had to be the symbol of justice and act hostile against her.

Therefore, Yvor Adela became one of the thorns that stood in his way.

Perhaps she was the last thorn in the maze that her half-brother had to navigate through.

But in spite of all that, her brother brilliantly held the title of Marquis, Head of Salzmia in his hands.

It was also a correct calculation to expel her from the family immediately after succession. By then, what she could do for her clan wasn’t great enough to risk her keeping the clan’s name.

Seriously, her cute Dew was so clever. The day Yvor heard that she could no longer bear the name of Salzmia, she wept with joy.

[T/N: Dew is Duran’s nickname.]

It was also really well done that Duran was the first to reach out to Prince Murka when Yvor twisted the King and drove him away. The new King would never forget Salzmia, who extended their helping hand in his most difficult time.

He will be obliged to clearly remember who led him to the throne, defending himself against his enemies, before he became King. He will keep in mind that the head of Salzmia abandoned even his sister to make him King.

Now she had only one thing to do. She needed to die as an unparalleled evil woman who ruined the former King and tormented the new King. This Yvor Adela could have died anytime or any other way.

She was born to die for her family, and she lived to die for her family, and now the only thing left is the salvation that awaits her. The road from the prison to her execution site was the flowery road her wise brother had prepared for her.

Yvor didn’t bother to put up with the rush of dreamy sweetness. She had a sense of liberation and accomplishment, and she fully embraced all the ecst*sy. As she began to sing softly, the back of her guard, who stood far from her and was facing away from her, trembled.

At the height of her happiness, she continued singing, not paying attention to mere guards. The guard eventually looked back at her, she was engulfed with happiness and eagerness for the future. Yvor didn’t care. She feared death and was lonely in prison, but what she went through as a child was much more lonely and frightening than this.

Yvor was born into a prestigious family, but at that time her family was not very wealthy. They only had two territories and they were both just rural estates, Avonbury and Serium. Although they bore the title of a Marquis, their wealth fell short from that of a Baron in the capital.

Needless to say, it was the moment she was born that her family, which was falling apart in the first place, worked to maintain their name.

Yvor’s father was the son of a Salzmian man and a Wundt woman, and her mother was the last descendant of the Gremorys. Born to the two, Yvor naturally received the names of all three families.

They were names on the verge of ruin, three names with which only tradition and honor left, strangled her due to the weight they bore. A baby born with these names hung around her neck could not even cry.

What is death in prison and what is loneliness? From the moment she was born, she did not even know that Yvor Adela was a person. Until the moment she met her younger brother, Yvor Adela was not a human being.

To her mother, she was like a diary that proved her existence, and to her father, she was like a treasure chest that would make the family prosper.

But to Yvor hersel, she felt like a quill or a key, repeating the same thing she did every single day. She was not human, and there was no one living inside her.

As soon as she turned seven after her succession ceremony, Yvor Adela became the lord of Serium and came down to the castle alone. After that, the seven-year-old girl was left alone in the same castle for several years.

Her mother, who was not very healthy, went down to Avonbury to live in a hospital bed after giving birth to her, and her father seldom came down from the capital and never attempted to raise their family. She hardly ever saw him.

Instead, she was always surrounded by tutors. Her father forced her to be educated in everything. Those were truly terrible times, even as she thought about them now. In that beautiful lakeside castle, young Yvor never had a day where her body felt fine.

And one day, as she finally became numb with such suffering, Serium Castle, which was always quiet, became noisy. It was because her father had sent her younger half-brother down to Serium Castle for a short time. Her mother lived in Avonbury, so she wouldn’t have had much of a choice.

Truly, showing consideration for his daughter and his wife was something that was never seen from her father. But Yvor thanked God for that.

It was a very lonely day. The magnitude of the loneliness was so great that little Yvor didn’t even know she was lonely. She just knew that this was her life.

She only knew that it was impossible to receive a kind word or a gentle touch, and that it was only natural for her name to be called in such a hard and cold manner, like a stone thrown at sinners. That was how it was for her, until the very day that she met Duran, who was younger than Yvor.

The day she first met her brother was the day Yvor Adela came to life. She remembered all her emotions from that day. How could there be such a lovely life in the world? How could she not grow to love him?