“What are you looking at, Ophelia?”
A thick layer of white fog covered the window.
Ophelia swept her hand across it, leaving four transparent fingerprints.
She ignored her father’s question behind her, her gaze passing over the snow-white mountains, drifting off toward some unknown distance.
She seemed like a princess imprisoned deep within the palace, straining her neck in hope for her knight.
But the northern wind and snow were too fierce.
She was afraid they would crush the knight’s fragile shoulders.
“Miss Ophelia, you mustn’t be so disrespectful to your father.”
The noisy Etiquette Instructor was still making a commotion.
“Shut up.”
The temperature in the room plummeted, as if the ice and snow outside had burst through the doors and windows.
“Who allowed you to speak to me in that tone?”
Ice sprang up along the patterns of the carpet, causing the Etiquette Instructor, with her Court Lady Background, to scream in terror.
Grand Duke Valka only watched his daughter’s willfulness coldly.
He had no intention of appeasing the Etiquette Instructor; all those complicated things only bound the hands and feet of northern warriors.
Assigning Ophelia a professional Court Lady to instruct her in etiquette was a demand from the Karat family.
To make up for his daughter’s conduct in the royal capital, the Grand Duke had no choice but to relent on this matter.
Whatever it takes, as long as Ophelia can be married off.
To form a Family, bear children, become a bridge between Karat and Castilan—Valka believed that only this could finally cut off her fanciful hopes.
Her thoughts were too childish, too unrealistic.
Valka had already lost the person he loved most; he couldn’t bear to lose the child who was the fruit of that love.
Everything was for her own good.
Cecilia, isn’t this what you thought as well?
For a fleeting moment, Valka questioned that faint silver figure deep in his heart.
“Are you done causing a scene, Ophelia?”
Valka picked up the Sheet Music that had been thrown to the floor, gently brushing the cover as if wiping away the dust that had settled on it.
He placed the Sheet Music onto the Score Stand, issuing an order to his daughter in a tone that brooked no argument.
“Play.”
Just one word.
“What’s the point, Father?”
Ophelia turned around abruptly, bringing with her the mountain of wind and snow.
She stared coldly into Valka’s eyes, in which he could see not a trace of warmth.
Only an icy chill deep enough to crush the mountain peaks.
“Ophelia.”
She remained unmoved.
“Next week, your husband will arrive. I don’t want you to be unable to play even a decent Song when that time comes.”
Ophelia was like a distorted mirror—the colder she was, the more furious Valka became.
In an instant, a crushing pressure exploded in the room like an avalanche and tsunami.
Valka was like an aging lion descending from the heavens, furious and savage.
Ophelia refused to give in, her cold power intertwining with Valka’s in the small room, their ice clashing like jagged teeth.
The room grew so cold that even the paintings on the walls frosted over.
“Ophelia!”
In the brutal collision of magic, Valka was the stronger.
Ophelia’s slender body swayed, the color fading from her cheeks, even her lips turning pale.
But the chill in those sapphire eyes did not melt in the slightest; instead, it became even sharper, like the hardest blue gemstone, unwavering against her father’s wrath.
She wasn’t just resisting the overwhelming brute force—she was resisting the shackle named “Love” her father forced upon her.
“I won’t play,” Ophelia’s voice seemed to crystallize with shards of ice. “Why should I play a Song I don’t even like? Who am I playing the Piano for? For that husband I’ve never even looked in the eye? Who is he? What right does he have to make me humble myself to please him?”
“Or… Father, what do you want me to become? An obedient wife, a mother tied down by Family… Or perhaps, a canary with broken wings locked in a Cage? Just like Mother.”
Valka’s towering shadow almost completely engulfed Ophelia.
He suddenly raised his hand, as if wanting to slap his rebellious daughter, but when his hand was mid-air, it began to tremble violently.
She was so much like her mother, from her knitted brows to her unyielding back.
This slap, no matter what, Valka couldn’t bring himself to strike.
“Father, back then when you kept Mother by your side, did you also raise your hand like this?”
Ophelia’s voice was icy and fractured.
She sneered, as if transcribing a court record with perfect objectivity, each word laced with judgement and mockery.
“Father, you said you loved Mother, so to protect her, you kept her in this castle. But did you ever truly try to understand what Mother wanted? Did you ever consider what she was pursuing? Mother loved you, so she willingly became your caged bird. And you, Father? Even now, you’re forcing me—your daughter—to give up Love and marry someone I don’t love, just like you did to her!”
Tears traced down Ophelia’s lifted cheeks, crystalline as diamonds, but with incomparable hardness.
In an instant, her tears froze to ice.
“Bang! Crash—!”
The glass over the painting on the wall splintered, fine porcelain shattered to pieces as it fell from the shelf, and the strings of the expensive Piano snapped one by one, letting out a mournful wail.
Ophelia’s words were like a poisoned dagger, striking precisely at the most painful, unhealable wound in Valka’s heart.
And the one driving that dagger in—was their daughter.
“Love? Heh, Ophelia, you’ve really grown up, talking to me about ‘Love.’ Do you even know what Love is? Watching your beloved march toward certain death—is that Love? What have I done wrong? All I want is for you both to be safe! To hell with destiny! To hell with vengeance! Making sure you both live in peace—isn’t that Love?”
Valka roared until his voice was hoarse, but Ophelia remained as indifferent as a spectator watching a clumsy one-man show.
She had no intention of applauding for him; everything he said filled her with a deep, marrow-chilling disgust.
“Father, that is not Love. For me, for Mother, you never… even asked if we wanted to be treated like this. Locking a canary in a Cage… how could that possibly be Love?”
Valka’s roar echoed in the room, shattering against Ophelia’s icy silence, collapsing into a pile of powerless reverberations.
Ophelia did not retort any further.
She only stood there, looking at her father, but that gaze made Valka’s heart twist with pain.
It silently declared: there is nothing left to say between us.
One mind can never truly persuade another, and no one can ever convince someone who has built walls of “Love” around themselves.
All of Valka’s anger, all his arguments, seemed so pale in the face of this utter silence.
He was like a wave crashing against the rocks, battering the shore, only to recede helplessly in the end.
“Father… In the past, I was just like you, thinking that was Love. But Anna—the Sword Hero you always looked down on—she taught me what Love really is. What I need is not a Cage, but companionship. I never needed Family or Marriage to tie me down. My Love should be my wings, my sharpest sword.”
Valka’s hand, suspended in mid-air, finally fell limply to his side.
Not only his arm—at that moment, his entire spirit seemed to collapse.
The wall he’d built around his heart with Love was shattered in an instant by his daughter’s words.
“Fine. Very well.”
After a long while, Valka squeezed out a shriveled syllable from his parched throat.
His voice was hoarse, as if scorched by his earlier rage and his present despair.
He no longer looked at Ophelia, only turned around slowly. Like an old man who had exhausted all his strength, he staggered, silently stepping across the broken porcelain and shards of ice on the floor.
The heavy door slowly closed as his figure retreated.
“Click.”
A faint sound, yet it was like the stone sealing a tomb, shutting father and daughter completely apart on either side of the room.
Only Ophelia was left.
The snow still fell outside the window, and inside was as deathly silent as ice.
All the anger, grievance, and energy that had been supporting her moments before suddenly drained away.
Her slender body wavered, her back slumping helplessly against the frost-covered wall.
She couldn’t cry; she only felt a boundless cold pouring in from all directions, seeping into her skin, her bones, her heart.
Slowly, she slid down, hugging her knees with her arms, burying her face deep within them.
Her father’s hunched, sunset-like figure was etched into her mind like a brand.
Did she win this quarrel?
Perhaps.
She had truly become alone; she had severed the last tie called “father.”
By her side… not even a doll remained.
Save me… my dear knight.
Ophelia called out from the depths of her heart.