Sister I am the Queen in This Life [Novel] Chapter 118

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 118
Chapter Title: A New Candidate for a Ball Partner
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Prince Alfonso was lying in wait for an opportunity to slip out of the palace. However, in early spring, with the court having just returned from the south, most official functions involved people coming to Palazzo Carlo for an audience with the royal family. Ariadne had no reason to enter the palace, and the prince had no opportunity to leave.

“Your Highness. As you know, the palace ball is out of the question. There is a world of difference between the marriage alliance negotiations falling through because the terms aren't right, and them falling through because it's our fault.”

“...I know.”

Alfonso was scheduled to escort Grand Duchess Lariesa to the palace ball. It was Leo III's decision.

“...Then what about meeting Ari outside during the Spring Festival, the day after the palace ball?”

Prince Alfonso was scheduled to give a congratulatory address in San Benedicto Plaza, the largest square in San Carlo, on the day the Spring Festival began. It was the only outing he could find after scouring his schedule.

“Your Highness. Are you planning to show your face among the commoners, walking hand in hand with your girlfriend? I'll permit it if you increase your security detail to about three hundred men.”

“You said I don't need your permission.”

“You always remember just that part. Security is non-negotiable. Denied, denied.”

Alfonso scowled. He was looking over his schedule with Bernardino, picking a date for a rendezvous. Of course, a rendezvous with Ariadne, not Bernardino.

“Ah, what a life.”

Bernardino, who was nearly forty and still a bachelor, thumped his chest.

“I don't even know if my future wife is a real person or if she's even been born yet, and here I am, planning someone else's date.”

“You're the one who hasn't taken a vacation or pursued a romance. How can you blame me now?”

“It was all due to my loyalty in serving you well, Your Highness, and the overflowing overtime, you know?”

“One's happiness isn't something others take care of for you. You have to secure it yourself.”

Bernardino could only stop his violent impulse after calculating which prison he'd be dragged off to if he were to strike his young master in the mouth.

“Then let's do this. After my duties in San Benedicto Plaza are finished, I'll meet Ari in my carriage.”

“How is it that our prince's creativity only sparkles at times like these?”

Alfonso glared at Bernardino. But Bernardino couldn't stop his instinct to tease.

“And why, of all places, an enclosed space? Are you having some sort of sinister thoughts?”

At this, Alfonso, his face turning red, could no longer hold back and raised his voice.

“Dino!”

It was because, to some extent, he had hit the mark.

“Agh!”

The old bachelor aide fled at full speed. It was sad enough being without a lover; he couldn't bear being the target of his master's frustration as well.

***

And so, Ariadne's first outing of the spring was not a rendezvous with Prince Alfonso, but a visit to the cathedral with Giulia de Valdesal. Giulia kept the promise she had made while offering her condolences at Arabella's funeral. As soon as she returned to San Carlo, she suggested they visit the San Ercole Cathedral together to pay their respects. Ariadne left the house dressed in black satin mourning clothes with heavy embroidery, wearing black gloves and a black veil. The only color on her entire person was her deep green eyes and pale skin. Her attire, with its extreme lack of ornamentation, was like when she was at the Bergamo estate, before she came to the de Mare mansion. But now, her clothes, her expression, and her aura radiated an incomparable nobility. Moreover, her spirit—not just her possessions—was honed like a well-forged sword. The memory of success—or more precisely, the memory of successful revenge—seemed to change a person's demeanor. She acted with great composure, refined and inconspicuous, yet she carried herself with the majestic air of someone who did not believe she could fail. Giulia de Valdesal, who met Ariadne as she stepped out of the carriage, seemed to think so as well.

“Ariadne! Did you take Spartan etiquette lessons all winter? Is it because your posture has improved? Why does your aura feel so different?”

As Giulia pondered what Ariadne might have done in San Carlo over the winter, she remembered that she had lost both her mother and her sibling, and she quietly bit her tongue.

“Don't mind me. I just mean you look good.”

Having said that, Giulia nearly bit her tongue again. It sounded as if she were saying Ariadne looked happy after suffering a string of deaths in the family.

“...I-I mean, you look good because you don't seem as grief-stricken as I expected.”

Ariadne herself had no intention of making things difficult for Giulia. She replied with a bright smile.

“I understood you perfectly, so don't worry. How was Taranto!”

They smiled and headed for the columbarium attached to the San Ercole Cathedral. Ariadne's younger sister, Arabella, and Giulia's grandmother and eldest brother were interred there. Lucrezia was buried at the Bergamo estate. The condition set by Paola Scampa's bereaved family was that Lucrezia could not have a grand funeral or a lavish burial.

“May they rest in peace. Amen.”

“Amen.”

Giulia, worried that Ariadne might not want to talk about the mother and sister she had so recently lost, spoke instead of her own grandmother, who had passed away the year before last.

“She was a formidable woman, but also a warm one. She would scold us, 'If you little troublemakers cause any more trouble, I'll cut you out of the inheritance!' but not an hour later, she'd come over with cookies out of worry and pop them in our mouths.”

Giulia smiled faintly, thinking of her late grandmother. Her features were coolly sculpted, giving her a cold and sharp first impression, but when she smiled like this, she looked like a completely different person.

“You must have made many wonderful memories with your grandmother.”

“Of course. When my brother, my late eldest brother, and I were young, our grandmother fell into a state of lethargy, so our parents left us with her. As a way to lift her spirits.”

She wrinkled her nose slightly and added.

“We were a substitute for puppies.”

But she quickly broke into a wide smile.

“But you have no idea how much fun we had back then, running around like puppies! Of all the grandchildren, we spent the most time with her.”

Giulia gazed at a section of the columbarium wall where her grandmother's remains were enshrined. A statue of the Holy Mother, sculpted in the likeness of the late grandmother—the former Marchioness de Valdesal—adorned the surface of the urn.

“Every time I come here, I'm reminded of how finite time is. At first, I was terribly sad, thinking only that I could never see my grandmother again. But as I visited more often, I realized that our time together, being human, was bound to have an end, and that I, too, could stop breathing, feeling, and living as soon as tomorrow. It makes you reflect on how precious every single moment is.”

Giulia turned to look at Ariadne, who had been standing there in silence.

“So, Ariadne, let go of any guilt you might be feeling. We don't have much time left to feel the fact that we're alive. Stop with the useless worries, too. The dead would want that for you.”

Giulia was simply expressing her own philosophy, unaware of the full story. But Ariadne thought that even if Giulia had known everything—the circumstances of Arabella's death, the secret of her regression, Lucrezia's evil deeds, and all the rest—she could not have given more fitting advice.

“Truly. Those are truly wise words, Giulia.”

Giulia didn't stop there.

“Ariadne, something's troubling you, isn't it? The frown on your brow won't go away. Tell me.”

It was only after hearing Giulia's words that Ariadne realized she was indeed troubled. It was true she had worries. But she couldn't tell her everything just as it was. She couldn't say things like, 'I'm trying to gauge how high a blood price I can exact without being punished by the Golden Rule,' or 'Where can I find the secret of my regression?' Even on a more mundane level, she couldn't say something like, 'Actually, I'm secretly dating Prince Alfonso, but it's awkward because he has an arranged marriage partner.' In the end, Ariadne confessed the most trivial of her worries.

“Count Cesare has asked me to accompany him to the royal ball, the eve of the Spring Festival. But I don't particularly want to go with him.”

“Lady Ariadne. Do you remember what we talked about at the tea party long ago?”

She was talking about the day at her tea party when the young ladies had gathered, dividing into two camps and giggling over whether they preferred Prince Alfonso or Count Cesare. Giulia asked with a playful smile.

“So, is Lady Ariadne's choice Prince Alfonso in the end?”

Ariadne was amazed at Giulia's ability to stumble upon the truth. After all, there was currently no outward connection between Ariadne and Prince Alfonso.

“It's not like that! It's just... Count Cesare's advances are very burdensome.”

“Well, I can see how it would be burdensome if Count Cesare is too forward.”

Giulia readily accepted Ariadne's excuse.

“Then you can just go with someone else.”

“I can't think of another suitable partner who would be a good reason to refuse Count Cesare.”

This time, Giulia agreed wholeheartedly. She had never heard of Ariadne having any other suitors, or even any close male friends. If she were to refuse Count Cesare and then attend the ball with just any random partner, rumors would spread that Ariadne or the de Mare family truly, genuinely, and intensely disliked the count.

“You just need a good excuse.”

“Exactly.”

“Ariadne, then how about this?”

Giulia clapped her hands. The suggestion was made partly to solve her friend's problem, and partly with the feeling of getting rid of some unsellable inventory at home.

“Take my brother to the palace ball.”

“Your brother?”

Ariadne had never seen Giulia's brother during her visits to the Valdesal estate. She didn't recall seeing him in her past life, either.

*Why don't I know the eldest son of the Marquis de Valdesal?*

In truth, the Marquis de Valdesal had lived a long and healthy life. The nobles of San Carlo with whom Ariadne had interacted in her past life as the Prince Regent's fiancée were either the heads of their houses or their wives. Since the Marquis de Valdesal had remained hale and hearty right up until Cesare's coronation, his children had not yet come to the forefront of society. As Ariadne dredged up events from the past, a faint hint surfaced from the back of her memory.

“Ah, the one who was studying abroad?”

“Yes, he was in Padua. He returned a short while ago.”

*It seems he didn't return to San Carlo from there in my past life. I have no memory of seeing him in society.*

Giulia frowned.

“Well, he's not back for good. He's kicking and screaming about wanting to leave again.”

*Just as I thought,* Ariadne mused. *It seems Giulia's brother succeeded in returning to Padua in my past life.*

“He must be very interested in his studies.”

“Yes... He finished his studies in military science and came home, but now he wants to study theology again, take holy orders, and become a theologian... My mother is very worried.”

She grimaced as she bad-mouthed her own brother.

“He's the only son, does that make any sense? Who's supposed to inherit the family name...? If my brother becomes a clergyman, collateral branches of the family will come rushing in to get their hands on everything. He only thinks of himself. Even after returning to San Carlo, he just holes himself up in his study and reads all day... He pretends not to hear our mother, no matter how much she begs him to attend social functions.”

Hearing that he had completed his university studies in military science in Padua, Ariadne thought she might be able to dig up some stories about Ippolito's school days. She was sure Ippolito hadn't lived a clean and noble life there.

“But Ariadne, you made a name for yourself in theology with the Apostle of Acereto incident, didn't you? If it's you, Ari, even my brother, who's interested in nothing but theology, will agree to meet.”

*Yikes.*

Ariadne tensed. If she conversed with someone deeply immersed in a single subject, her own shallow knowledge might be exposed.

“And since he's my brother, you can just tell Count Cesare that Lady Giulia de Valdesal pleaded and begged for you to help drag her brother out of his room, so you had to oblige and will see him next time.”

This was tempting.

“So, what do you think? Shall we proceed?”

“...First, please ask your brother. It seems like a good idea.”